Iran getting nukes is the spark that will start a lot of chain reactions.
And islamic populations are radicalized enough that the possibility of a nuke on Israel increases dramatically.
A fair concern, but it is interesting that although "estimates of Israel's stockpile range between 90 and 400 nuclear warheads" [1], we are not concerned about those warheads as much as we do about the ones Iran might have. Should US bomb Israeli nuclear plants? No. Should they have bombed the Iranian ones? Why?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Israel
There are many allies of the US, still they are not exempt from the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). I'm not sure if it's a sane strategy to permit a single ally who has never signed the NPT [1] to build nuclear weapons, unlike your many other allies or non-allies:
> The roots of this preferential treatment go back to a secret 1969 understanding between U.S. President Richard Nixon and Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir. The agreement essentially allowed Israel to keep its nuclear weapons as long as it remained silent about them and avoided nuclear tests. That bargain has held ever since, with successive U.S. administrations turning a blind eye to what would be a clear violation of international norms if committed by any other state.
Causing a power imbalance in the region doesn't seem the right way to keep peace.
[1] https://www.eurasiareview.com/23062025-israels-nuclear-ambig...
The next facilities they build will be a few times deeper, and I have no doubt we’ll soon be hearing that ground troops are the only way to stop them.
I don't know how long these operations will set them back, but if the Iranian regime won't willingly refrain from nuclear weapons work, isn't a delay better than nothing?
These attacks make it clear that they would have been better off if they had gotten them, so it seems reasonable to assume this will be their new policy. What other strategic choice have they been left with?
Being an NPT signatory could be evidence of Iran not working toward nuclear weapons, if they were compliant. But they have violated their NPT obligations on some occasions, with major violations recently.
There are a lot of reasons to be enriching uranium besides building nuclear weapons. Considering the US reneged on its deal to drop sanctions in exchange for Iran to not enrich uranium, it is pretty obviously useful as a bargaining chip, in the negotiations.
The US intelligence community assessed that Iran has not been working on a bomb since the program was shut down in 2003. They didn't want a nuke, they wanted an end to sanctions. They further wanted to avoid provoking exactly this sort of conflict. This did not delay them getting nuclear weapons, it will make them get nuclear weapons.
And the development of a nuclear sites leaves a significant intelligence trail, not sure it can be hidden.
(Of course they can always be gifted a bomb, but that's a very different story)
How do you plan to handle a world with Islamic populations having nukes? Because that's something you will have to plan for. You have no choice. They will not let you not let them have nukes. They will make sure they will have nukes. That's just given.
I have not lived in the US, and I know a lot about the US national character.
