Israel launches attack on Iran | US bombs Iran nuke sites

HandsonFire said:
I really don’t want boots on the ground or an occupation , but I feel the only answer to your question is invasion/inspection of all Iranian nuclear sites/labs/facilities/ etc. To just drop a bomb on it and let it cave in on itself, you don’t really know what was there, if it’s still there, or if it got moved sold given to someone else. So if it must be done do it, but when it’s over get the hell out and let the Iranian people figure out their own government. Problem with this view is, if Israel/US isn’t influencing them Russia China or someone else is . In a perfect world Iranians would be in a vaccum to figure it out, but wish in one hand..
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I'm guessing nuclear scientists know exactly what is there in the enrichment facilities. Nuclear reactions are pretty well mapped out. There isn't much mystery. It's not as if anyone can invent new reactions.

And from a dirty bomb perspective, I don't know if there would be anything there that would be helpful. You can see my post above, but I don't think dirty bombs want uranium or plutonium. Not being a dirty bomb maker, I don't know that for sure, but the properties one would want out of a "dirty" material just don't line up with the heavy metals in the enrichment facilities.

A bigger risk would be that someone might steal some of the almost enriched plutonium and then finish enriching it. Pakistan, for instance, has nukes but I'm not sure we know how many, and I'm not sure they are really capable of producing more. But if they grab some of the plutonium, might they be able to make a couple more?

It's also worth pointing out that this is all advanced technology. The average Islamic terrorist has no training in nuclear physics. They would need scientists with them, scientists not making the best terrorists for a number of reasons.
 
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TarSpiel said:
So would I, but I agree that attacking Iran directly greatly increases the odds of them (or one of their proxies) attacking us directly.
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Attacking them directly, which would be done to ensure Fordow is destroyed, eliminates the possibility of Iran doing any real damage to us, even if they wanted to.
 
wmheel1287 said:
For precisely this reason...being involved in every aspect of the region when we have no business being such. Leave those people alone...and that includes Israel.

Not our circus and not our monkeys.
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We have business. The business is preventing Iran from acquiring nukes that could be used against us.
 
ZenMode said:
Attacking them directly, which would be done to ensure Fordow is destroyed, eliminates the possibility of Iran doing any real damage to us, even if they wanted to.
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This is almost certainly wrong. OBL practically destroyed the republic with 9/11.
 
ZenMode said:
Attacking them directly, which would be done to ensure Fordow is destroyed, eliminates the possibility of Iran doing any real damage to us, even if they wanted to.
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It depends what you mean by "real damage," and in any case, it doesn't "eliminate" anything permanently.

It's an extremely dumb idea for us to get involved. If Bibi wants to put his country at risk, let him do it. It would be just as dumb, but at least we wouldn't have to be involved.
 
ZenMode said:
We have business. The business is preventing Iran from acquiring nukes that could be used against us.
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So does that mean other countries have the right to attack us for weapons development? Im just trying to figure out the logic here.

Perhaps (and im just spitballing here), the main reason Iran wants a nuke is to prevent being at the whim of Israel and the US who have been the real aggressors in the ME for at least the last 35 years.
 
superrific said:
So let's say a plutonium dirty bomb exploded on Wall Street. I have my doubts that the fallout would extend beyond Canal Street or Houston Street. And people in the Wall Street area could be evacuated without taking too much radiation. Now, Lower Manhattan would have to be shut down for a while while the stuff is cleaned up, so it would be impactful economically, but the death toll would probably be modest.

Which is, ironically, why Iran might try that approach. It's like a big escalation without being a turn-your-country-into-glass level escalation.
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If Iran or its proxies set off any type of nuclear bomb in lower Manhattan it would definitely be a turn your country into glass level of escalation, regardless of the death toll...
 
hedge said:
If Iran or its proxies set off any type of nuclear bomb in lower Manhattan it would definitely be a turn your country into glass level of escalation, regardless of the death toll...
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Well maybe Lower Manhattan wouldn't be the right target. Or maybe I'm just full of shit about this. It seems plausible that the reaction to a dirty bomb would be less than the reaction to a nuke (if for no other reason than to disincentivize nuke production), but plausible isn't the same as true.
 
wmheel1287 said:
So does that mean other countries have the right to attack us for weapons development? Im just trying to figure out the logic here.

Perhaps (and im just spitballing here), the main reason Iran wants a nuke is to prevent being at the whim of Israel and the US who have been the real aggressors in the ME for at least the last 35 years.
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The invasion of Iraq told every country everywhere, get a nuke or die. Following the rules doesn't protect you. Nukes protect you. Iran is getting bombed and nobody dares go near North Korea.
 
My understanding is that the diminution of Iranian air defenses makes success highly probable, but that could be military happy talk.

There has been talk of Israel mounting a commando raid on Fordow, but I don't know how realistic that is, especially now that they wouldn't have the element of surprise/
 
RaiGuy said:
Israel doesn't want to risk it's own soldiers' lives, so they are kind enough to volunteer the US to risk our soldiers' lives.
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Of course. If we get directly involved then we're suckers, plain and simple. Not unlike what the South Vietnamese did during the Vietnam War - we did much of the fighting for them while they hung back. And when we finally left for good in 1973 and North Vietnam and the Viet Cong attacked, the South Vietnamese military, now forced to carry the burden of fighting on their own, mostly folded like a house of cards and the war ended rather quickly. And Israel isn't even like South Vietnam as they've shown that they are fully capable of defending themselves and taking out Iranian assets by themselves. And yet they want us to put our people at risk to try and end a war they started.
 
Afghanistan is a more recent example than South Vietnam.

The only thing on the table that we can do that Israelis can't is to bomb Fordow from the air. I mean, we can do additional things that the Israelis can't, but they shouldn't be under consideration.
 
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