Real Iran Plan: Breaking Spirit Of The Israelis?

IBD Editorials ^ | May 28, 2009 | Victor Davis Hanson

[Kaslin]

Why would the Iranian government spend billions of dollars on trying to develop a few first-generation nuclear bombs (as nearly everyone believes is the case) when the country is so poor that it has to ration gasoline?

A lot of reasons have been offered by various experts.

Upon developing a nuclear weapon, states win instant prestige and attention beyond what they might have earned. Take away its bomb, and North Korea would be in the news about as much as Chad.

Nuclear weapons also can change the nature of conventional warfare.

Israel's Arab neighbors have not waged a full-scale traditional war against Israel since 1973 — in part because there is no longer a nuclear-patron Soviet Union around to threaten the use of nukes should Israel strike too strongly back against its aggressors.

But give Iran a bomb or two, and it will be able to guarantee Hezbollah and Hamas — or a coalition of Muslim states — a secure fallback position if they attack Israel and lose.

Then there is inter-Islamic rivalry. If Iran gets a bomb, it will send a message that the Persian Shiites, not the Sunni Arabs, are the true effective defenders of the faith against the Zionist entity.

Tehran will also remind these monarchies and dictatorships that Iran is an ascending revolutionary power that appeals to the Muslim masses across geographical boundaries.

[CollegeRepublican]

Interesting theory, but I still think the little man in Iran is just plain crazy and wants his Immam to return ASAP.

[sheik yerbouty]

He should be sent to his “virgins” forthwith..

[Cindy]

A Look at Iran
http://www.truthusa.com/IRAN.html

[SunkenCiv]

alas...

Victor Davis Hanson: Israel’s Cuban Missile Crisis
- All the Time ... if Iran gets the bomb
NRO | May 28, 2009 | Victor Davis Hanson
Posted on 05/28/2009 10:16:43 AM PDT by Tolik
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2259949/posts

[lentulusgracchus]

The burden of the article is in these two grafs (excerpting):

And it seems likely that within a decade or two, a nuclear Iran could so demoralize the Israelis by such psychological intimidation that it could unravel Israel demographically....

Already, the Obama administration — through pro-Palestinian Middle East affairs nominations like Charles Freeman and Samantha Power, its pledge to help rebuild Gaza, its outreach to Syria and Iran, and its irritation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — seems to be telling Israel that it's increasingly on its own.