Convince me that a nuclear Iran would pose a grave threat to Israel

[Undesired Walrus]

I'm on the fence, and it's starting to give me haemorrhoids, so I wanted one of you to convincingly push me off onto one side.

The question I've been asking myself is thus: If Iran gains a nuclear weapon, is it at all likely that they would 'wipe Israel off the map', ensuring their own obliteration?

Now, I know some people are going to tell me that there are many Armageddon minded members of this regime, who would not mind the destruction of their country as it would bring on the Apocalypse etc.

But I also am wary of political rhetoric and know that politicians often say things to solidify their support among their base without believing in their right minds that it would be a good idea.

So could someone provide me with robust evidence that a strike on Iranian nuclear sites would be justified? It's getting painful here. At the moment I'm leaning towards the "Yes, it would" side, but I'm happy to be swayed if the evidence is sufficient.

 

[Darth Rotor]

The question I've been asking myself is thus: If Iran gains a nuclear weapon, is it at all likely that they would 'wipe Israel off the map', ensuring their own obliteration?

My estimate is that the probability is greater than zero, but still a small number. I am pretty sure the leadership in Iran would rather get what they want without resorting to that extreme, but prefer to have the option to go that far if they want to.

I'll point out that so long as the probability is greater than zero, no matter how small, then a possible deterrent effect can be achieved. The Soviets and the Americans, along with various allies, played that game for about four decades, and nobody wiped anybody out.

However, the problem you present isn't all that close to the NATO/Warsaw pact, so I'd not assume that the game will be played the same.

But I think there will be similarities. We are seeing a fair bit of it lately, in the use of cat's paws and proxies to get at each other.

Now, I know some people are going to tell me that there are many Armageddon minded members of this regime, who would not mind the destruction of their country as it would bring on the Apocalypse etc.

I am skeptical that the number is over a handful, if any.

But I also am wary of political rhetoric and know that politicians often say things to solidify their support among their base without believing in their right minds that it would be a good idea.

Understatement of the week.

So could someone provide me with robust evidence that a strike on Iranian nuclear sites would be justified?

Oh dear, a slight bait and switch.

That's a different question that in your OP title.

Also, justification is a moving target, and a very subjective game. I can do something that I feel is justified, say, choose have three H3 Hummers in the driveway, that another person finds indefensible.

Are you sure you want to play this one?

The justification you seek: is it post facto, or something universally agreed?

It's getting painful here. At the moment I'm leaning towards the "Yes, it would" side, but I'm happy to be swayed if the evidence is sufficient.

Suggest you choose a fence with less barbed wire next time you are looking for a seat.

By the way, the King of Saudi Arabia is another party who is not in the least bit keen to see Iran get its hand on nuclear weapons. I suspect that any number of folks in Iraq feel similarly.

 

[Sam.I.Am]

Is it a 100% certainty? No, of course not. That goes both ways and anyone who claims anything as a certainty in this matter is either lying to you or lying to themselves. So really what you have to decide is the likelihood of an attack by Iran against Israel and for that you need to look at Irans past history on the matter. They have in the past funded terrorist organizations whose sole purpose was to attack Israel and others who they don't like. They have also voiced rhetoric saying that they wanted the state of Israel to disappear from the map and they have a past history of violence in the Persian Gulf as well as the current threats that they have made regarding the Straits of Hormuz using conventional weaponry.

With that in mind you need to decide whether you want to take the chance that they will not use them or give them to someone who will use them against Israel (or anyone else) as a terrorist type attack giving Iran at least some form of denial of responsibility.

My opinion is that I don't want to take that risk because the losing side of that bet will be the horrible deaths of possibly millions of people both in the target location(s) and in Iran when everything is said and done or even worse it could trigger a larger scale nuclear war leading to the deaths of billions of people worldwide with huge swaths of land unusable for decades if not centuries..

Some people disagree on the level of risk or think that the right of any nation to arm itself is paramount no matter what the risk to other nations might be. I think that those people are being unrealistic in the face of Irans past history or are wearing ideological blinders.

 

[Ziggurat]

By the way, the King of Saudi Arabia is another party who is not in the least bit keen to see Iran get its hand on nuclear weapons. I suspect that any number of folks in Iraq feel similarly.

