What they were doing, inching towards nukes, was a horrible move. In their position, you either sprint covertly and not play at all.
I suspect that after their nuclear program was discovered and set back they fell victim to the sunk cost fallacy and convinced themselves they could repurpose it as leverage. But they are a theocratic regime and their messaging (whether genuine or not) made that a non-viable option in reality.
This is probably what happens when your government isn't very competent and you don't have mathematicians doing game theoretic simulations for you? Theocracy with nukes screams nuke them first if you can't destroy their capability by other means. What happened today likely saved millions of Iranian lives.
I feel very conflicted about what's happening.
On one side it is clear that no country should give up their WMD projects. You lack that deterrent you get attacked, as simple as that. Libya, Syria, Iraq gave up their WMD projects eventually got bombed/attacked.
> What happened today likely saved millions of Iranian lives.
That's speculation. Since you name NK that's a clear example of a country having nuclear deterrent actually saving the region from a conflict.
This is the key. People talk some crazy stories about Iran being a theocratic state whose life mission is destroying Israel but the fact is they don't want to end up like Libya, Syria or any other country Israel considers a threat.
And a reminder - Israel has illegals WMDs, using technology and nuclear material stolen from the US. So thinking Iran will simply nuke Israel because it has that capability is silly - it would mean mutual destruction.
I think the point of this bombing is to change the calculus you just mentioned. Now there’s an actual reason to not try for nukes, you may get bombed.
NK’s conventional weapons (and SK’s pointed right back at them) saved them from conflict, that’s how they got to nukes without us doing something like this. They already had mutually assured destruction from conventional weapons and proximity to an ally.
Iran’s problem is we don’t care much about anyone around them except Israel, and they already would destroy Israel if they could, so they had nobody’s head at which to aim their bullet.
NK’s government is an evil one but the Kims really like being alive and that keeps them somewhat rational. They are quite obviously not religious since they claim to be God (and surely are aware they are not), so they don’t believe in benefits to martyrdom.
Islamism is a death cult (and I mean that literally) so their actions aren’t rational as we would define the word. We can’t rely on their self-preservation instinct the way we can with the Kims.
It's not that simple. Those countries were destined towards collapse with or without nuclear weapons. Iraq, Libya, Syria—those are three countries that fell into catastrophic civil wars, along internal conflict lines, in power vacuums succeeding an unpopular dictator. None of those autocracies were stable in the long-term. (But a nuclear weapon is quite stable; it succeeds the falls of governments and passes on to whoever replaces them).
Deplore US' strategic stupidities all you want; but it's not the only actor with agency in the world.
Would anyone have been better off with Assad fighting a version of the 2010's civil war with nuclear weapons in his arsenal? Or Hussein, that sectarian war? Those are two men who gassed thousands of innocents with nerve agents; they wouldn't surely wouldn't hesitate long about dropping nukes.
(Can you deter a civil war with nuclear weapons?)
We could also ask who would have inherited a hypothetical Qaddafi nuke, after his fall: which Libya? There were at least three Libyas one point. ISIL governed one!
(One semantic nitpick: I don't think it's fair to say those dictators "gave up" their WMD's. With all three, their WMD programs were forcibly taken from them. In Iraq, 1981, the bombing of the Osirak reactor; and again in the 1991 Gulf War the bombing of Tuwaitha (which permanently ended Iraq's uranium enrichment). Qaddafi turned over all his nuclear materials to the USA, after being directly threatened, in the months following US' 2003 invasion of Iraq. And Assad lost his North Korean-built plutonium reactor in 2007, to an airstrike. Did anyone of these dictators have agency in those "give up WMD" choices? I think not).
Once you've obtained some nukes, complete with decent rockets to liv them, nobody is going to mess with you too badly, or try to take the nukes back; you're now a member if the club.
Japan or South Korea would likely be able to produce nuclear weapons in a few months if they needed to. I bet even Ukraine could, with its remaining nuclear plants and relatively advanced industry, and are on friendly terms with the US.
But if you made enemies with the big members of the nuclear club, and with the US in particular, they will do everything to stop you, and your situation would become much harder; that's the case with Iran.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/north-koreas-artill...
Iran’s deterrent was/is through its proxies (Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis) along with its sizable missile inventory, anti-air capabilities and strategic threats to oil and gas exports.
Israel’s investment in missile defense and the outcome of the Oct 7th attacks severely weakened Iran’s deterrence to a conventional attack.
I think the lesson should be that any nation that has enough conventional leverage to deter an attack could choose to build nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons may complement, but can’t displace other capabilities.
The US has nuclear weapons but that didn’t deter Iran from launching direct attacks on US troops in the Middle East or sponsoring insurgents in Iraq. Nuclear weapons are also essential worthless against non nation-state actors such as Al-Qaeda.
