Iran won't be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons. North Korea was under China's protection but no one is going to protect Iran. The USA, Israel, and maybe some of the Gulf states will continue occasionally "mowing the grass" whenever the threat level increases.
(I'm not claiming that this is a good scenario, just a likely one.)
I am not seeing a scenario were they can be stopped. They are already surviving under combined US/Israeli strikes. Short of being attacked with weapons of mass destruction...
... oh dear god this administration is dumb enough to try that, isn't it?
Iran can be stopped. Building nuclear weapons plus delivery systems isn't easy and requires a major industrial effort. They won't be allowed to sustain that effort, or rebuild the air defenses necessary to protect it.
There is no reason to believe that they haven't already developed and worked out the details of all that, in case they'd ever need it. Now the US and Israel have killed the only man who was preventing it from being done, the late supreme leader. I cannot imagine the next supreme leader (that is about to be announced) not immediately cancelling the prohibition on building nuclear weapons (to be made public only after they've been built, ofc), and giving the order to build ~10 nuclear warheads (the amount that they can build based on the amount of 60% enriched fissile material they currently possess). With two nuclear powers relentlessly attacking them, it would be suicidal of them to not order the immediate building of nuclear weapons ASAP.
You're really missing the point. Just because someone gives the order to develop nuclear weapons doesn't mean that their defense industrial base has the capacity to do it, or that it can be protected against future strikes. Furthermore, if Iran declared that it did possess working nuclear weapons that wouldn't be a deterrent: it would trigger an immediate and massive preemptive attack by the USA and Israel.
The point was addressed in the first sentence of my previous reply.
As for a preemptive attack, which I imagine you meant would be nuclear since they're already giving it all they've got with their non-nuclear attacks, it is already clear that Israel and USA don't have a way to stop Iran's faster missiles, and they would have no way to prevent Iran nuking Tel-Aviv and Haifa in return. At that point Israel would cease to exist as a state and as a society. They would never risk that. The entire decades-long war against the middle east by USA and Israel is fought for the benefit of Israel, not for its destruction.
> As for a preemptive attack, which I imagine you meant would be nuclear since they're already giving it all they've got with their non-nuclear attacks, it is already clear that Israel and USA don't have a way to stop Iran's faster missiles, and they would have no way to prevent Iran nuking Tel-Aviv and Haifa in return.
Israel generally has fairly solid intelligence in Iran and would almost certainly take whatever action is necessary to prevent Iran from building a Nuke...potentially all the way up to using small tactical nukes in targeted strikes on nuclear facilities if conventional attacks would be insufficient. Any preemptive attack would likely occur before Iran actually were acquire a viable nuclear weapon.
No, you're still missing the point. I mean a massive US conventional attack. So far in the current conflict the US has used only a fraction of its capability, and only targeted military and government facilities. In a scenario where Iran claimed to have nuclear weapons then the US would hit much harder and aim to cause so much infrastructure damage and civilian casualties that Iran would be unable to build much of anything more complex than short-range rockets.
This is an absurd fantasy. Most of Iran's military capability is deep inside mountains. If the US & Israel wants to adopt a strategy of Vietnam-style carpet bombing to devastate the entire country, not only will they be making themselves pariahs (which they're already on the way to doing) but they will be incentivizing Iran to hit Israel with dirty bombs, which will collapse the Israeli economy in short order.
A massive conventional attack against a nuclear power is historically not a thing. That's the whole point of a nuclear deterrent. No one is attacking Russia or North Korea under pretenses of humanitarian interventions. A massive conventional attack that would tear Iran apart would be a sufficient reason to initiate nuclear armageddon between Israel and Iran, as it would be a doomsday event for Iran either way; might as well go down swinging. Again, that's the whole point of a nuclear deterrent. It's what Israel's Samson option is, even though none of their enemies ever possessed nuclear weapons.
