Nuking Iran: Thinking the Unthinkable

A large number of threads have started since the beginning of the month on the subject of Iran’s nuclear ambitions. As I read these posts, I’ve seen an off-quoted and seemingly innocuous statement repeated: if Iran attacks us (the US) with nukes they will be completely destroyed. Hence, simply put, Iran armed with nuclear weapons is not a threat. It occurred to me that since the threat (real or fictitious) is neutralized by this argument, a closer look is in order.

Say, hypothetically and catastrophically, an A-bomb is detonated in a major American city – New York for instance. And say the CIA, after a month of analysis, concludes the bomb was of Iranian origin, would you believe them? I suspect a sizeable minority of Americans, and a majority of non-Americans would not. Indeed, I’d wager many non-Americans would receive the news of an American city’s destruction with unapologetic joy – people would celebrate in the streets like it was 1999 again.

America would be bitterly divided between those Americans, incited by Fox News coverage of the destruction and death and of cheering foreigners, demanding payback and those Americans that refuse to be a part of genocidal thermonuclear revenge. And we are talking about the genocide of the Persian (Iranian) people here. Not to mention the Moslem world would see this as a declaration of Holy War against them. And China and Europe would be most alienated as its natural gas and oil supply become irradiated. Especially since most of them may suspect Iran is innocent.

Nuclear retaliation would make America appear as a rogue nation and Americans as a bloodthirsty and murderous people. Other nuclear powers might consider pre-emptive strikes on the US. Retaliation or no retaliation, American society might be irreparably split.

But I’ve been wrong before……..What do you think?

my government tells me

Then there wouldn't be a Fox News to broadcast......

Fox would be tipped off by Bush a few days ahead of time so they can move from New York and colocate themselves with Carlysle Group. They're all basically the same anyways.

shut off the reasoning-brain of most American citizens. More or less the same thing that happend on 9/11, but infinitely more so. I'd like to believe otherwise, but I don't.

and I am sorry to say I'd probably knee jerk myself. I did after 9/11.

But the "beauty" of terrorism is you don't know who to hit.

No easy answers to this one. Would we really just take a nuke and not retaliate? How soon would the next one be? How many would die worldwide in the fallout.

God, it just boggles the mind.

They just might do it again, I hope they don't.

Honestly, I think many countries wouldn't blame the US - or any other country - for retaliating in kind. If it were Britian, Russia, France, China, India, Pakistan, or Israel that were attacked with nukes, we know pretty damned well that they would respond in kind. Even today, France reiterated its right to retaliate with nuclear weapons in the event of a terrorist attack.

You're absolutely right, though, there would be a worldwide split in opinion.

will put people in the area, including Iraq, in even greater danger than they are now. I don't think Iran would have the plane that could deliver a bomb that would be large enough to nuke an entire American city, and if a small nuke were detonated here, I think Americans would have Bush's head first, then figure out where it came from.

I think it would elevate him to "supreme being" After all, it was those nasty liberals that wouldn't let us racial profile that are to blame. He would be able to do whatever he wanted and everyone in the US would love it and everyone else in the world would be forced to sit by and not say anything just like Afghanistan.

But I would HOPE that you who are left would do something to avenge our deaths in NY. If an A bomb went off here in NY, I ask the original poster-what would YOU do if you were in charge? Beyond speculating what would happen, what would you like to be the response if it did happen?

The whole Cold War nuclear standoff I can relate to. You learn that you are under attack and that you and your countrymen have 10 minutes to live. So fine, launch the missiles, no time for regrets.

But in my scenario, you might be dead (my condolences) but I've got to live with the guilt of 10s of millions of dead.

Deterrent only works if the ultimate threat is willing to be carried out. If the US fails to respond, every country under the US "nuke shield" - Europe, Japan, Canada - will start getting their own nukes for protection. If the US won't counter attack in this scenario, why would they do so if an ally was attacked?

I guess nuclear retaliation is the only sane choice.

