You can't allow insane people to have nuclear weapons. Ahmadinejad, with his hatred of Israel, is about as unstable as them come. I don't think we can let them develop nukes. At least with the Soviets there were rational people on both sides and mutually assured destruction worked as a deterrent. Mix in hatred, fanatical religious belief in jihad and martydom for Allah, and MAD just won't work with Iran.
posted by Terrahawk1 at 07:34 A.M. EST on Wed Jan 11, 2006 #
And there's "insane people" in Israel, North Korea and other nations that have nuclear weapons and extreme beliefs in their God, too. Your point?
posted by MrsPhoenix at 09:55 A.M. EST on Wed Jan 11, 2006 #
In completely unrelated news, didn't we just sell some long range F-15s to Israel? Strange, I thought that country was only a few miles wide and a hundred miles or so long. Why would a country that size need a long range fighter/bomber platform capable of reaching nearly any point in the Middle East?
posted by thenick at 10:42 A.M. EST on Wed Jan 11, 2006 #
MrsPhoenix, my point is pretty clear. If you have a leader that believes that Allah rewards those who die for jihad, makes statements about eliminating Israel, sees Israel as an enemy, and would probably not be deterred from using nuclear weapons by his own destruction, then you should not allow that person/government to possess nuclear weapons. Your "insane people" equivalency doesn't seem to offer much in the way of substance. If France had a leader that announced that God had told him to destroy Germany with nukes for it's past sins, then I would say the same thing about the French leader/government.
Thenick, it's not the size of your country, but where you need to be able to hit your opponent. Let's take mythical countries Xenon and Yerba. Xenon is a small country bordering Yerba, a big country, and the two countries don't get along. If Yerba has long range aircraft and Xenon does not, then Yerba can base it's aircraft out of range of Xenon and strike Xenon at will. It's a strategic advantage that one side can use against the other. Secondly, the increased fuel capacity means your fighters can stay aloft longer and perform more fuel consuming combat maneuvers.
posted by Terrahawk1 at 11:08 A.M. EST on Wed Jan 11, 2006 #
Thenick, it's not the size of your country, but where you need to be able to hit your opponent.
I know, next time I'll make sure I insert the sarcasm tags. While your reasons are valid, the smart money is on another Osirak-style attack, but until the purchase, Israel's air force lacked the range to reach Iran's nuclear targets. That problem has been resolved.
posted by thenick at 02:02 P.M. EST on Wed Jan 11, 2006 #
It's possible that is the plan. I think the Iranians learned lessons from that though and have distributed and hardened their facilities enough to survive a single air attack.
Sarcasm never shows up in writing well. :-) I've victimized myself trying to do it enough times.
posted by Terrahawk1 at 03:06 P.M. EST on Wed Jan 11, 2006 #
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