The fact that Netanyahu has been wrong on the time when Iran will develop the bomb is not irrelevant

What some seem to forget is we are dealing with a religiously zealous group of ayatollahs who long to bring the world to an end.

One reason the danger of a nuclear Iran has been grossly exaggerated is that the debate surrounding it has been distorted by misplaced worries and fundamental misunderstandings of how states generally behave in the international system. The first prominent concern, which undergirds many others, is that the Iranian regime is innately irrational. Despite a widespread belief to the contrary, Iranian policy is made not by "mad mullahs" but by perfectly sane ayatollahs who want to survive just like any other leaders. Although Iran's leaders indulge in inflammatory and hateful rhetoric, they show no propensity for self-destruction. It would be a grave error for policymakers in the United States and Israel to assume otherwise.

Yet that is precisely what many U.S. and Israeli officials and analysts have done. Portraying Iran as irrational has allowed them to argue that the logic of nuclear deterrence does not apply to the Islamic Republic. If Iran acquired a nuclear weapon, they warn, it would not hesitate to use it in a first strike against Israel, even though doing so would invite massive retaliation and risk destroying everything the Iranian regime holds dear.

Although it is impossible to be certain of Iranian intentions, it is far more likely that if Iran desires nuclear weapons, it is for the purpose of providing for its own security, not to improve its offensive capabilities (or destroy itself). Iran may be intransigent at the negotiating table and defiant in the face of sanctions, but it still acts to secure its own preservation. Iran's leaders did not, for example, attempt to close the Strait of Hormuz despite issuing blustery warnings that they might do so after the EU announced its planned oil embargo in January. The Iranian regime clearly concluded that it did not want to provoke what would surely have been a swift and devastating American response to such a mov

At the end of the Boy Who Cried Wolf fable, the wolf actually comes and kills all the sheep

rickyp wrote:ray

At the end of the Boy Who Cried Wolf fable, the wolf actually comes and kills all the sheep

And in Iran there are mullahs warning that Israel will eventually use their nuclear weapons against Iran.
Are they Crying wolf too?

rickyp wrote:fate

What some seem to forget is we are dealing with a religiously zealous group of ayatollahs who long to bring the world to an end.

That's the Christian fundamentalists ...

The Mullahs talk a good game but they end up acting rationally. When have they ever acted totally irrationally?
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/ ... t-the-bomb

bbauska wrote:Are you able to see things from Israel's point of view? (Seeing as you are so flexible, mentally)

It was in the early hours of Oct. 9 that senior Israeli military leaders brought up the idea of using Israel's doomsday weapons. By that time Israel had lost some 50 combat planes and more than 500 tanks -- 400 on the Egyptian battlefield alone. ...

By that time, American intelligence had signs that Israel had put its Jericho missiles, which could be fitted with nuclear warheads, on high alert (the Israelis had done so in an easily detectible way, probably to sway the Americans into preventive action).

Mr. Kissinger instead started to arrange air supply to Israel, and within three days a tremendous United States airlift to Israel was in action. The tide was turned. By Oct. 21 the Israelis were within 20 miles of Damascus and had crossed the Suez Canal, encircling the Egyptian Third Army. A permanent cease-fire was established within a few days.

rickyp wrote:However, they aren't irrationally.(sic) They've never really acted irrationally.

In a fiery speech to the United Nations General Assembly, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad railed today against the United States and European Union, whom he said have "have entrusted themselves to the devil."

The assembly hall was not full when Ahmadinejad spoke. The United States delegation to the United Nations, along with Israel's delegation, boycotted Ahmadinejad's speech to protest the anti-Israel views Ahmadinejad has perpetuated this week during in a spurt of media interviews.

The Iranian leader, who has repeatedly called for the destruction of Israel and denied the existence of the Holocaust, spoke today on one of Judaism's holiest days, Yom Kippur. During his speech he referred to Israelis as "uncivilized Zionists."

. . .

"The current abysmal situations of the world are due mainly to the wrong leadership of the world who have entrusted themselves to the devil," he said, referring to America's commanding position in world affairs.

I would much rather have an Iran committed to an open relationship with the world, and committed to peaceful use of nuclear energy.

SO they see Israel's bomb as a threat...

If Iran had developed as a democracy .... an oil rich democracy .... consider how much less we would have had to depend on the KSA and other Sunni totalitarian states?

At the time of the installation of the Shah Iran was friendly towards Israel too.... it was Israel's support for the Shah which drove Iranian enmity as much as anything...

