[Skybird]

Yes, that cuba did not become a hot war was sheer luck, since it was out of control. Beside the Cuba incident, there have been 40 more years were mutual deterrance worked in the basis of cold-blooded calculation and using reason to also correctly assess what the other would do "in case of", and what not. but with a nuzclear arms race in the Golf region, you talk about cultural clashes between shia and sunni, and old civil war that is that is raging since over 1000 years, you talk about different mentality, temper, and the incalculatable hysteria of relgious fanatism and fatalistic wordviews.

What worked in the cold ar, will not work in an nuke race at the Gulf. and i leave out that the USSR was a stable poltical entitity whith strict control over it'S etzhnic groupos and territories. This cannot be said about several of the actors in the area of interest regarding a gul nuke race. Saudi-Arabia is slowly destabilising, Syria already is gambling, Turkey turns increasingly nationalistic, Iraq and Pakistan are failed states, Egypt's future is uncertain once Mubarak dies or leaves office (the everything-but-democratic orthodox Islamists are ever growing in power thanks to giving them access to democratic elections). All this thinlking about geostrategic influence spieced up by the occaisonal irrational religious outburst and Islamic fatalism.

The mechanisms of the cold war will not work in such a climate. it's not cold enough there.

I have a prominent supporter of this view of mine: Kissinger voiced exactly the same concerns and doubts in interviews that I have summed up here. He also says very clearly that the logic of the cold war between the US and the USSR will not work in the middle East, but that allowing an arms race down there will see the greatest probability for an outcome of total desaster.

Until then, nuclear armed Iran holds another most dominant threat: nuclear proliferation.

And that means that all the West has become utmost susceptible to blackmail.

BTW, the attempt to install nukes on Cuba was a very reasonable attempt. I would have tried the same, if I were the Russians. The possible jackpot was very huge so that it justified to take a risk. If it would have been successful, the balance of the game would have very significantly shifted. But when it went off and both sides tried to find a way to save their faces, things got out of control - not before. A gamble can go wrong - that's what makes it a gamble.

A nuclear arms race in the ME is not so much a gamble, or a thing of cold rational calculation. It is very much a guarantee for things going wrong. the ME states and their cultural background are not the USSR and Europe and the US.