No, you're still missing the point. The massive conventional attack will tear Iran apart before they construct enough nuclear weapons to present a credible deterrent.
No, you're still missing your own arguments, based on which this discussion thread has been based. Citing your exact words:
> Furthermore, if Iran declared that it did possess working nuclear weapons that wouldn't be a deterrent: it would trigger an immediate and massive preemptive attack by the USA and Israel.
I've been discussing this under the assumption from your own words that "it did possess working nuclear weapons" ('it' being Iran). If you are now changing this to a massive escalation before they even get it, then that is out of scope for this discussion. I would argue they are already doing that to the extent that they can, as they have to tread carefully since Iran can also destroy all key infrastructure in Israel as well.
Having a working nuclear weapon is not the same thing as having a viable vehicle to deliver the nuclear weapon somewhere useful, unless we're talking like, suitcase nukes or whatever. It's hard for me to estimate what the timeline would be to retrofit their existing ballistic missile platform to be suitable, but it's not a super easy task - timeline in peace times would be years, most likely. War likely accelerates it... unless the key people you need for the program, the supplies, testing resources, etc., are victims of the war.
'Working nuclear weapons' is a really broad scale so it's tough to extrapolate without knowing if it means "they can send a person with a low yield weapon somewhere and blow it up vs. "they can launch a high yield weapon on a ballistic missile anywhere within 2000km"
Aside from the fact that the Iranian Regime never said that...why exactly should westerners care about the fate of Israel?
I know they think they are special, but to me they are just another West Asian country. I have zero reason to support them over Yemen, Lebanon, Iran, or any other state. Arguably I have more reason to resent them, considering how much money and blood we have spent furthering their cause and how ungrateful they are in return.
And you know what's the worst thing? I don't know if its my sample bias, but I see very rarely Israelis complaining about actual "gas the kikes white power" hateful antisemite filth which have actually risen in quantity quite a lot recently. The only people who get smeared with the antisemite label are people who hundreds of times even to the point of most normal people would stop seeing the distinction between jews and Israeli actions but they still clarify the various ways they aren't talking about jewish people or judaism as a religion but Israeli governments actions, and perfectly reasonable people like the Irish get labelled as "extreme antisemites". You know what signal this sends? If repeatedly clarifying the difference between jews in general and criminal actions of Israel gets the label of antisemite and actual blood and soil neo nazis get ignored then perhaps people should become actual loud and proud antisemites, this is what Israelis mindset signals to people.
The only "greatest ally" that sold secrets to china, attacked american ships and refused to apologize, has characters like Pollard as heroes, jailed and tortured the man who exposed their illegal theft of nuclear weapons tech from South Africa, ....
>Israel apologized the same day of the incident. They also paid $13m in reparations (much more if we adjust for inflation).
That's the "public" view yes. Many survivors disagree of course.
The entity who committed theft was Israel not Mordechai, however I reread it and it looks like it was a secret collaboration with South Africa not theft. But the main point is, why should you listen to whining about Iran having nukes from a country that blatantly lies about its own nukes and refuses to let its nukes be inspected? Iran is a much more responsible party clearly when it comes to the nuclear department.
It's also very well known that Israel secretly sold western defence tech secrets to China.
They're not, they're just a temporary European colony that cannot survive without constant pouring of resources from the collective West. Like the crusader states of the 11th and 12th century. It's not a real country.
I do not support the ethnic cleansing of Jews from Palestine any more than I support the current Jewish ethnic cleansing of Arabs in Palestine. Both groups want to force the other into the western world and I reject both.
No ethnic cleansing will be required, and the dissolution of apartheid South Africa tells us how things will play out. Once the state is degraded enough, they will largely all emigrate on their own since the jewish supremacy that is currently in full swing will be no longer. They will not want to live in a state where others have equal rights. The few who don't mind it will remain and live on with the majority that currently enjoys little to no rights.
(I'm not claiming that this is a good scenario, just a likely one.)