Tulsi Gabbard says Iran could produce nuclear weapons "within weeks", months after she testified before Congress that the country was not building them. The US Director of National Intelligence said her March testimony - in which she said Iran had a stock of materials but was not building these weapons - had been taken out of context by "dishonest media".
So, I agree with everything you said, I’m just not as confident as I would like to be that Iran would stay their own hand. I agree that it’s an idiotic idea, actually using a nuke, which is part of why even North Korea hasn’t used theirs, but I’m just not that confident Iran could resist the temptation once they’ve got it. Making Israel disappear is high on their priority list, even if it’s a stupid idea.
I’m not dedicated to the preservation of Israel or anything, but part of preserving the taboo against nukes means making sure that we never actually have to retaliate after a strike. Like you said, the cat is out of the bag as far as owning nukes goes, we don’t want to end up in a situation where we have to say “okay, WWII and then that time Israel disappeared but we’re serious, no more nukes?”
I know it’s much easier said than done; but I just wish the world as a whole would put more effort into diplomatic relations instead of just bombing eachother into ‘compliance’.
We don’t all have to like each other and work together; but if we could stop burning each others houses down, that’d be great.
Hopefully that’s not an unpopular opinion…