“If Iran wants to destroy the U.S., not merely cripple it, it would need several hundred bombs and launchers.”
It needs 3 bombs and the ability to detonate them at the proper altitude and location.
“Meanwhile, Iran would be reduced to trinitite.”
Its an acceptable tradeoff for their leaders.
Where you think they would target?
Its an acceptable tradeoff for their leaders.
Unlike other nuclear powers, the mullahs want to be incinerated if it means their “12th imam” crawls out of the well.
Even the Soviet Union was never that nuts. Castro and Guevara wanted to commandeer the missiles in Cuba, and that scared the crap out of Khruschev - the real reasonthe missiles were pulled out. Maybe the Chinese would be crazy enough, calling the loss of a few hundred million of their own population acceptable (a thought publically express by one of their generals BTW). That could be overridden.
But still that leaves the mad mullahs (maybe with the civilians looking to send them to Evin Prison), or Lil Kim gets depressed and ronery.