The question of Iran's nuclear intentions is uncertain, at best. On this we all agree, right? Nobody outside of Tehran knows for sure. Mayne even no one inside Tehran knows, either.
No, I would not agree on this: At best, the U.S. intelligence community is accurate in its assessment that Iran abandoned a nuclear weapons program, and Iran is adhering to the religious decrees of the Ayatollahs forbidding the possession or use of nuclear weapons.
The worst case scenario, on the other hand, is Iran is attempting to build a nuclear weapon.
The options and the odds of any result in between are not "at best, maybe"-at best, we do have evidence purporting to prove that Iran does not seek nuclear weapons, and we do have the statements of Iran's highest authorities that such a project is illegal in Iran.
So, if Israel guesses that Iran will not use nuclear weapons on Israel, then the consequences of being wrong are infinite. Nuked into oblivion. Wiped from the pages of history, as Mahmoud likes to put it.
Again, not true: the consequences of being wrong are not being nuked. The worst realistic consequence is that Iran will possess some nuclear weapons. The idea that Iran is going to automatically nuke Israel is outlandish-and, again, even that outlandish risk has to be weighed against other risks.
There are no risk free options-and at this point, the risk of Iran using nuclear weapons in a preemptive strike is significantly smaller than the risk that nuclear weapons will be eventually used on Israel
as a product of an Israeli war on Iran. The most realistic scenario for Israel being nuked isn't Iran acquiring them-it's Iran or another state acquiring them from Pakistan and using them in retaliation for an Israeli attack.
You are too quick to weigh the risk of a mistake on Iran's intentions, and because of that, you aren't properly considering the risk that retaliation poses. There are already nukes out there in the world very near Iran, with countries whose populations are far more sympathetic to Iran than Israel...so you need to weigh that in factoring the risk of attacking versus not attacking.
The best outcome for everyone would be for Iran to drop its nuclear ambitions and move towards peaceable relations with all of their neighbors. That way the rest of the world wouldn't be forced to guess, and there wouldn't be any possibility of getting it wrong. I just don't see that happening any time soon.
The problem is that many will never stop "guessing"-Iran claims it does not seek nuclear weapons, and the USA amongst other intelligence agencies has concluded that it does not seek nuclear weapons. To date there has not been one shred of evidence to suggest that Iran actually has a weapons program-so it's hard to imagine what would constitute abandoning nukes as opposed from now.
The best outcome would be for Israel and Iran both to make peace with their neighbors. As long as Israel is at odds with Lebanon and Syria and the Palestinians, what Iran chooses to do will be largely irrelevant in terms of the big picture.
The state cannot survive on military strength forever, regardless of what happens in Iran in the next decade. I think this scenario is much more likely to occur if both Israel and Iran stop oppressing their own citizens, and promote American style personal freedoms in
both countries.
Maybe if the Israeli government were accountable for protecting the individual rights of Israelis, instead of being preoccupied with maintaining a dense, mainly dysfunctional military bureaucracy that raids the public's funds and censors any dissenting views, the Israeli people themselves could also have an honest voice in this.