Israel sold Iran US$75 million worth of arms from stocks of Israel Military Industries, Israel Aircraft Industries and Israel Defense Forces stockpiles, in their Operation Seashell in 1981.[21] Materiel included 150 M-40 antitank guns with 24,000 shells for each gun, spare parts for tank and aircraft engines, 106 mm, 130 mm, 203 mm and 175 mm shells and TOW missiles. This material was transported first by air by Argentine airline Transporte Aéreo Rioplatense and then by ship. The same year Israel provided active military support against Iraq by destroying a previously attacked Iranian target, but the doctrine established by the attack would increase potential conflict in future years.

Arms sales to Iran that totaled an estimated $500 million from 1981 to 1983 according to the Jafe Institute for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University. Most of it was paid for by Iranian oil delivered to Israel. "According to Ahmad Haidari, "an Iranian arms dealer working for the Khomeini government, roughly 80% of the weaponry bought by Tehran" immediately after the onset of the war originated in Israel.[22]

According to Mark Phythian, the fact "that the Iranian air force could function at all" after Iraq's initial attack and "was able to undertake a number of sorties over Baghdad and strike at strategic installations" was "at least partly due to the decision of the Reagan administration to allow Israel to channel arms of US origin to Iran to prevent an easy and early Iraqi victory."[23]

Despite all the speeches of Iranian leaders and the denunciation of Israel at Friday prayers, there were never less than around one hundred Israeli advisers and technicians in Iran at any time throughout the war, living in a carefully guarded and secluded camp just north of Tehran, where they remained even after the ceasefire.[24]

Israel's support was "crucial" to keeping Iran's air force flying against Iraq. Israeli sales also included spare parts for U.S.-made F-4 Phantom jets.
...
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in December 2000 called Israel a "cancerous tumor" that should be removed from the region.[27][28] In 2005 he emphasized that “Palestine belongs to Palestinians, and the fate of Palestine should also be determined by the Palestinian people”.[29] In 2005 Khamenei responded to President Ahmadinejad's alleged remark that Israel should be "wiped off the map" by saying that "the Islamic Republic has never threatened and will never threaten any country."[30]

On 15 August 2012, during a meeting with veterans of the Iran-Iraq War, Ayatollah Khamenei said that he was confident that "the fake Zionist (regime) will disappear from the landscape of geography."[31][32] In addition, on 19 August, Khamenei reiterated comments made by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which members of the international community, including the United States, France, European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, and United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned,[33] during which he called Israel a "cancerous tumor in the heart of the Islamic world" and said that its existence is responsible for many problems facing the Muslim world ...

Under reformist Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, elected in 1997, some believed Iran–Israel relations would improve. Khatami called Israel an "illegal state" and a "parasite. ...

With the election of Mahmud Ahmedinijiad, a hardliner of the Iranian politics, the relations of the countries became increasingly strained as the countries became to be engaged in a series of proxy conflicts and covert operations against each other.

During the 2006 Lebanon War, Iranian Revolutionary Guards were believed to have directly assisted Hezbollah fighters in their attacks on Israel. Multiple sources suggested that hundreds of Revolutionary Guard operatives participated in the firing of rockets into Israel during the war, and secured Hezbollah's long-range missiles. Revolutionary Guard operatives were allegedly seen operating openly at Hezbollah outposts during the war. In addition, Revolutionary Guard operatives were alleged to have supervised Hezbollah's attack on the INS Hanit with a C-802 anti-ship missile. The attack severely damaged the warship and killed four crewmen. It is alleged that between six and nine Revolutionary Guard operatives were killed by the Israeli military during the war. According to the Israeli media their bodies were transferred to Syria and from there, flown to Tehran.[40]

During and immediately after the Gaza War, the Israeli Air Force, with the assistance of Israeli commandos, was reported to have carried out three airstrikes against Iranian arms being smuggled to Hamas through Sudan, as Iran launched an intensive effort to supply Hamas with weapons and ammunition. Israel hinted that it was behind the attacks. Two truck convoys were destroyed, and an arms-laden ship was sunk in the Red Sea.[41][42] On 4 November 2009, Israel captured a ship in the eastern Mediterranean Sea and its cargo of hundreds of tons of weapons allegedly bound from Iran to Hezbollah.
...
On July 18, 2012, a bus carrying Israeli tourists in Bulgaria was destroyed in a bombing attack that killed five Israeli tourists and the driver, and injured 32 people. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed Iran and Hezbollah for the attack.[71] In July 2012, a senior Israeli defense official stated that since May 2011, more than 20 terrorist attacks planned by Iran and Hezbollah against Israeli targets worldwide had been foiled, including in South Africa, Azerbaijan, Kenya, Turkey, Thailand, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Nepal, and Nigeria, and that Iranian and Hezbollah operatives were incarcerated in jails throughout the world.[