That sounds insane. I don't think world would be more peaceful if every country under every government had WMDs. We'd be in the middle of nuclear winter now if that was the case. You could draw analogies to everyone owning a gun. We know it just ends up with many more dead and nothing being more peaceful.
> Since you name NK that's a clear example of a country having nuclear deterrent actually saving the region from a conflict.
He's wrong. What protects North Korea is that it's poor, has no natural resources and devastated human capital and neither attacks anyone with terrorist attacks nor credibly prophesies their intent to kill any nation or ethnicity.
If they did that, they'd be steamrolled already. WMDs or not.
Or had them, and then gave them up because they were under the impression that they would be protected if they did so; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine_and_weapons_of_mass_de...
So, I have an honest (non rhetorical) question: Was NK saved more by having their own nukes, or by sharing a land border with China who has nukes and doesn't want the US getting involved in the area?
That's ahistorical in the case of Syria and Iraq. Israel destroyed the nascent nuclear weapons programmes of Syria and Iraq, just as it has done to Iran's. Syria and Iraq did not give up those programmes willingly.
By your logic, I am a little surprised Iran is still even a state then.
I never understood the logic.. (or maybe it's the theatric element?) There are other WMD that seem much simpler. If they hypothetically release some horrible biological agent in Israel - it could incapacitate the country overnight
Or set off a dirty bomb to make huge regions unlivable (just the perception of radiation risk would preclude many from living there.. see Fukushima)
How has the situation been better in the twenty years NK has had nuclear weapons than the fifty years after the Korean war and before NK got nukes?
No you don't, unless you're a dictatorship (including all the examples you gave).
Religious government or not, Iran has plenty of engineers, statisticians, scientists and intelligence analysts working for their foreign policy and war effort. Your underestimating this betrays prejudice.
2. There are plenty of engineers, statisticians, scientists and intelligence analysts who are religious fanatics or just power hungry or want to advance in the IRGC ranks/carrier ladder. Khamene.ai is a Living God and there are many engineers, statisticians, scientists and intelligence analysts who worship this deity
3. There are also lots of engineers, statisticians, scientists and intelligence analysts who are threatened and forced to work for the IRGC. Just like it was in the Soviet Union under the Communism
America also has lots of brilliant people. Then we have Hegseth, Noem and the other fuck.
Was enriched uranium destroyed? I doubt it.
Have they even "obliterated" Fordow site buried 90 m deep inside the mountain? I have serious doubts.
Iran's nuclear program was set back some months if anything.
I guess means no. However I have no idea what they would say if they did. "Yes we poisoned the whole area for generations to come, success!"
Keep in mind, Israel has full aerial control over Iran and has taken out hundreds of their missile launchers.
We can keep pounding the various nuclear facilities and hinder ant chances of rebuilding, making any effort futile.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea_and_weapons_of_m...
also you say nk uses nukes as deterrent, deterrent from whom? if they deterred any, they were fine deterring it for 40+ years without.
In what sense Israel is not a theocracy.
Interesting that 20% of Israelis do not believe in a deity. 18% are Muslim. In Iran, Jews are 0.03% of the population.
I find this very disingenuous because the person you replied to was talking only about Iran, and stating that Iran is a theocracy in their opinion. They never mentioned anything about Iran, let alone stating that Israel isn't a theocracy.
So asking this question, this way, is quite strange in my opinion.
I think the "Jewish state" refers to how the country serves as the homeland for the jewish people, not how they force a religion upon others.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_state
Israel's legal definition is "Jewish and Democratic state", which explicitly ensures "complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex".
Israel started bombing Iran and they returned fire. Is trump asking the largest economic and military power in the region to sit by idle as Israel sends missiles and bombs daily? He won't clarify even when asked directly. I don't think we have any reason to believe his narrative if he can't even explain it himself.
I would also like to add that Trump himself is the one who removed IAEA inspectors from routine inspections of Iran, so occams razor would suggest this ambiguity is by design.
> IAEA inspectors
What are some good reasons for producing >60% HEU?
> This is probably what happens when your government isn't very competent
Well now we should all be terrified.
> Theocracy with nukes screams nuke them first
You should reflect on the religious elements prominently at play within these belligerent states.
I deplore kakistocracy of any stripe, but it is obvious that dictatorships and dictatorship-curious regimes of any sort are an existential threat.
Why are you swallowing the propaganda you've been spoon-fed?
"Gabbard: Iran is not currently developing nuclear weapons"
https://jewishinsider.com/2025/03/gabbard-iran-is-not-curren...
You're misunderstanding their position and that's why it seems idiotic to you: they stopped working on building nukes back in 2003, after that date all they did was using the ability to get nukes as a negotiation leverage, that's how they got JPCoA in 2015 and since the US unilaterally left it in 2018 and the rest of the Western world failed to keep it working (that would have required courage to anger the US), Iran was seeking to force a new deal by raising the bar a bit: they announced back in 2022 that they'd enrich up to 60% in order to increase their negotiation leverage, but they didn't go past that stage nor did they work on the militarization tech in the meantime, because they weren't aiming to get the bomb at all.
