Mark wrote:

The basis of open honest negotiation is clearly the foundation to your theory, but with Iran's history of lip service and secrecy it is simply not the tonic the US will swallow.

The one difficult issue to comprehend is the religious undertone to the region. Iran have already publicly resisted Israel's very existence, and have expressed a desire to totally eradicate the state. Past peace deals have all failed and with Israel's existence at stake, there is no peaceful outcome. The US and their allies have been developing mini nukes for 10 years, and this very issue along with North Korea have been the driving force behind this new technology.

Israel will strike soon with bunker buster type mini nukes, this will totally wipe out Iran's nuclear capacity, but the radioactive fall out will cause widespread destruction albeit on a relatively low level compared to a full nuclear assault.

Sadly this option will be mathematically seen as the cleanest option, for the very destruction of vast nuclear material will have risks even if conventional weapons were used. A land offensive would be far too bloody and costly and this will be the preferred solution.

The nuclear security of the world will be the primary goal, and 50,000 lives will be weighed up against the millions should instability become the outcome. You are dealing with a new enemy that would happily destroy itself to become the martyrs of infidel destruction.

My prayers are with a peaceful solution, but I fear the New Year will bring new misery to the world.

Tom replied:

I would dial down all this.

First, Iran has never had any real interest in Israel, one way or the other. Jewish-Persian relations have been, throughout history, awfully benign. Since the 79 revolution, Iran uses Israel to cloak its push for Shia empowerment in the region, preferring that lead to triggering, as such efforts always do, a Sunni backlash. As such, what Iran says about Israel is pure propaganda, to be swallowed at risk of stupidity.

Honest negotiation never happens. The foundation to my thinking is common interests, nakedly defined. Iran doesn't give a shit about Israel, but only Saudi Arabia. Iran hates the Salafists, and fears their impact. Iran greatly fears U.S. invasion and seeks nukes to prevent it. Iran greatly benefited from ours wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and offered to help in both. We refused, and we got the current dynamic of aid to our enemies.

Iran's achievement of nukes is meaningless. States have never gotten anybody to do anything threatening nuke strikes. Israel has 200 plus warheads and a very advanced missile defense system, meaning there is no existential threat.

As for mini-nukes, that's a tactical myth in the sense that high-end conventional bombs have the very same impact, so crossing the line to nukes is worthless, given the trouble it would cause any state.

Israel may well strike Iran's sites soon. It will set them back months, not years, because Iran will redouble its efforts. It will be a meaningless event and not change the underlying reality of Iran wanting and achieving protection from U.S. invasion (already accomplished by our tie-down in Iraq and Afghanistan).

As for the martyrdom angle, it's also hyperbolic. Extrapolating national suicide from suicide bombers didn't make sense for Japan in WWII and it does not make sense here. Iran seeks regime survival above all else, and there's no such thing as an untrackable nuclear signature, meaning Iran cannot pass a nuke to terrorists and not have it tracked back, meaning retaliatory strikes would follow and deterrence still holds.

It's not particularly useful, after 64 years of learning how to live with the bomb, to go all wobbly over a Shia version. But some people love fear and bathe in it daily.

I'm not that person.

An article:

ARTICLE: Restoring Deterrence, by Elbridge Colby, Foreign Policy Research Institute, Summer 2007

Tom finds this article, especially its treatment of how to employ deterrence thinking/action to the reality of a successful "anonymous" (for a while, that is) terrorist nuke strike on America to be highly realistic.