1 hour ago, Pooter said:

I’m not getting the alarmism from the media.. it’s from your post:

“It is completely conceivable they would strike us, Israel or Europe first with a nuclear weapon in an unattributable manner.“

No it’s actually not. Why do you just take that as a given? North Korea has nukes now, why haven’t they funneled one to a terror organization and blown up Seoul or Tokyo or NYC? Because it would be obviously attributable.. you think if a nuke goes off in Tel Aviv and because the terrorists that hypothetically did it weren’t draped in Iranian flags it’s some giant mystery where they got it from? Did they get it from France? Of course it’s attributable. These regimes want the nukes as a deterrent and tool to ensure their own survival. You think they’d spend all that time and energy to make one and then give it away to some 3rd party who may or may not even set it off properly? You guys act like all these countries are lunatic isis-style suicidal head choppers but they actually spend most of their time acting in their own rational self interest.

And the whole point is moot because our own intel community assessed they weren’t building a bomb but clearly we’re gonna keep ignoring that..

This hypothetical nuke situation is all just another GWOT WMD pretext for war and maybe you don’t watch Fox News but somehow the Mark Levin boomer talking points have filtered down to you through the algorithm. Netanyahu has been saying Iran is weeks/months from a nuke since the 1990s. You can find the compilations on YouTube.

The regime you reference is a rabidly atheist communist cult of personality regime that has negative 10,000% in common with a fanatical Islamic dictatorship, they wouldn’t give an Islamic terror group or regime nuclear weapons or the knowledge to build them because on a good day they are frenemies who barely tolerate the other, only thru their shared extreme enmity to us are they not decrying the other.

Just to cover this, Pakistan is in reality a mildly Islamic mainly military dictatorship that runs a country of varying Islamic adherence. They have their own security risks with Islamic terrorism and subversion, they have no interest in arming a group willing to attack with a nuclear weapon.

Two things can be true at once, the Iranian regime wants nukes to both assure regime survival and to use against the infidels one day. Russia, China know this and that is but one reason why they want an Iran strong enough to threaten us but not one that is nuclear capable to threaten them.

As to your point on WMD and false / flimsy reasons for OIF, yes there were not vast stockpiles of WMD but there were some

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/10/15/356360949/pentagon-reportedly-hushed-up-chemical-weapons-finds-in-iraq

Is that enough to justify the invasion, decapitation and ensuing occupation? Not by itself but it was but one reason to get rid of the problem, the Baathist regime, rather than let it live and naively hope it changes for the better.

The public assessment of the IC I’ll leave it be but methinks The Onion had it right back in 2014

The Onion

Iranian Team Openly Working On Bomb In Negotiating Room

VIENNA—Asserting the Middle Eastern nation’s right to a safe, peaceful energy program, members of the Iranian diplomatic team attempted to seek more favorable terms of a deal with the P5+1 global powe

Every negotiation, every agreement, every summit, every engagement is/was a delaying tactic to just get to a bomb.

Edited 2 hours ago2 hr by Clark Griswold

Always find stats interesting and this just dropped from one of the better folks out today (I think). Haven't read it yet, no opinion on my part, just wanted to share -

Iran War support: Latest Polls | Silver Bulletin