Believe it or not, there are some potential benefits to the United States should Iran build a bomb. (I’m speaking for myself here, and in no way for the Air Force.) Five possibilities come to mind.
First, Iran’s development of nuclear weapons would give the United States an opportunity to finally defeat violent Sunni-Arab terrorist groups like Al Qaeda. Here’s why: a nuclear Iran is primarily a threat to its neighbors, not the United States. Thus Washington could offer regional security — primarily, a Middle East nuclear umbrella — in exchange for economic, political and social reforms in the autocratic Arab regimes responsible for breeding the discontent that led to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Until now, the Middle East autocracies have refused to change their ways because they were protected by the wealth of their petroleum reserves. A nuclear Iran alters the regional dynamic significantly, and provides some leverage for us to demand reforms.
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What about the downside — that an unstable, anti-American regime would be able to start a nuclear war? Actually, that’s less of a risk than most people think. Unless the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameini, and his Guardian Council chart a course that no other nuclear power has ever taken, Iran should become more responsible once it acquires nuclear weapons rather than less. The 50-year standoff between the Soviet Union and the United States was called the cold war thanks to the deterrent effect of nuclear weapons.
RTFA. Its an interesting angle. I’m not so sure a ‘renaissance of American influence in the Middle East’ is all that beneficial though. America should just get out of the region IMHO.
#31 Our so-called leaders are fighting unwinnable wars, plain and simple. You’d think they would have learned from Vietnam.
But then maybe they’re not fighting for the reasons we think. The big war contractors have gotten very rich.
#32 Exactly, which is why #31 will never happen. Politicians aren’t in office to serve the people. They are in office to serve the special interests. They only worry about their image when it’s time to vote, which is every 2, 4 or 6 years. So they make big speeches, and distract people like Dodd & thingsthatmakemego with rhetoric so they can get votes. Once the election is over, they fulfill their promises to the special interests who funded their campaigns with never ending wars that fund no bid contracts to the special interests.
An Iran that is a nuclear ENERGY superpower would really alter the balance of things in the middle east. Just because they won’t kiss Israel’s ass is no reason they should be OUR enemy. They just want to sit at the grownups table.
Pakistan & India don’t get along and are both in the nuclear club. They haven’t bombed each other yet.
@BmoreBadBoy Oil doesn’t work that way, it’s a market, when you have a shortage the price shoots up and tanks the nation and economy. So the middle east is important in that they’re the only area in that world that can still significantly increase production to allow for economic growth.
Without the middle east America certainly will decline.
I’ve heard it said that starting a nuclear war is like shooting someone with a pistol while simultaneously shooting yourself in the head, and if you don’t do the latter you might wish you had (whether there’s a heaven to go to afterwards or not).
Sometimes I wonder if the people who would build Iran’s nukes and deploy them don’t secretly know this, regardless of what their religious bosses think.
fuck oil already.