Recently, Hillary Clinton stated that–should Iran obtain nuclear weapons–we will protect countries in the region by including them under a “defense umbrella.” What does she mean by a defense umbrella?…given this administration’s hostility to antimissile technology, it should be pretty clear that she does not mean a comprehensive missile defense system. Rather, she means that the U.S. will retaliate against Iran with nuclear weapons should it launch a nuclear weapon at any of the protected countries. (During her Presidential campaign, Ms Clinton spoke of “massive retaliation” by the U.S. against Iran should that country attack Israel with nuclear weapons.)
The finest minds of our generation – to contain a second-rate [1] power – are unable to come up with a strategy other than “incinerate each other’s civilians“.
And to go on to beat this sucker into the ground – can anyone see the Current Occupant [2] trading Chicago for Az Zarqa?
Tip o’ the hat for the title.
[1] Second-rate in technical terms, not pejorative.
[2] Whoever it is.
Cross posted to Space For Commerce.
My guess is that Iran will not use nuclear weapons directly. Rather, possession of nukes will give Iran immunity from attack by the U.S., regardless of just about anything they do (short of overt attack on U.S. forces).
They will use this immunity to bludgeon their neighbors into submission with sustained terrorist campaigns. The operating principle will be: better cooperate with us, not the Americans. They will leave. We will always be here. And we will kill you if you cross us.
They will probably succeed in subverting Iraq.
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the UAE have money but no muscles. I suspect that they will buy nuclear protection from Pakistan.
We will always be here. And we will kill you if you cross us.
“Nice city you got there. Sure be a shame if anything happened to it.”
I wish our leaders would deign to look at popular culture once in a while. The rest of us have seen enough gangster films to know how that script goes.
This isn’t “just” a Middle Eastern issue. I expect the Iranians to constantly work to extend the range of their ballistic missiles. (Making a nuclear weapon small enough to fit in the nosecone of a missile is, fortunately, difficult, but they’ll do it sooner or later if they’re not stopped)
So what will be the political impact when most of Europe is within range? I think it will be very significant.