“Wait, do we do it on three, or is it one, two, three and then go?”
The scenario laid out by the o.p. is kind of strange, e.g. the United States gifting nuclear weapons to Iran versus Iran simply developing usable weapons for themselves. I think the latter is the thrust of the quesion of the o.p. As for the effect, I suspect the result would be that Israel would either acknowledge or more strongly imply possession of their own nuclear arsenal. As for usage, it seems unlikely that the current government of Iran, as radical and isolationist as it currently is, would initiate a nuclear attack on Israel (or anyone else) insofar as the implications would be a cutting off of supply chains from Russia and China, quite apart from any relaliatory response from their intented target. However, it is certainly possible that a future more radical theocracy may opt to use weapons despite the consequences.
Way I once heard Isaac Asimov explain it, the Parthians believed they were rightful heirs to all the territory of the old Achaemenid Persian Empire, including Syria, Judea, Asia Minor, Egypt, etc. The Romans, OTOH, believed they (having taken over Greece and Macedon) were the rightful heirs to the whole empire of Alexander, including Mesopotamia and Persia. So both sides kept up their pretensions/ambitions by pouring a whole lot of blood, year after year, into the sand along a border that hardly ever moved. It went on and on that way until the Muslim Arabs came riding north out of the desert and conquered east, conquered west, conquered the (remaining) bulk of both empires’ territories.
No, I don’t believe that for a moment. Nor do I believe that they’d hand nukes over to terrorists, another conservative bogeyman. I doubt they’d use them for any other purpose than as a deterrent to attack. America and Israel would be forced to use actual diplomacy instead of constantly threatening attack or using proxies.
Actually I wouldn’t be surprised if it led to the weakening of the theocratic faction, since they won’t be able to use us as a bogeyman so much anymore. Something we’ve cooperated with, rebuffing attempts by Iran to make peace and regularly issuing threats - making it clear we really are the implacable enemy they claim we are.
Iranians have guns, ropes, and sleeping pills. Do you sincerely believe they aren’t all about to commit mass suicide?
Israel already has nuclear weapons, a pretty good number of them in fact. Enough that a first strike against them by Iran would be met by a fairly massive return blow. You should look up the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction if you aren’t already familiar with it.
Nuclear weapons aren’t held by countries because they want to drop bombs on people, they’re used by countries who want to dramatically improve their diplomatic position and their ability to influence and be less-influenced at international bodies and in agreements. That is their true use.
America hasn’t nuked the world yet, and it’s heavily influenced by Christian fundamentalists who think the end of the world is a great idea, and actively wanted nuclear war.
Sitnam’s point raises an important question though: how do we know what Iran plans to use nuclear weapons for?
I would argue that it almost certainly is to gain considerable political leverage on the world platform. However we can’t be certain and it’s not the sort of thing one might want to risk. Also, the West and quite a lot of the middle east doesn’t want Iran to gain such power. It would actually present a real problem and I’m guessing we’d get a Cold War scenario fairly quickly. And there’d be no guarantee that it would end well. None at all.
I don’t want a war with Iran, it would be a horrible thing. But I do think the biggest and most horrendous fall out from the folly in Iraq might be that it causes us to fatally delay action in regards to Iran.
This scenario is bizarre. I’d assume Iran would act like this was a major victory ( because it would be). They would want to act magnanimously and would probably decree that they would never use these bombs against the US unless they were provoked (because previously they would have used them without provocation), and then they would begin rattling their sabers in all directions. Israel would blow a fuse. I could see Israel shutting down the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation. BTW: Did we give them fusion bombs or just fission bombs? We would find out quickly if Israel has fusion bomb technology ready to go. Then war would break out between China and Russia, China will win and form an alliance with much of the rest of the world with he intention of maintaining global dominance to diminish the threat of the US. Then things get really, really messy. Like kaboom messy.
However, the funniest scenario would be Iran sending back the nukes to the USA, saying “What the fuck do you want us to do with that? We’ve been telling you for 10 years that we” don’t want nuclear weapons!"
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I don’t agree with that, either.
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Ok. What do you base your disagreement on? You think that North Korea and Iran have a firm grasp of reality (which would be the converse of what I said), so what leads you to believe this? They both SEEM to be completely out of touch with reality to me, based on things like Iran continuing to pursue nuclear weapons in the face of near universal international disapproval to the point of serious economic sanctions…and the fact that they seem to actually believe that closing the straights is both something they COULD do and something that is actually a viable option for them. Oh sure, they could just be putting it on (and it probably is mostly for internal consumption), but it shows a certain disconnect to me. And North Korea…well, the list of their reality disconnects would be too long to go into, IMHO. Just taking the last couple of years you had them sinking a South Korean warship and shelling a South Korean village, and then demanding food to feed their starving millions while continuing to defy their own regional powers in various ways. And those are just the highlights.
I agree with you here, by and large (i.e. I don’t believe that Iran will just fly off the handle and attack Israel as soon as they get weapons to do it with), but it’s mostly due to self interest, and not because they wouldn’t attack them if they could get away with it. Iran absolutely WOULD attack Israel if they thought they could do so with acceptable losses. The ‘point’ is that Iran doesn’t want Israel as a sovereign country in a region that it thinks of as it’s own sphere of influence. There are myriad reasons for this ranging from religion to history to power and influence to even propaganda (Iran would look GOOD to a lot of folks in the region if it was able to deal with the Israel ‘problem’ permanently).
Steam is 1800’s (or earlier depending on how you look at it) technology, but I bet you still like the electricity it produces that are running that computer of yours.
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