And if they don’t take them out, I wonder what would be the estimate of civilian casualties.
“And if they don’t take them out, I wonder what would be the estimate of civilian casualties.”
This is a damned-if-you-do damned-if-you-don’t situation. To neutralize Iran’s impact on the region may require killing Iranians on the scale of the Dresden bombings. But, allowing them to go nuclear will let them place bombs in any city anywhere and set them off at leisure. Remember, Iran has a hostage taking culture going back to Darius. They won’t use nukes the way others use them. They’ll go for forward deterrence; pre-placing them in countries around the world. Even if we do go to war with them then, we will lose millions of people even if we level the entire country. (Which, we won’t, as the Iranian people have nothing to do with the nukes. It’s just a hand full of nutjobs running the place. And, those are in power thanks to Jimmy Carter. Elections DO have consequences.)