I'm more afraid of Israel unilaterally using a bomb that they already have than I am of Iran maybe having a program, maybe building a bomb some time in the future, and then maybe using it

[Edited on March 3, 2015 at 4:21 PM. Reason : .]

3/3/2015 4:20:21 PM

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"1. The missile defense system that Israel has set up is pretty good, as evidenced by the latest conflict they were in. I don't know the numbers, but only a very small percentage of missiles made it to their targets in Israel. A nuke from Iran would probably be a decent payload, so it isn't like they could just sneak it over the border, so their defense system would more than likely take care of it."

I don't believe their missile defense system is as good as you are recalling. While the official company line states a 75-90% effective success rate, and I'll admit that's very good considering what they're attempting, there is a lack of publicly available data to back that claim up. I'd be skeptical without seeing something a little more concrete.

Our own Ground-Based Midcourse Defense program only has a 53% success rate, and we've almost dumped $40 Billion into it at this point. This is a system specifically designed to kill/counter incoming ICBMs.

Also, isn't Iron Dome designed to shoot down short-ranged rockets and artillery shells? A nuclear-tipped missile coming out of Iran is going to be a different class of target. Granted, Iran doesn't need an ICBM, but they've got plenty of cruise missiles that can probably make the flight to Tel-Aviv.

This assumes Iran has miniaturized nuclear weapons technology enough to even fit a warhead onto the tip of a missile, which is extremely doubtful since they're still working on building a weapon in the first place.

As for Why would Iran use one? *shrug* In this particular example, Iran would be idiotic to use a nuclear weapon against Israel. What would the strategic objective be, kill lots of Jews? That doesn't make a lot of sense, and there are easier and cheaper ways to accomplish that goal. Scare Israel into..... something? I honestly don't know why Iran would use a nuke on Israel. Doing so would instantly galvanize the entire world into a war against Iran, and that's a war Iran would not win, nor survive.

3/3/2015 4:44:51 PM

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"1. The missle defense system that Israel has set up is pretty good, as evidenced by the latest conflict they were in. I don't know the numbers, but only a very small percentage of missiles made it to their targets in Israel."

Yeah, as I recall, IRON DOME didn't really have that great of a success rate. I mean, it had some successes, but it was no silver bullet. Same thing with our PATRIOT batteries in the '91 Gulf War.

Now, I'm sure it's true that very few of Iran's missiles reached their targets. Very few would have made it if Israel hadn't done anything at all, probably.


Also, I don't think that Iran literally wants to annihilate Israel. They want an end to the regime. Now, the latter is probably a pipe dream without the former, which is probably a pipe dream in and of itself if you're Iran...but I don't think that they have made any serious threat to attack and destroy Israel.

Nukes are more about leverage than combat power in 99% of situations.

3/3/2015 8:01:41 PM

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"What would the strategic objective be, kill lots of Jews?"

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"Also, I don't think that Iran literally wants to annihilate Israel."

You guys are bringing the lolz. Iranian leaders have been saying for years that they want to destroy Israel and kill Jews.

3/3/2015 8:16:49 PM

I'm not sure it's useful to talk about countries having a "right" to nukes, or even "rights" in general. It is in our national interest to prevent certain countries from having nuclear weapons. If those countries are able to outmaneuver or overpower us (or whatever other opponent) and get those weapons anyway, then they get to have those weapons. It's a question of capabilities rather than rights.

It's all well and good to talk about countries having rights and responsibilities and all when the issue at hand isn't an existential threat. An analog with people might be murder. If we're arguing about politics, I don't have the right to physically attack you -- but if, in the course of that argument, you reach for a gun, I'm well within my rights to throw myself at you to prevent you doing so.

So I won't talk about, say, Iran having the right to nukes. I can say they have plausible reasons for wanting them, reasons I can't really argue with. They have nuclear-equipped enemies in the US and Israel, though it's worth pointing out that Israel wouldn't be much of an enemy if Iran didn't keep antagonizing it. And even if the US didn't have the Bomb, Iran would benefit from having nuclear weapons to deter invasion and preserve the regime, which our military is powerful enough to oust. And of course while we're on the subject of regime survival, the Iranian government can't possibly cave into American and Israeli demands when its whole thing is based on resisting America and Israel.

So Iran has reasons. I think ours are better.

3/4/2015 3:19:54 AM

^^ therefore since some Israeli leaders have expressed desires to wipe out Palestinians, Israel should not be allowed to have a nuclear weapons?

