Writing in The Australian, Michael Costello brings us face to face with the reality of a nuclear Iran. He writes:
Sometime in the next year or two, Israel is going to have to make a decision. Will it accept that Iran has nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them against Israel? Or will it do what it did to Iraq's developing nuclear capability in 1981 and bomb it out of existence?Costello goes on (emphases mine):
The Iranian leadership is widely hated by its own people. It is a fundamentalist Islamic dictatorship that made a farce of the recent so-called elections - a fundamentalist dictatorship that is another great gift to the world from that fine nation France, just as Iraq's original nuclear reactor was a gift from the generous-hearted people of France. While the Iranian dictatorship is no friend to Osama bin Laden, it does agree with him absolutely on one thing: Israel should cease to exist.And it's not just the namby-pamby Eurocowards who will drag their feet and use "diplomacy" with these turbaned turds; it's also John Kerry. Why, he thinks it's a capital idea to actually assist Iran in developing light-water nuclear technology in exchange for a promise to not develop a nuclear weapons program. It's just that sort of shitheaded cleverness that Carter sold Clinton on in North Korea. And with what result (besides the Democratic LIE that Bush is to blame)? Kim now has The Bomb. What?! You mean they cheated? Why, yes, Madeleine. Yes, they did.
Furthermore, we cannot rely on this kind of dictatorship having the same sense of self-preservation as the US and the Soviet Union showed during the Cold War. Although there were moments when we stood on the brink of nuclear war, each side accepted the terrible logic of mutual assured destruction and stepped back. This is not true of Iran's leadership. Their beliefs embrace death and martyrdom. To rely on a nuclear-armed Iran to show restraint would be a triumph of hope against reason.