Teheran: Israel will regret any attack

Two Israeli air force squadrons are training to blow up an Iranian facility using low-yield nuclear "bunker-busters," . . . .

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Well, the threat to Israel here is real and needs to be considered.

I had a short and pointless discussion with my boss about this today, as a matter of fact, and he considers it an absolutely 100% certainty that Iran is trying to build the bomb and when they acquire it they will use it on Israel. Given that criteria, Israel must prevent Iran from acquiring the bomb.

The logic is infallible if you agree to the premise, but the premise is, of course, not that clear-cut (which is why discussing politics with my boss is pointless). So the question is: how big of a threat is Iran to Israel really? Would Iran use their weapons for deterrence or would they use them in a hot war? Is the leader of Iran really a lunatic or does he just play one on tv? Not easy questions to answer...

One thing is clear: Israel has done a similar thing before and it is logical to conclude they would do it again if they felt it necessary. Adding the nuclear element to the attack adds a new dimension to it -it puts them in a club that no one in the world really wants to be in.

Does anyone in government not see the repercussions of nuclear warfare? Counter nuclear attacks will wipe out not only our species, but make the Earth inhabitable forever. So it seems to me rather counterproductive to start a nuclear war.

I'm very anti-war. I wish we would get past this territorial game already and focus on more important issues. If everyone looked at life on Earth at a cosmic level they would see we're insignificant in the grand scale of the cosmos. That Earth remains to be our only home for life, and even that's just a pale blue dot to reference Carl Sagan's book. Thoughts on this subject or to my rantings? I know the notion of "embracing the whole human community" sounds rather trite nowadays considering the type of environment we're dealing with, but what's so disquieting about it? I'm sick of these lame excuses about how peace is unfulfilling and boring. How is war fulfilling I ask? Ok, sorry I'll end my line of thoughts here haha.

Well that's what is complicated about this: if using a nuclear weapon really meant that, it would be a no-brainer (you couldn't use them), but clearly it doesn't. If Israel used a nuclear bunker-buster on Iran, who would retaliate on Israel with nuclear weapons? There are only a handful of nations that actually have the capability to wipe out a large fraction of the earth's population - why would they start lobbing nukes at each other in response to this?

Nuclear weapons are terrible to be sure, but they are not much more than just big bombs - contrary to the scary propaganda you hear from crackpot activists. Hiroshima and Nagasaki are thriving cities today. They never were uninhabitable after they were nuked.

There are not all that many people on earth who really are not anti-war. But a small handful of people with a lot of power and perhaps some mental illnesses are capable of getting others to follow them to war.

The hatred brewed in the Middle-East is tough to get past, but consider this: no two westernized nations have gone to war with each other in 60 years. And these are countries that used to be perpetually at war with each other. War is obsolete for certain countries and I honestly believe that other countries will come into the fold over time.

But that leads to the question if Iran really does nuke Israel, does the U.S. in retaliation strike back by nuking Iran?

But that leads to the question if Iran really does nuke Israel, does the U.S. in retaliation strike back by nuking Iran?

Nuclear weapons are terrible to be sure, but they are not much more than just big bombs - contrary to the scary propaganda you hear from crackpot activists. Hiroshima and Nagasaki are thriving cities today. They never were uninhabitable after they were nuked.

To raise a minor point, I think this is true, in part at least, because detonantions were at over a thousand feet in the air (to maximize civilian deaths) over H & N. I think if you had detonantion nearer ground (to take out ground level strategic targets) there would be higher levels of secondary radiation for longer...maybe up to a year within a many mile radius (for a payload of the order of tens of kilotons)?

After a period of time, local fallout radiation
levels decay to the point where the
area would be considered “safe,” and survivors
in fallout shelters would emerge.
Nevertheless, low levels of radiation
would persist for some time— indeed, low
levels of radiation have persisted for years
at some sites of nuclear weapons tests.

The question of safety here is a relative
one. By the standards of peacetime, many
such areas would be considered unsafe,
because living in them would expose a
population to a significant risk of longterm
hazards— cancer, genetic damage,
etc. However, in the aftermath of a nucle
ar attack, there may be few habitable
areas that do not have a measurable
(though low) level of additional radiation,
and the survivors wouId simply have to accept
the hazards.

Some fallout is deposited in the troposphere,
and then is brought down to Earth
(largely by rain) over a period of weeks.
Such fallout reaches areas quite far from
the blast. While the doses inflicted would
be relatively small, they would add to the
risk.

Some fallout is deposited in the stratosphere.
It returns to Earth over a period of
years (through the effects of gravity), and
consequently only very long-lived radioactive
isotopes pose a significant hazard.
If the attacks are confined to the territory of the United States and the Soviet Union (and, for that matter, to Europe and China
as well), then stratospheric fallout will be
confined mostly to the Northern Hemisphere,
and the region between 300 and
600 north latitude will receive the bulk of
it.[continued]

After a period of time, local fallout radiation levels decay to the point where the area would be considered “safe,” and survivors in fallout shelters would emerge

I wouldn't think so. Why would we?

We can only assume that if Israel were nuked that the U.S. would feel threatened of an imminent nuclear attack on their own soil no matter how fabricated it may be.

Who do you refer to by the "US" - the administration, Congress, or the people?

I don't think anyone in the administration or Congress actually believes any of the Shahab 6 speculation (they'd much easier believe the taepodong's supposed range). But this doesn't mean it will be hard to put enough fear and doubt into enough people. Heck, if they could pull this off with Iraq's 100-mile al Samouds, they surely can create a lot more fear about the Shahabs.

The only US "soil" that Iran can reasonably reach are the embassies in the Middle East and vicinity.