Asim Aquil

So they WOULD fire nukes even if attacked conventionally and annihilate all of the middle east? Now Iranians can do the same. No way are Iranians strong enough to defend conventionally. They are already at the last ditch defence stage.

Officer of Engineers

Oh please. The Israelis have as much chance of taking on Iran as she does taking on Pakistan, even conventionally.

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Asim Aquil

Well I don't know if that meant that "Israelis can't take on Iran". They can do a lot of damage... Like they did with Lebanon. 1 million bombs would pretty much do the same damage as a nuclear bomb. Yeah yeah, no fall out, but we aren't thinking that far ahead.

This way Israelis know they shouldn't start a war at all. I don't see how you all are convinced that Iran is firing a nuke the day it makes a warhead for it's shahab. No convincing argument other than one statement "we'll wipe Israel off the map" which can be written off to chest thumping and can also mean there will be a Palestine in its place due to Iranian support.

Israelis should have a strong, very strong second strike capability.

I think your argument should be "I want Iran's Assured Destruction not Mutually Assured Destruction". If you don't want any destruction at all, get BOTH those volatile, war prone nations away from the nukes. Not one of them.

Blademaster

Well remember that Iran was a victim of employment of WMD, namely chemical and biological attacks by Saddam Hussein. So that psychological factor is there in the Iranians' minds that they will be attacked by WMDs. They did not have any WMDs at that time. They were forced to endure huge amount of casaulties.

JMH

Iran to attack Israel? What a horrific nightmare. Israel already has a mini-nuclear Triad consisting of Jericho III IRBM (land based element), F-15E Strike Eagle with nuclear bombs (Air Element), Five Dolphin type submarines armed with nuclear capable cruise missiles (Sea based element). In addition to this Israel has Arrow Anti-ballistic missile system designed to shoot down incoming Ballistic Missiles. If Arrow failed to shoot down the incoming Iranian Ballistic missiles, Israel could launch an overwhelming Nuclear, Biological, chemical and conventional strike using its Nuclear Triad and F-16I fighters. This attack could destroy most Iranian cities and kill millions of people. The resulting backlash by Muslim countries against Israel (chemical, biological missile strikes and terror attacks), would be met with further Israeli use of strategic weapons against Muslim countries throughout the Middle East, resulting in Millions of more dead people, destroyed economies, and destroyed environment that has been turned into a wasteland laced with radiation, chemical poisons, and horrific diseases caused by biological weapons. This is why Iran needs to be stopped and for the West to sit by and allow this to happen would be a World catastrophe on the same scale of allowing Hitler to take over Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland starting World War II in Europe.

Asim Aquil

Iran will almost definitely be destroyed in a second strike and yet it would fire nukes? That's a weak weak argument, and the best support ppl here have for that argument is "Oh they are craazzzyyy".

I think they will, like every other nuke bearing nation, fire nukes when they are on the brink of being destroyed. Just don't destroy them.

YouTube - Islamic comedians

forward to 1:57

Parihaka

But they are crazy.
Thats why we're so much more concerned about them than say India or even Pakistan.

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Officer of Engineers

Asim,

I would have thought that you would have been exposed to the axiom that amateurs think strategy and tactics, professionals think logistics. There is no way in hell Iran nor Israel could do much to each other. Something called Iraq in the way and even if Iraq consented to be a freeway between the two, neither country could afford the gas just to bomb each other, let alone buy enough bombs (non-nuke) to do the job.

Asim Aquil

I remember the days when we tested the bomb... There were sooooooo many assumptions about our bomb and for a good few years it was a regular feature in newspapers.

There were just all sorts of assumptions about our motives with the new weapon. All we did for 2-3 years was try and convince the world that the bomb is in response to the Indian threat. We also had to convince Israel to chill out. Not to mention that little incident where Israeli warplanes are suspected to have gotten pretty close the Pakistani skies and hundreds (Possibly 3/4 of the Air Force) of planes were scrambled...

People were dead sure we'd be firing nukes within weeks. You guys have just chilled out since we've proven our self-restraint for nine years now.

And just like that, nuclear weapons in the middle east are a response to the nuclear threat posed by Israel. There are a lot of similarities here.

Asim Aquil

There's a pretty good chance Iraq will either end up as a US stooge or be run over by a greater Persia... Willingly.

Either way, that's how the fight would ensue from there on. And whatever gap in logistics there seems to be won't be there. Bombs? The US can supply Israel indefinitely it seems.

I really doubt Iran would go ahead and fight Israel. Iran showed restraint in sending troops to fight Israel in Lebanon. It knew that it'd get its butt kicked in return by giving the US the excuse it needs to fight. Iranians have shown they won't go gung ho, when they know they can/will be beaten.

When they didn't take on with the threat of conventional retaliation what makes you think they'd risk it with nukes?

JMH

"When they didn't take on with the threat of conventional retaliation what makes you think they'd risk it with nukes?"
It would only take about 12 nuclear warheads 750 kiloton in size to "wipe Israel off the map" and reduce Israel's 5 million people to a few hundred thousand sick and dying people, which would be far easier and more efficient than a conventional invasion. The Mad Mullahs could care less about Iranian casualties as long as the result of their holy war is the complete destruction of Israel. You seem to favour the Neville Chamberlain approach to dealing with dictators, give them what they want and than they will be nice and leave you alone--that really worked out well, after selling out Czechoslovakia to Hitler, Hitler attack Poland starting WWII in Europe. So after Iran wipes out Israel, why would Iran stop there? The infidel stronghold of Rome and the Vatican would be a rather good point to start once Israel is finished.

HistoricalDavid

I want a good source for that, otherwise I'm calling BS considering the distance between them and the unlikelihood of Israeli planes just wandering about there.

Logistics in not only supplying the bombs, but getting the bombs from Israel to Iran in the quantities you talk about. Oh dear...

Which troops were those?

Dodging OoE's points... Nice.

Dreadnought

As I said, look at the simulator I posted. Key in 0.02 tons of TNT, and it's really not that spectacular an explosion compared to the size of a 7 million pop city. Could someone else chime in to say that the idea of destroying a city with MOABs is ridiculous...


David, Not to intervine. I watched the documentary on the MOAB last night and from what they predict the blast radi would be the equivilent of 3-6 U.S. Superbowl stadiums in diameter. Not sure if this help or if this could be deemed totally accurate. Sorry for the hijak!

Ok I checked.. Dolphin Stadium (Superbowl) U.S. Florida. equals 660'-0" in total diameter. So at minimum we are looking at 1,980'-0" or rougly 3/8 mile in diameter for blast radi' at smallest (3 stadiums) estimate given. (6 stadiums) = 3960'-0" or 3/4 mile. Hope this helps.

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HistoricalDavid

Which blast radius would that be?

Killing an exposed adult?

Damaging wooden houses?

Damaging stone buildings?

Levelling modern concrete buildings? Etc.

Officer of Engineers

We knew you had the bomb for over a decade before you've tested them and the thing was we knew the Chinese held an extremely tight leash on you ... or so we've thought until the AQ Khan fiasco. Whatever the case, Pakistani irrationality was never demonstrated before or after the tests. Hell, you've never even admitted to having the bomb until your hand was forced.

This is NOT the case with Iran.

Give me a break. I don't believe the incident though I do believe the PakAF was scrambled but even if true, a single strike package of a maximum of 16 planes is not an example of the capability of leveling Iran conventionally.

And how many of those dead sure people were wearing uniforms?

There is NO similarity. Do your freaking research before spouting this nonsense. India had the bomb since 1974. Pakistan estimated in the mid-80s. Both sides were checked by the superpowers and by China.