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Originally Posted by Sammi79
No, I am afraid it is far worse than that. The stability provided by nuclear deterrents is dependent on human individuals with their fingers on the launching buttons, who are worryingly fallible regardless of national or personal ideology. This was made painfully clear by US military exercises close to the U.S.S.R. during the cold war. Do you really think Iran would willingly sentence their whole country to death by atomic fire by authorising a nuclear strike? The religious claptrap is a tool of manipulation - the manipulators do not truly 'believe' in it.
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Iran is a theocracy, the decisive power is in the hands of Muslim clerics. Clerics are religious office holders and thus "irrational by definition", they put belief over rational argument and reason. Islam also is a very aggressive, totalitarian ideology, it is an ideology making a global supremacist claim for dominance, formed by the mind of a warrior willing to conquer. It is a conqueror's ideology, meant to create power by unity of own forces and supression of individual "deviation" - it means totalitarian control on all communal levels. Own losses get glorified and "holified".
Islam has demonstrated in past wars that it has a strong sympathy for the ideal of martyrdom. Also, sacrifice and martyrdom are strong motives especially in
Shia mythology and history - and the Persians/Iranians are Shia. Different to this glorifying of death, Western/Christian armies traditionally were focussed on survival of the invidual (and are more so today than ever before), and less motivated to commit suicide in an attempt to turn into martyrs. The death-despising courage of Muslim armies in several battles and phases of history were proverbial in their times. Then, there is the willingness to accept even own side's innocent lives being provoked to get killed, it has been demonstrated since decades of terrorism and conflict in Palestinian-Israeli clashes and Lebanon wars. Muslim militias forced their own people to serve as human shields and getting killed, and used it as propaganda material, and are setting up legitimate military targets within civilian compounds, schools, hospitals, to provoke the killing of their own side'S civilians to gain scores in the propaganda war. Iran is close with events in Lebanon, you know. Finally, it is in the Quran as well, Muhammad encouraged his fighters to accept death in attacks on infidels and that they only fear it becaseu they do not know the happiness of afterlife.
I can only warn you to trust in the good heart and reasonability of a supremacist, missionary, fanatical religious thinking. A nuclear arms race in that region does nto comopare to the cold war between the US and the USSR.
In no way. It would pose much greater risks and dangers to the world. And I would not bet money on that we would survive this time.
Also, the other great risk of a nuclear armed Iran comes from proliferation and Iran supporting terror groups to lead proxy strikes at Western targets. As a matter of fact I see the dangers of proliferation as even much greater than the chance of Iran nuking Israel and getting nuked in return.
You may not crave for death or self-sacrifice. But that does not mean that all others share your antipathy to martyrdom. Do not con lcude by your own good-willing motivces on the motives of the other, do not assume that because you see yourself as rational, the other necessarily must be rational as well. Do not conclude from the past cold war on how the next cold war in Arabia will unfold.