[Tail Gunner John]

I agree with you up to the point of taking 10 years to play out after Iran gets nukes. I think it plays out in a matter of months after Iran gets nukes. It plays out when one or more American cities are vaporized.

[JasonC]

Nope. They will wait until they have around 50 of the things. Enough to (a) destroy Israel (b) have some prepositioned in the west for blackmail (c) enough remaining to threaten to destroy the gulf oil assets and close the straits etc and (d) some left even after those threats for general deterrence. Then they figure their proxies can get away with setting some off for real, without anyone daring to retaliate against Iran directly. After all, is anyone willing to retaliate against China or Russia today, over Iran or North Korea? No. They want the same relation to Hezbollah, Hamas, and Al-Q.