USS Clueless              Voyages of a restless mind

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Stardate 20011217.2011 (On Screen via long range sensors): Former Iranian President Rafsanjani has made a speech suggesting that at such time as a Muslim nation gets nuclear weapons, it should use them on Israel because, in essence, "it'll hurt them a lot more than the response will hurt us." Right now only one Muslim nation admits to having the bomb: Pakistan. It's very unlikely that any power in that area will get thermonuclear weapons any time soon. Those are very complicated to produce. So what we're talking about here are fission weapons, likely 30 kilotons or less. As scary as nukes are, a weapon like that is much less devastating than you might think. Israel looks mighty small on a map, but it would actually take a lot of such weapons to really defeat the nation. The Tel Aviv area would require more than one; and you've got several other cities which would require one each. And it's unlikely that any Muslim would ever agree to nuke Jerusalem. Still, that could cause drastic damage to the Israeli cause. But what would the response be?

First, there's Israel itself. If such an attack were launched, there can be no question that they would respond in kind, and likely indiscriminately. Exactly how many such weapons they have has never been revealed to my knowledge, but I have no doubt they have at least a couple of dozen. Major Arab targets within reach of the Israeli air force: Damascus, Beirut, Cairo, Amman, Riyadh. Some of those would be one-way trips, but you can believe that Israel could find people to fly such missions.

"If a day comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with the arms Israel has in its possession, the strategy of colonialism would face a stalemate because application of an atomic bomb would not leave anything in Israel but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world."

I don't know about that.The jackpot prize would be Mecca, which is less than a thousand miles from Israeli territory. How would a devout Muslim like Rafsanjani feel if Mecca were reduced to radioactive rubble? Would that count as "just damage"?

But that would be the least of their worries. If any nation like that (or Israel itself) ever uses nuclear weapons first-strike, it's going to face a large-power reaction that will make Afghanistan look like a walk in the park. No matter who does it, it sets off World War III (though not necessarily between major powers). I really hope that Rafsanjani is aware enough of the world situation to understand what an awesomely stupid act that would be. And I wish he'd stop trying to give ideas to people. (discuss)