Today strike on Iran nuclear sites endangers millions of American and Israeli lives. It teaches Tehran the same lesson North Korea learned long ago. That only a nuclear deterrent secures a regime survival. To believe Iran will absorb this blow without striking back is not merely naive, it is dangerously delusional.
It is also clear any Iranian nuclear critical assets were moved to alternative secret sites long before the strikes, as satellite photos show: "Satellite images show activity at Iran’s Fordo nuclear facility before U.S. air strikes" - https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/22/satellite-images-show-activi...
Note that I'm not a fan of Israel, condemn their genocide in Gaza, and consider Netanyahu a war criminal. I'm also not a fan of this attack on Iran and prefer a peaceful and democratic overthrow of that regime. But calling the attack unprovoked is not entirely correct; Iran spends a lot of time provoking Israel.
Put those Israeli shoes on. There's a state armed with ballistic missiles in easy range of you, they have the facilities necessary to enrich weapons grade Uranium, recently acquired more advanced centrifuges, they have the uranium already enriched far beyond what's necessary for civilian use, they have far more of it than they credibly need for such civilian use, and they believe god has ordered them to destroy you.
How well would you sleep at night?
And the US is full of Christo-fascists who believe they have a religious duty to "defend" Israel by any means necessary.
It absolutely blows my mind that in this day and age people are taking sides on a religious war. Stay out. Stay far out. There is no winning. There is no stopping the conflict. Every side has an ordained right to blow the others off the face of the planet. The only thing to see is human atrocities as far as the eye in the name of <your god of choice>.
> There's a state ... [that has] ... the facilities necessary to enrich weapons grade Uranium
Do they? It's oft repeated. But I vaguely remember this country being sold on an Iraq invasion due to nukes. Nukes that never existed and never were close to existing. This wasn't a simple miscalculation. The nukes were entirely and knowingly fictional. And that's just one example of a bullshit made-up reason this nation has started a war to waste lives.
How do you think Palestinians sleep at night? With the threat of Israel, funded by the largest military in the world, looming over them every night?
Why should I believe my country today? Why is today the day of all days that the truth is finally being told? Why is today the day that god is real and I should jump in on the bloodshed?
Your masters are lying to you, to their benefit. They didn't wake up today and decide to be honest.
Israel doesn't fear Iran's nukes. Israel fears an economically functional Iran and uses the wmd excuse to sabotage it as much as possible. The worst possible outcome for them is Iran proving it has no nuclear weapons at all and having its sanctions lifted.
Well, considering that Israeli's are occupying land that rightfully belongs to someone else, I'd say not very well indeed. It's the final major European colonial outpost, and its fighting hard not to go the way of Algeria, Kenya, Malaya and a long long list of others.
Maybe, but obviously the other side thinks exactly the same.
Religious wars were lots of fun five centuries ago. They will be funnier still in the nuclear age.
I believe this is very important to highlight, and, unfortunately, many Iranians will suffer because of the Iranian government's views.
But I do believe there are viewpoints held on both sides that can make achieving peace in that region extremely difficult. Consider these two video excerpts (You only need to watch about 10 seconds for each)
Do they? What is this based on? My understanding was that they were reacting to a pattern of imperialism of which Israel was the crown jewel. Is there actually something inherent about the Shi'ite religion which says Israel must fall?
In which case, I suppose that any resistance I might do would have the state call me an anti-Semite.
Be serious.
This is no justification to ignore international law. But that's dead now. Nobody will ever care again until we're done with the next big war or something. Bomb away...
So you're saying we're here because America has mathematicians doing game theoretic simulations and this is the best move?
Religion is just another ideology, and it s not like Islam has a specific position about nuclear energy
Energy is fine, but nukes are haram. This is THE reason they haven't built any nukes the last 40+ years.
Changing a religious decree of that nature requires a very big excuse which has never existed. Israel and the US threatening Iran's existence and threatening to kill millions of Muslims is the ONE thing I can think of that would allow Khamenei an "out" to actually build a nuke.
By this I mean the religious ideological move is eternal punishment for what they deem unsatisfactory or eternal bliss for compliance, no other branch.
Other ideologies invoke similar (infinite growth in capitalism, e.g.) but those are hyperbole for proselytization. An ideology that attempts to persuade with either the most egregious stick possible or the most delicious carrot possible makes religion the least palatable of ideologies.
Whether this fulfills that goal, we will see, but anything that weakens the regime is good for the Iranian people.
People lack common sense, but not their appetite to ingurgitate the daily three meals that the propaganda machines prepared for them.