[Edited on March 4, 2015 at 9:18 AM. Reason : ?]

3/4/2015 9:18:18 AM

Yeah, just because a country, group, state, actor, whoever has a public line about wanting the death of an entire people, it doesn't mean they're fanatical and hell-bent on achieving their goal through any means necessary.

Iran can both have nukes, and want to wipe Israel off the map. It doesn't mean they will use 1 to accomplish the other. North Korea has nukes and wants to wipe the US off the map. How's that going?

3/4/2015 10:05:41 AM

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"Iran can both have nukes, and want to wipe Israel off the map. It doesn't mean they will use 1 to accomplish the other. North Korea has nukes and wants to wipe the US off the map. How's that going?"

Not a fair comparison. Iran would need to deliver a fairly small number of warheads in order to completely annihilate Israel -- it's a small, densely packed country, and the Iranians don't give a shit whether a bunch of Palestinians fry in the process. Even with its "successful" nuclear program, North Korea is a long way from being able to get warheads to the US, a long way from having reliable enough warheads to risk an attack, and laughably far away from having enough nukes to destroy the US.

In short, the threshold for an existential threat is much, much lower for Israel -- a handful of working nukes and that's all she wrote. North Korea doesn't pose an existential threat to us at all. Their possession of nukes is dangerous -- a country that poor and isolated might well consider selling a warhead to bad guys, and of course a tactical nuke in the event of a peninsular war would be bad, but life would go on.

That is, it would go on...for us. North Korea would cease to exist, because we would have the ability to retaliate with overwhelming force. I'm not sure whether Israel has the ability to destroy Iran in a second strike situation, which (a) makes the threat to Israel more severe and (b) encourages Israel to make the first strike, thereby making war more likely.

3/4/2015 11:22:51 AM

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"Also, I don't think that Iran literally wants to annihilate Israel. They want an end to the regime. Now, the latter is probably a pipe dream without the former, which is probably a pipe dream in and of itself if you're Iran...but I don't think that they have made any serious threat to attack and destroy Israel. "

Does Iran want to eliminate israel though? The ayatollah might want this, but I don't get the feeling the democratic side of Iran cares for this, nor would the iranian people themselves. It seems Iran only wants nukes as an insurance against being bombed or invaded, which seems reasonable. Our own (past) president has called Iran part of the axis of evil, a presidential candidate sang a song about bombing them, they have every right to believe we hate them as much as we think they hate Israel.

And this strategy has worked for them. We have been negotiating with them, rather than bombing them, and these negotiations have only ramped up the closer they come to having nukes. Their quest for nukes has already bought them safety, and I don't expect them to abandon this quest.

There's a weird feedback loop where our fear of Israel being bombed causes us to be more aggressive to all the middle east countries, which ramps up their fears of us bombing them, causing them to want technology like nukes, which in turn ramps our fears up again.

We can break this loop by stopping them from threatening israel, causing them to not want more powerful weapons, not being aggressive towards middle east countries, or not being afraid on Israel's behalf. The Obama admin seems to be trying the latter 3 strategies to varying degrees, and it seems to be partially working at this point.

3/4/2015 4:03:02 PM

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"Does Iran want to eliminate israel though? The ayatollah might want this, but I don't get the feeling the democratic side of Iran cares for this, nor would the iranian people themselves. It seems Iran only wants nukes as an insurance against being bombed or invaded, which seems reasonable. Our own (past) president has called Iran part of the axis of evil, a presidential candidate sang a song about bombing them, they have every right to believe we hate them as much as we think they hate Israel."

Yep. Ideologically, this may be something spouted by leadership in Iran, if for no other reason than to consolidate the conservative Muslim base inside Iran, but don't think for 5 seconds that they're stupid. Iran openly attacking Israel, especially with a nuclear weapon, would be the end of Iran as we know it, and Iran knows this too.

3/5/2015 8:55:50 AM

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"I'm more afraid of Israel unilaterally using a bomb that they already have than I am of Iran maybe having a program, maybe building a bomb some time in the future, and then maybe using it"

Eh, I'm more worried about a country like Pakistan using the bomb. Israel has a huge conventional army to rely on...Pakistan, not so much, especially when compared to their main foe.

3/5/2015 10:40:21 AM

oh yeah definitely, i just meant in that region

3/5/2015 10:41:01 AM