It's "OK" because they have them. That's the point. Once a nation gets them, there is little you can do about it. Same rule applies to Pakistan and North Korea, not just Israel.All in all, I appreciate your view. But I'm not sure its born out by the facts. Or at least what I consider a reasonable interpretation of those facts.I don't know the answer the original question, but I do wonder if the actions Trump has taken has made it more or less likely Iran is able to build a nuclear weapon to potentially use it. If the JCPOA had remained in tact would we have been better off long term?
The JCPOA was never a long-term solution. Under the terms at the time, Iran would have eventually been back to building a nuke, anyway. The purpose of the JCPOA was just to buy time.
IIUC, there were expiration/sunset provisions built in, but those served more as signals for renegotiation than turning Iran loose.
Renegotiation? As you get closer to those dates, Iran has all of the leverage. Reasonable negotiations were never a realistic expectation.
I have to disagree. Iran stayed in compliance with JCPOA, which the Trump administration confirmed in 2018. Once Trump pulled out, they went from no enrichment, to enough for a dozen nukes in the last 8 years.
After all of this, what leverage was gained, and by whom? All we have now shown is our capability and our weakness. And are in much worse leverage position than we were 8 years ago. Complete strategic failure.
Shot our wad and now look like the limp dick.
The Iranians want money. Foreign investment. And they are clearly much better at negotiating than we are.
First, saying the Trump administration confirmed something isn't very convincing, is it?
Iran has a long track record of hiding its nuclear work from the IAEA--Natanz and Fordow enrichment sites were both built in secret and only exposed by outside intelligence. The pre-2003 weapons program was concealed for years. And Mossad captured 2018 dox that showed Iran had access to confidential IAEA reocrds and used them to build cover storeis to hide parts of its program. The JCPOA stated Iran had to come clean about its nuclear development and those dox showed it was actively concealing and preserving it during the deal. So maybe they complied with enrichment restrictions during the JCPOA--maybe--but they certainly lied about what they had going into it.
https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-707661
Second, if you're going to trust Iran now regarding their lack of nuclear development, why don't you trust them w/r/t what they say about "death to Israel" and "death to the United States?" How is that in their personal economic interests? How is it rational for them to continue to fund terrorist attacks against Israel? If they were just economic rational actors, they wouldn't be continually seeking to undermine areas of the Middle East, would they?
https://www.hoover.org/research/threat-any-language
None of us know the truth on any of this, but I think there is a lot more evidence of them lying about their nuclear ambitions than there is about their ambitions to destroy Israel and screw with the U.S.
Personally, I'm not sure why we are okay with Israel having nukes. People don't know how many they even have because they won't say. How is that okay?
Why are there rules for others that Israel doesn't have to follow?
How many nukes does Israel have compared to North Korea and Pakistan?
90 vs 60 and 170, respectively, per Wiki