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Notes -
Yes*
*The load bearing assumption is you can actually finish the job and permanently prevent this.
*Also that other latent nuclear countries don't see this and decide they need nukes asap to prevent this from happening to them.
*Also, there's a very credible argument that Iran was actually quite happy playing the game of "ooooh just you wait were totally gonna make a nuke any second now, ooooh baby it's coming" while never actually doing it. Iran could get 80% of the benefit of nukes (so they thought) for 20% of the cost by always being close but never quite getting there. Or at least that was the most rational move for them, although they're religious fanatics so hard to be 100% certain.
shit the bed so hard on security you get Oct 7th'd, resulting in the USA spending large amounts of money and things that go boom to keep you from getting MRBM'd
decide to 12 day war Iran last year, USA gets involved to sucker punch Iran with a (really cool) stealth bomber strike during negotiations. But this was worth it because we destroyed their nuclear program!...
deicide, again, to blow shit up in Iran, sucking in the USA even harder this time, resulting in the current quagmire.
Either that or set the program back significantly.
Or they might see what Iran is going through and decide to avoid the headache.
Given Iran's incessant attacks on Israel through proxies; it's threat to wipe Israel off the map; it's chanting of "death to Israel" and "death to America"'; etc., it's reasonable to think it's pretty likely that Iran is attempting to develop nuclear weapons and would be pretty likely to use them against Israel given the opportunity.
That being said, anything is possible. Possibly the orbits of the planets are not actually ellipses but instead circular with lots and lots of epicycles. But if one of these isolationists consistently cares only about the US connection to Israel, well, there's a reasonable conclusion to be drawn.
This is a good example of what I mean. The US spends a large amount of money and things on various other countries' defense. And yet for some reason, (some of) these isolationists only object when it's Israel.
It was reported in the news that part of the reason the US got involved was lobbying by Saudi leadership. If this turns out to be true (and it seems very likely to be true) I wonder how these isolationists will react.
I can't tell if you're obliquity refering to me as an "isolationist" and then also, amusingly, doing the same thing anti-Semites do where they don't say "it's the Jews" they just do things like (((this))) but instead you're implying I'm an anti-semite.
As an aside, there's a joke here calling someone an (((isolationist))) but I can't quite figure it out.
Anyway. If you want to call me an anti-semite you should, and then we can argue about that :)
I genuinely hope that they do. Especially now that they've showed Iran the "ooooh I'll build one any day now" isn't an option for them.
My priors are that they won't do a good job at this. Given in June 2024 we did this already and claimed massive victory over their nuclear program and that was a lie.
It's true. We will find out over the next 20 year which way this goes.
I think we will have to fundamentally agree to disagree here. I have an incredibly hard time believing that after expending such a ridiculous amount of blood and treasure to get nukes, they'd immediately turn around and attempt to land one on Tel-Aviv in exchange for having the Persian homeland turned into an irradiated wasteland. Further, I have hard time believing the 100s of humans required to execute a nuclear launch would all be fine with their moms/dad's/wives/kids/cousins/friends all getting glassed to MAYBE nuke Israel.
I also think Iran getting a nuke is step 1 of a very long chain even if we assume the entire Iranian military complex's only burning desire is getting nuked in exchange for hurting Israel once. Iran having a handful of nuclear devices means they can make scary noises, but they have to deliver them. And so far all I've seen is Iranian missiles get shot down 100 different ways. And Iran is so compromised by Mossad if they were launching a nuke, they know Israel would know very quickly, and they only get 1 shot. So they need, basically at minimum, hundreds of hardened launch sites, significantly more sophisticated re-entry vehicles, and probably MIRVs. All of which are significantly further down the tech tree than "basic nuclear device".
Yes, and much like Trump used to, I think that it's too much. I remember at one point Trump was making noises about nuclear disarmament.
“You could destroy the world 50 times over, 100 times over. And here we are building new nuclear weapons, and they’re building nuclear weapons.”
He continued, “We’re all spending a lot of money that we could be spending on other things that are actually, hopefully, much more productive.”
One of the greatest things he's ever said. I doubt he remembers saying it, but he's right.
Then fuck Saudi Arabia as well. Fight Iran yourself if you want to. Don't drag us into it.
I am a single issue geopolitical thinker. China. China China China. Every single thing we do I look at through the lens of "how does this help our rapidly deteriorating relative strength in the Pacific?"
And right now the answer is "it's massively detrimental because we're using up interceptors, airframes, money, and energy that all will be needed to counter a rapidly powering up China"
I don't have strong feelings towards Israel in a vacuum. I don't have a problem with Jews (if all cultures valued education as much as Jews do, the human race would be WAY better off).
I do have strong feelings of America weakening itself for a country that won't help versus China, for a conflict that will literally never end.
I'm not sure I understand your point. Can you show me where I referred to you as an isolationist?
Well here are a couple hypothetical scenarios for you.
You are the Prime Minister of Israel and a nuclear bomb explodes in Ariel. You are 80% sure it was the Iranians behind it. Would you turn the Persian homeland into an irradiated wasteland?
You are the Prime Minister of Israel and a nuclear bomb explodes in Arial. You are 100% sure it was Iran, but Iran is claiming that the attack was made by a rogue commander. Would you turn the Persian homeland into an irradiated wasteland?
Ok fine, but we are talking about isolationists. If someone makes the isolationist argument against expenditures to support Israel in a selective way, it's telling.
Fine, but I'm pretty confident that a lot of these supposed isolationist types would react in muted terms to such a revelation.
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