Obama The Iran Deal We Should Have Done

Of course not. But deterrence has always worked. The biggest reason that Iran wants a weapon is because Israel has them and they fear Israel will attack them if they don't have a deterrent. It is a legitimate fear as long as Yahu is in office.

 

Try to pay better attention. I did not paint Israel as the aggressor here. I told you Iran's viewpoint. You seem to want to envision Israel as peace-loving victims who have never hurt a fly but that flies in the face of reality. Iran throws around a lot of rhetoric, as third-world nations are prone to do and they do fund terrorists. But Israel throws around real military muscle and their neighbors fear them. They have made pre-emptive air strikes on Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq.

Israel has indeed threatened to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, which is why Iran buried them deep. They have threatened this many times and as recently as April. It would take a nuclear weapon to attack them now and Israel has them. Iran fears Israeli nuclear weapons, this is a fact. Face up to it. They also fear Russia, who has always coveted Iranian warm-water ports and they fear Pakistan who is their regional rival, both nuclear powers. They think that opponents would think twice before attacking them, which is why each and every nuclear power has nuclear weapons in the first place. No one benefits more than Israel if another nuclear power is prevented from emerging by international treaties.

The point that you are missing is that Iran does not want a weapon to attack the United States, they want it as a deterrence against their nuclear-armed neighbors. We have armed Israel and Pakistan to the teeth so that they can deal with their regional rivals. We don't have to then do it for them.

 

It's just a matter of time. They had to ruthlessly quash mass protests just a few years ago. Iran is getting younger and the old revolutionary regime is aging. People are chafing under strict religious protocols. The public is very divided and this will lead to more unrest. It is another reason to divide them instead of forcing them to all come together. Persians have an ancient tradition of which they are very proud and they are nationalistic. They are divided over this treaty, which is good. A military attack would only draw them together against all outsiders. We have to play this smarter than we played Iraq and Afghanistan. The limits of military power are all too apparent to everybody. We can kick ass anywhere, anytime, but we cannot force countries to do our bidding without a huge and lasting military occupation over a bitterly hostile public who will begin a guerrilla war against us. Hell, we did the same ourselves in 1776.

 

It means a civil war. Losing a million people in the Iran-Iraq War has sobered Iranians about the real costs of war. They've witnessed the disintegration of nearby countries in revolution and civil war, as well. They will not take it lightly. I think the opposition is biding its time for a better moment to foment a coup or otherwise isolate the religious leaders from the sectarian government, whose leaders are democratically elected. The mullahs still have the Revolutionary Guard, a private army similar to the SS only less military and more thuggish. The opposition will either need the army behind them or raise a militia of it own and summon a willingness to fight. I think the next Iranian revolution will be like the last one . . . not a long bloody uprising but a swift change of regimes.

 

You persist in looking at this from only the Israeli viewpoint. Of course Israel is a real and constant threat to anyone within range of their military! Nations can't plan on what they think an opponent might do, they must plan on what an opponent is capable of. Moreover they must plan based on what opponents have proven willing to do. Israel has destroyed Iranian and Syrian power plant reactors, not nuclear weapons facilities. Iran fears all of its reactors are targets, obviously.

Don't be obtuse. When have I said that Iran doesn't desire a weapon? Hell, I have been trying to explain to you exactly why they think they need one! But the treaty takes them off the weapons track for a decade. That's plenty of time to get a new arrangement in place, perhaps with more reasonable Iranians in charge,

Pakistan has a larger military, far better equipped, and is 90-0 in nuclear weapons. Pakistan covets Iranian oil and they desire control of the Arabian Sea to influence Persian Gulf sea lanes.

You can bet the Iranians will try to play us off against the Russians. That is a reason that this treaty is needed now. The Russians are with us on this. They do not want a nuclear Iran on their doorstep.

You are foolish if you imagine this, I urge you to study it better. Israel has far greater military power than Iran and is not threatened by them in the least. It is 400-0 in nuclear weapons! Deterrence works and always has. Neither has the existence of Hezbollah threatened their existence. Israel is handling them just fine. We pay them 2 billion a year to handle it. Even if Iran stopped its support for Hezbollah, it would not go away and neither would Hamas or the PLO.