Indeed. If Iran goes publicly nuclear, it won't be the last state in the region to do so. And while everybody with nukes might want to play the MAD game rather than actually try to use them, that wouldn't solve the problem. The region is unstable. Even without state-to-state wars, internal turmoil could end up overthrowing states within the region. What happens to nukes if the state collapses? None of the calculations about deterrence will work under those conditions.Just imagine if Libya, for example, had had nukes. Would they have used them to try to stay in power? Would they have been lost in the shuffle, to be picked up by a random terrorist network? Who knows? But the more unstable states which have nukes, the more pressing the question will become.

Plus, of course, a state doesn't actually need to use nukes in order to have a major impact. I think the cold war demonstrated that pretty well. Does anyone think that Iran won't use their increased leverage to cause problems in the region?

 

[angrysoba]

It seems to me that it is similar to Pascal's wager. There is little to no evidence that the Iranian regime itself is suicidal but the question you will be asked repeatedly is "What if you are wrong?"

I think that's all there really is. On one side little to no evidence. On the other, "What if you're wrong?"

 

[scissorhands]

If Iran gains a nuclear weapon, is it at all likely that they would 'wipe Israel off the map', ensuring their own obliteration?

I would like to know where this assurance comes from.
Who is going to retaliate?
Israel?
Thats presuming they have the capability after a nuclear strike.
Its very unlikely that NATO would use nukes to "obliterate" Iran.
Iran will probably suffer the consequences through a conventional attack by NATO and a regime change.
End result being, Israel will have ceased to exist and Iran has a proxy pro western govt for a few years, not unlike the one in Afghanistan that will fail as soon as the ISAF troops are removed.

If I was looking at the long game, as someone who wanted "the Zionist entity removed from the pages of history", thats a great result.

 

[Sam.I.Am]

It seems to me that it is similar to Pascal's wager. There is little to no evidence that the Iranian regime itself is suicidal but the question you will be asked repeatedly is "What if you are wrong?"

I think that's all there really is. On one side little to no evidence. On the other, "What if you're wrong?"

And why buy fire insurance? The odds are against my ever having a major house fire in any given year are very low (about one in three hundred), but they do happen so most people purchase insurance in the event that it does happen to them.

In this case the odds of Bad Things happening with a nuclear armed Iran versus a conventionally armed Iran are, in my opinion, greater than the odds of having my house burn down so if we can do something to better those odds then we should be doing it.

 

[angrysoba]

And why buy fire insurance? The odds are against my ever having a major house fire in any given year are very low (about one in three hundred), but they do happen so most people purchase insurance in the event that it does happen to them.

In this case the odds of Bad Things happening with a nuclear armed Iran versus a conventionally armed Iran are, in my opinion, greater than the odds of having my house burn down so if we can do something to better those odds then we should be doing it.

I agree as long as we are honest that we are talking about averting a worst-case scenario without having much evidence for that worst case scenario being particularly likely.

We could almost call it "the one percent doctrine".

 

[theprestige]

It depends what we consider the worst case scenario. Israel has reason to consider Iran an existential threat, and a nuclear-armed Iran even more so. So naturally Israel's view of Iran will include that consideration.

For The Rest of Us (tm), the real question is twofold: 1) should we welcome a shift in the regional balance of power, that favors Iran; 2) especially if that shift is enabled by nuclear weaponry?

I submit that if UndesiredWalrus does not wish to see Iran become more influential in the region, and especially does not want to see Iran's influence backed by the threat of nuclear arms, then he need not give a tinker's damn about whether or not "a nuclear Iran would pose a grave threat to Israel".

If, on the other hand, he would like to see Iran's influence increase, and he doesn't mind if the increase is underwritten by nuclear weapons, then he's probably already past caring about the threat to Israel that this would pose.

Either way, the question posed in the OP is probably moot.

 

[Sam.I.Am]

I agree as long as we are honest that we are talking about averting a worst-case scenario without having much evidence for that worst case scenario being particularly likely.

We could almost call it "the one percent doctrine".

Clearly we want to avert a worst case scenario (I disagree with the 1% that you guess at, I think that it might be higher than that but again, that would be just as much of a guess as your number). But there are also less than worst case scenarios that we should be avoiding as well. Nobody will benefit from a nuclear arms race in the middle east and if Iran breaks the NPT then at least some of the middle eastern countries will certainly follow just for their own self preservation, and that has close to a 100% chance of happening if Iran get nuclear weapons because they have pretty much said as much. More players in the game means more opportunity for them to be used, sold or stolen and that's not something that anyone wants to see happen.