I dont want to get vaporized anytime soon :D

And say the CIA, after a month of analysis,
impossible. If a nuke goes off in an American city we'll vaporize Iran in less than ten minutes

then the halaburten shock troops will move in and take all the oil platforms left.

But not the only one.......

about the origin of the bomb, and that's despite having learned to distrust Bush. There would be overwhelming public support (to say the least) for massive nuclear retaliation against the named party, whoever that might be.

When Chirac recently stated that a large scale terrorist attack against the territory of France would be answered with nuclear weapons if it were traced back to the hand of some other state, he was just expressing the obvious and inevitable policy of any country confronted by an attack on its territory by another. If the attack turns out to be the definite work of another state, it is an act of war. War against a nuclear-armed power has a well known and predictable consequence. An atomic attack on the United States would surely mean that millions of people in some country beyond our shores are about to be vaporized, and their country annihilated, no matter what party or person holds power here.

Say, hypothetically and catastrophically, an A-bomb is detonated in a major American city – New York for instance. And say the CIA, after a month of analysis, concludes the bomb was of Iranian origin, would you believe them?

First of all, there would be no month of analysis. The US would very quickly pick a target and destroy it. The reason countries wont attack the US is not just that the US has so many weapons, it is also that the US is brutal and aggressive. We go to war with Iraq and Vietnam to achieve certain local goals, but we also do it, along with other wars, to show the world that the US doesnt give a shit if you even did anything wrong. It will not hesitate to destroy you. And when the US goes out looking for scapegoats, even if the Iranians werent involved they would be at the top of the list.

But to answer the latter part of your question, no, I wouldnt believe the CIA, but that wouldnt matter because intelligence agencies around the world would be either confirming or denying the CIA conclusions.

I suspect a sizeable minority of Americans, and a majority of non-Americans would not. Indeed, I’d wager many non-Americans would receive the news of an American city’s destruction with unapologetic joy – people would celebrate in the streets like it was 1999 again.

You are letting your cynacism and republican propaganda get the better of you. The vast majority of the world wants to see an end to violence and would greet a nuclear holocaust in ANY land with immense grief. Do you really think non-Americans are inhuman monsters? There is a small number of people who celebrate when the US is attacked, and this is mainly because they are being directly or indirectly attacked by the US at the time.

Regardless, as I mentioned foriegn countries have thier own intelligence services, so this situation is impossible.

America would be bitterly divided between those Americans, incited by Fox News coverage of the destruction and death and of cheering foreigners, demanding payback and those Americans that refuse to be a part of genocidal thermonuclear revenge.

So? That wouldnt stop the military from doing anything. Obviously such an attack would provoke a 9-11 response on steroids. Pacifists would be lucky to not get locked up. The US would go to war, some people might complain. But if Iran actually did attack us, very few people would complain and we would know because the US is not the only country with its eyes on Iran.

And we are talking about the genocide of the Persian (Iranian) people here. Not to mention the Moslem world would see this as a declaration of Holy War against them.

Wrong. If Iran actually attacked us, the Moslem world would call them morons and hide under thier beds. They arent going to die for Irans mistake. They didnt defend Iraq from clear and obvious aggression, why would they defend Iran from a counter-attack? The militaries in the moslem world are controlled by self interested regimes, many of which are more closely tied to the US than Iran.

Why would they think it was a Holy war if Iran did attack the US?

And China and Europe would be most alienated as its natural gas and oil supply become irradiated. Especially since most of them may suspect Iran is innocent.

Why would they suspect Iran was innocent if real intelligence points to Iran. If Iran actually did it, the evidence would be real and European intelligence agencies would confirm that. They would then immediately throw in with the US and probably contribute forces. China would also support the US action after its intelligence confirms Iran was involved.

Nuclear retaliation would make America appear as a rogue nation and Americans as a bloodthirsty and murderous people.

Not if Iran attacked us first, then the world would support us.

Other nuclear powers might consider pre-emptive strikes on the US. Retaliation or no retaliation, American society might be irreparably split.

