What's Wrong With Iran Having a Nuke? Lots. ( Archived) (32)

From Stratfor

""The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) unveiled satellite imagery Wednesday that appeared to show Iranian attempts to "sanitize" areas inside Parchin, a military site near Tehran suspected of nuclear development use. IAEA inspectors have been denied access to the facility since 2005. On Tuesday night, former U.S. envoy to Iran Dennis Ross confirmed that Saudi King Abdullah told him in 2009 that "If [Iran gets] nuclear weapons, we will get nuclear weapons."

By making this (unsurprising) statement, Abdullah was raising the enormously powerful concept of "nuclear proliferation" in order to, at the very least, urge the United States to take meaningful action against Iran and make a more explicit nuclear guarantee.

By 1968, when the first signatories put ink on the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty five countries already had deliverable nuclear weapons. At least three more -- India and Israel (still nuclear powers today) and South Africa (which gave up its nuclear weapons) -- were actively pursuing their own arsenals. Today, obtaining the necessary quantity and quality of fissile material remains the most significant obstacles to nuclear weapons development. But the efforts of North Korea -- as internationally isolated a country as any -- demonstrate that even small countries with few resources are finding nuclear development increasingly feasible and less exclusive to major powers. King Abdullah's proliferation threat reflects enduring fears spawned by the maiden nuclear explosion at Trinity Site in 1945.

King Abdullah's threat also recalls another fear dominant throughout the Cold War. The Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which limited the United States and the Soviet Union to intercontinental means of strategic nuclear exchange, was not signed until 1987. Prior to the treaty, it was feared that shorter-range nuclear weapons deployed closer to front lines in Europe would quickly escalate into strategic nuclear exchanges. Today, India and Pakistan have recreated this shorter-range, more tenuous situation on the Indian subcontinent, which is what the NPT was designed to avoid.

The existence of Iranian nuclear weapons would proliferate into South Asia and, to a much greater degree, the Middle East. Israel, which possesses a thinly veiled nuclear arsenal, would be forced to become more overt and aggressive in its own nuclear posture. The diminutive size of the Israeli state undermines its ability to launch a retaliatory strike and makes relying on such a deterrent intolerable. Moreover, other countries such as Turkey also possess the resources, capabilities and incentives to develop their own nuclear arsenals.

In other words, the inherent tensions, geopolitical realities and tight geographic space of the region mean that the consequences of Iranian-sparked proliferation could quickly embody the fears that have existed since the creation of nuclear weapons. During the Cold War, the resources of the United States and the Soviet Union made the prospect of a world-ending nuclear exchange possible. The proliferation of such weapons in the Middle East might not pose a threat on the same scale, but they would further destabilize an already deeply unstable region.

This reality cuts both ways for Iran. On the one hand, if Tehran can navigate the critically vulnerable space between a crude atomic device and a deliverable nuclear arsenal, it would benefit from greater security against attack. But Tehran could also spark an arms race with countries against which, in the long run, it may not be able to compete -- just as the Soviet Union was ultimately incapable of competing with the United States and the West. For Iran, obtaining nuclear weapons would therefore present the country with both short-term gains and long-term consequences.""

If they get a nuke The world is FU - $%&"@ - ED.

I concur huge.

Ain't that the truth

Preventing Iran form getting a nuclear weapon is a top priority of Israel and therfore through the Jewish lobby it becomes the top priority of the United States. Iran is not a threat to the United States and neither is it a serious threat to Israel. The main objection that Israel has is that it could not launch strikes where ever it wanted if a small deterent existed in Iran.
But as usual the Israelis will get their sponsors the United States to do the heavy work as in my opinion they are not capable of completing the mission at present on their own. If they were really going to attack Iran they wouldn't be talking so much about it.

Why do you think that Max ?

I personally don't think they will ever use one because they would be annihalated very quickly. Maybe I'm wrong

Hi ghost!

I do not think that ANY country should have nuclear weapons.
They need to get rid of ALL of them.

People use Nukes to instill FEAR and use them for leverage to get their way and fulfill their own selfish desires.

The Greater power will settle their differences with Peaceful efforts, not with Fear and Hostility.

World Leaders and their Constituents need to educate themselves in How to get along with others and How to play NICE. They need a course in "Unconditional Love".

Good Thread!

HL

"War is not Healthy to our children,
our children's children,
and other living things."