 

[Weird Science]

An interesting discussion in this thread. As an Israeli, I add that Israelies are afraid of three scenarios.

1). Iran getting the bomb and nuking Israel immediately. How likely that is I do not know.

2). Iran getting the bomb and nuking Israel when the regime collapses, the lunatic mullahs rather perish in a war of armageddon against the infidels than being hanged from the lampposts by their uprising of their opresses population.

3). Iran uses its nuclear power as an insurance policy to massively increase terror attacks with impunity.

 

[angrysoba]

An interesting discussion in this thread. As an Israeli, I add that Israelies are afraid of three scenarios.

1). Iran getting the bomb and nuking Israel immediately. How likely that is I do not know.

2). Iran getting the bomb and nuking Israel when the regime collapses, the lunatic mullahs rather perish in a war of armageddon against the infidels than being hanged from the lampposts by their uprising of their opresses population.

3). Iran uses its nuclear power as an insurance policy to massively increase terror attacks with impunity.

I think the most likely scenario is that Iran gets the bomb and becomes one of the Big Boys^TMAnd what follows from this is that they simply have more heft in the international arena.

I think that this in itself is something that Iran wouldn't want to squander by turning the world to fire.

Am I just guessing? Yes, pretty much. But I think it is a reasonable guess.

So, yes, this is not only about a worst case scenario in which there is war and Israel is "wiped off the map" but a more likely possibility that it is a bid for regional hegemony. The type of hegemony that leads a Nixon-like president to go to Tehran, for example.

 

[Pardalis]

The first thing Iran will do after getting a nuke is not bomb Israel, but invade Bahrain, and the next Gulf state, and the next...

 

[angrysoba]

The first thing Iran will do after getting a nuke is not bomb Israel, but invade Bahrain, and the next Gulf state, and the next...

Why Bahrain?

 

[Pardalis]

Why Bahrain?

Because they've been particularly at odds with eachother, and Bahrain would be an easy first target.

http://www.irantracker.org/foreign-relations/bahrain-iran-foreign-relations

 

[angrysoba]

Because they've been particularly at odds with eachother, and Bahrain would be an easy first target.

http://www.irantracker.org/foreign-relations/bahrain-iran-foreign-relations

I suppose they intend to cloak this under some kind of ancient claim justification.

I haven't heard of them having the same sorts of claims to the Gulf States. Maybe to Western Afghanistan and the Koh-i-noor diamond.

I do find myself wondering if the people of Bahrain would be better off under the present rulers of Bahrain or the Iranians and can't help thinking most of them would prefer the latter. It certainly looks as though they can't stand their own government right now.

Not that I am in favour of an expansionist Iran but frankly, I'd rather hear better reasons for not seeing Iran flex its muscles than the pleas of the Bahraini government.

 

[Beerina]

It seems to me that it is similar to Pascal's wager. There is little to no evidence that the Iranian regime itself is suicidal but the question you will be asked repeatedly is "What if you are wrong?"

I think that's all there really is. On one side little to no evidence. On the other, "What if you're wrong?"

No Islamic dictatorship threatening to destroy Israel has gotten a hold of nuclear weapons, yet.

Nor have children gotten a hold of them. I don't feel we should allow children to get them, either, just because nobody has proven they will misuse them.


We don't have to prove an evil, nasty dictatorship would misuse them. We would have stopped the Soviets and China from getting nukes, too, if we could have.

 

[Monketi Ghost]

It seems to me that it is similar to Pascal's wager. There is little to no evidence that the Iranian regime itself is suicidal but the question you will be asked repeatedly is "What if you are wrong?"

I think that's all there really is. On one side little to no evidence. On the other, "What if you're wrong?"

Oh, so you want to wait until there's a mushroom cloud over this post?

QFT, very simply put.

 

[Undesired Walrus]

Does anyone think that Iran won't use their increased leverage to cause problems in the region?

No. But would this be reason (Turning away from the OPs question slightly) enough to launch a preemptive attack on their nuclear sites?

 

[theprestige]

No. But would this be reason (Turning away from the OPs question slightly) enough to launch a preemptive attack on their nuclear sites?

Yes, but your question is poorly conceived.

Iran has already demonstrated by concrete actions a willingness to cause problems that is commensurate with its ability to do so. At this point in world history, any action taken to limit Iran's ability to cause problems is objectively "post-emptive".