Even if the US used nukes and Iran hadn't attacked us, no nuclear power would retaliate on the US, that is nuts. Nobody is committing national suicide over the principals of nuclear control, nobody with a geographical footprint to bomb will ever nuke the US.

And our society would not be split if Iran actually had attacked us. Pacifists would object peacefully and the rest of the country would cheer on the bombs.

And if Iran actually attacked us, the world would be lining up to congratulate us. Nobody likes Iran and if they provoked the attack nobody would oppose it.

But I’ve been wrong before……..What do you think?

I think Iran would have nothing whatsoever to gain from attacking us and everything to lose. Iran is not run by comic book supervillians, it is run by powerful men who are intensely interested in retaining thier power. They arent suicide bombers and never will be, and that is what attacking the US would be, a suicide attack.

Very well thought out, too.

I guess I was working from the most pessimistic of possibilities (its a pessimistic subject)

I'm sure hoping the Iranian leadership are interested in retaining power and not a suicide attack.

most US intelligence analysts are concerned that, after the break-up of the Soviet Union, between 12 and 20 "suitcase-sized" nuclear weapons disappeared. While it remains unlikely that Iran could have produced their own nuclear weapon(s) at this stage, they are among the suspects considered likely to have purchased one of the relatively small ones that remain unaccounted for. The desire to own one, plus the financial resources, added to access to those who may have been marketing them has raised suspicions.

The chances that Iran would funnel one to a group looking for a first strike on the US seem pretty small. Another group with the desire and financial resources could be a radical Islamist front without a national identity.

I think the desire to own a nuclear weapon indicates a lack of rational thought. That said, if one is used -- anywhere in the world -- I think the chances of irrational thought spinning out of control increases. Nuclear weapons are of the dark force, and people do not control the dark force. I hope that rational, moral people step up to bat now. We need nonviolent people to lead the way out of this sad state of affairs.

to prevent further attacks against America, both by the physical destruction of countries responsible for the attack in the first place, and also to make sure everyone knows that attacking America carries with it the certainty of a price too high to pay.

The US has the right under international law to use military force in its legitimate self-defense. A nuclear attack on US soil would undeniably give the US right to act in its self-defense. None of our allies and few of our enemies would think otherwise.

I personally believe Iran will soon become nuclear. But they would certainly not use nuclear weapons against us, either directly or through a terrorist proxy -- they would have to expect we would either know it was them, or simply assume it was them, and act accordingly. All that will happen is a cold war of sorts (mainly between Iran and Israel, or Iran and the Arab states).

Ok, may I assume when you talk about a nuclear device being detonated in New York City (my home, by the way), you are talking about a low-yield weapon? Because in that case, a neighborhood would be destroyed and deaths would be maybe a couple of million immediately, with the numbers rising over time as many of the rest of us died of radiation sickness. So we're not talking about the sort of catastrophe Jonathan Schell envisioned in The Fate of the Earth.

What you are speaking of, then, is merely another "terrorist" bombing -- albeit a rather devastating one.

If I survived the initial blast (let's assume I do), I would hope that people wouldn't jump to the obvious conclusion, that the bogeyman du jour had "hit" or "attacked" us, but that people would demand an honest, thorough investigation before any retaliatory action was taken. I don't understand why people insist that the civilians in a foreign land immediately become a fair target if their government, or even people who may or may not be a part of their government or be supported by it, but may also just live there -- are suspected of doing some heinous crime against civilians of another place.

But I'm just an old lefty bleeding heart liberal.

When are people going to understand that they are being used, that these myths just cloud the truth? Why should the people of NYC or Tehran or Baghdad or Moscow or London or Seoul or Madrid or Tokyo or San Francisco or New Orleans or anyplace else suffer and die so the power brokers of the world can get richer and more powerful?

There are some in Iran who may hate me because I'm American, but I don't have to fall into the trap of hating them back.

:shrug:

I personally don't have a grudge against either one......