who will cling to their supposed ability to read the minds of religious fanatics, in order to tell us we have nothng to worry about. It seems to me that what we are witnesssing in this commenter is either fear or ignorance:
“Ron you have in the recent past advanced a theory about Iran inevitably using nuclear weapons against Israel.
Your subsequent posts have tried to justify your gloomy prediction.
What you don’t take into account is the ability of Israel to defend itself.
If Iran bombs Israel the Isrealis (sic) will retaliate with lethal force.
Even the Iranian ruling clique while capbable of sending others on suicide missions don’t themselves want to suffer such a fate.’
So this commenter apparnetly just knows how “the Iranian ruling clique” thinks and–surprise!–they think just like us rational types in the West, just like him. (I’m assuming it’s a male speaking, the know-it-all tone suggests so). So we and the Israelis can rely on his assurances, having read the minds of “the Iranian ruling clique” that they’d never do anything that seems crazy to his Western point of view.
This requires an ignorance or willed blindness to the apocalyptic strain of Iranian Shiite theology–the ideology of the “Twelvers”, the believers–very influential in Iranian ruling circles–that it will rquire apocalyptic nuclear warfare or its deadly equivalent to bring the Twelfth or Hidden Imam out of the well in the Holy City of Qom where he has taken refuge for centuries.
It requires ignorance of the statement of former Iranian president Rafsanjani on the matter, as far back as 2002–that Iran would welcome a nuclear exchange with Israel because although Iran would suffer great “damage” Israel would no longer exist, “there would be nothing left on the ground”. (quite specifically genocidal and not defensible as merely a euphemism like “wipe Israel off the map”. No a trade off, a few million artyred iranians, a billion and a half Muslims left alive, Israelis exterminated. Of course no rational person would think like that, but that’s the point.
Israel can’t “defend itself” by retaliating against an Iranian nuclear attack, it can only revenge itself posthumously with submarine based rataliatory missiles because Israel would be no more.
. It would be nice to pretend that old fashioned deterrence obtained, but it worked with the Soviet Union precisely because their leadership had a sense of self preservation, were not apoclalyptic religious fanatics. Things would be so much more comfy and all if that were the case with Iran. People always like to believe there are easy answers and talk in know-it-all tones that there’s nothing much to be concerned about. It makes life easier for them and in a way I envy their willed ignorance. Ignorance is bliss, they say. . But at a certain point this degree of ignorance on this matter is inexcusable.
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