UN nuclear agency IAEA: Iran 'studying nuclear weapons'

[MH]

Originally Posted by joegrundman

The question is, is it worth bombing Iran for the gain in time it buys, and giving the game to the Saudis (who, let us not forget, are the wellspring of the terrorism the US has actually been fighting against) ? Ah, whatever, the world's in an awful mess anyway. How much worse can it get? And it might help Obama to win a second term.

Not disarming Iran may give the reason to Saudis and others to seek nuclear weapons in first place...
It may put ME into crazy nuclear arms race while the above countries fight for influence in the region.
At the end of the day you would have bunch of Islamic nuts fighting by proxies-making cold war look like predictable boring story.

Possible Iranian first step will be spreading influence over Shi'ite population/minorities in neighboring oil reach countries to gain control of energy resources/western economy .
Lets not forget that most Arab oil reach countries have Shi'ite minorities so scenarios style Iraq in each and every one of them is not out of question.
Iran might get much more active in supporting destabilisation of Sunni countries.
The situation would make any direct intervention from west impossible since whole EU could be under nuclear ballistic missile threat.
It would cause havoc in worlds economy due to oil prices as well.

Bombing Iran may buy some time
It eventually might lead to regime change which is more favorable to the west and possible abolition of nuclear program.

So why Iran wants nukes-self defence...then against whom?

What is its ambition if not domination and spreading influence all over ME and then maybe even controlling energy sources contrary to western interests.

Later on Iranians could rain Israel with missiles and bombs in attrition war using proxies while all the West would call Israelis to show maximum restrain.
Israel might even find its self totally isolated and sold out.
Who gives a crap about some "arrogant settlers" country of 7m people in middle of nowhere anyway.

That my dooms day scenario-without using nukes on Israel

[Karle94]

Originally Posted by MH

The situation would make any direct intervention from west impossible since whole EU could be under nuclear ballistic missile threat.
It would cause havoc in worlds economy due to oil prices as well.

I remember the arguments about the US missile shields in Poland and Greece. The Russians were accusing the Americans of continuing the cold war, while the Americans said it was for protection against Iranian missiles. Now it seems that Europe will need that missile shield. I think it`s time to show the Russians that we don`t care what they think and do what must be done to protect ourselves.

[mapuc]

Another thing you have to put into the equation, is religious fanaticism

Maybe the leader in Iran think they will be protected by Allah, if Israel or some other would retaliate an iranian assault on Israel or some other nearby country.

Markus