tapzilla2k
Outstanding Member
Why would Iran launch nukes at anyone? Pakistan is muslim and hasn't. It knows it would get them back. Iran probably has chemical weapons and hasn't used them against Israel. As above the US has spent far more time and effort on starting wars (or bringing about 'peace'). The US hasn't used nukes recently. It doesn't need to. It has massive conventional forces at its disposal.
Iran sees the US as the Great Satan, Israel as a lesser Satan and so on.
Basically it wants Nuclear weapons partly to give itself protection from the US and secondly as a tool to further project Iranian power in the Middle East. It's hard to say if Iran's theocracy will attack Israel on religious grounds or not. The US hasn't dropped a nuclear bomb in anger since the end of WWII. It developed Nuclear Weapons because it was in an arms race with the USSR. The world came close on several occassions to the US and USSR having a Nuclear exchange. But the term I am about to use prevented that along with cooler heads prevailing over the hot heads.
As for Pakistan ? The term you are looking for is Mutually Assured Destruction. If it were to fire Nuclear Weapons at India, India would fire back at them and thus destruction of both countries is assured. That is what kept the US and USSR from kicking off a nuclear war.
The fact is the Pakistani Army is quite rational and is unlikely to use them.
The danger with Pakistan is if it fails as a state and the militants that control large parts of the tribal regions of Pakistan fill the power vacum and then gain control of the nuclear weapons. Mutually Assured Destruction goes out the window when you involve fanatical people, as logic and reason is usually thrown by the wayside.
The nightmare with Iran getting Nuclear weapons is not so much Iran using a nuclear weapon (not making light of that possibility). It's the fact Arab states will develop their own nuclear weapons aka a Nuclear Arms Race (don't kid yourself that they won't). What people forget is the Arabs do not like the Iranians and vice versa, for religious and historical reasons (history is a living and breathing beast in that region). You should also note that the Arab States are willing to work with Israel to prevent Iran getting the bomb (not openly), that should tell you how high the stakes are. If Arabs and Israeli's unite to fight a common foe while still being hostile to each other.
So you will end up with a region that would be liable to go off at any given moment with a possibility of a nuclear exchange.
My view has always been that no nation should have Nuclear weapons, but it's almost impossible to put the genie back into the bottle.
One last thing - Mossad and the IDF are reluctant to attack Iran, due to the blowback (hizbollah and co attacking). It's Israeli Politicians who want the attack to happen. The Israeli public would only support an attack if Israel has US backing. And that is not likely to be forthcoming while Obama is attempting to win a second term. Basically nothing will happen military wise until after the election or if Iran tests a nuclear device as that throws everything up in the air.