Israel’s Choice: Conventional War Now, or Nuclear War Later | Hacker News Reader

Israel’s Choice: Conventional War Now, or Nuclear War Later

wsj.com

7 pointsrch11 comments

So... article by a Netanyahu shill trying to justify starting an unprovoked war. Curious why this is hackernews worthy? I mean heck, it directly defies the site guidelines:

>Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.

The IDF social media division must be out in full force trying to sway public opinion early on with this one.

> Curious why this is hackernews worthy?

It isn't.

I think that Israel has more advanced technology than Iran. Israel has more startups and has innovated a lot of things. During the late 1990s I was interviewed by an Israeli startup that did document management and they had cutting edge technology that they were developing for it. I wanted to work from my local city but the job was in Israel so I couldn't do it because my wife didn't want me to move. I had to pass up a lot of job offers because I couldn't relocate.

But Israel has advanced technology over Iran and Palestine, and if they wanted to wage a conventional war they'd have the technological advantage over their enemies unless some first world nation gives better technology to their enemies.

The thing about nuclear war is that eventually given enough time any given nation will find a way to make a nuclear warhead. The USA made atomic bombs using 1940s technology and dropped them on Japan. While they were primitive based on what we have today, they were effective.

In truth the fewer nations that have nuclear bombs the better, and we really should be disarming nuclear bombs because of their potential to destroy the world. But we still build nuclear bombs in an arms race with other nations, and other nations want their own nuclear bombs.

Israel, especially with its technological superiority, Western backing and Iron Dome, would most certainly win. Would still be quite costly.

> The brutal truth is that the actual alternatives before us are not Mr. Obama’s deal or war. They are conventional war now or nuclear war later.

I think this warrants some discussion...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Podhoretz

Podhoretz wrote in February 2002 that "There is no doubt that Saddam already possesses large stores of chemical and biological weapons, and may ... be 'on the precipice of nuclear power.' ... Some urge that we ... concentrate on easier targets first. Others contend that the longer we wait, the more dangerous Saddam will grow. Yet whether or not Iraq becomes the second front in the war against terrorism, one thing is certain: there can be no victory in this war if it ends with Saddam Hussein still in power."

I wonder how a person like this can keep on pontificating after being proven so unbelievably wrong. You'd think they would retreat into the woods and become a hermit out of shame, or something.

Exactly. It is not clear to me why Podhoretz should be taken seriously by anyone who is not looking for a pretext for another Middle Eastern war.

Also, the US nuclear power industry was bragging about how Iran was developing as a nuclear power in the 1970s ( https://www.pinterest.com/pin/2674080998749170/ ).

You could say the US thinks the current Iranian leadership is too religiously zealous. But the US (and UK) overthrew Iran's secular parliament in 1953 and installed a dictator by bankrolling the ayatollahs, such as Mohammad Behbahani ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta... ).

We here talk of a danger to Israel...what about a danger to the Iranians, who have lived there for a long time and now have to contend with millions of Jews who moved into the region in the past decades from Russia and Brooklyn, displacing Palestinians. Who are nuclear armed themselves - but bringing that into the discussions of a peace plan is off the table apparently - Jews from Brooklyn new to the Middle East can have the bomb, Iranians who have been there for thousands of years are restricted even in having nuclear power. Podhoretz is right about one thing - the situation will not hold forever. When it changes, it will probably not be in a manner he will be happy with.

False dichotomy.

The fact is that there is a greater East-West struggle going on right now. It was Saddam. Now it is Assad. Next it may be Rouhani.

The Middle East is caught between Eurasia and Europe: the East's plans to move Westward and the West's plans to move Eastward and the conflict in each of these regions to ensure their security into the future and their access to geostrategic assets.

Obama's deal gets a 10 year delay on nuclear forces. So while it may appear to be conventional now or nuclear tomorrow, it's conventional now or nuclear in 10 years.

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