Disagree on the "hot war" in the Middle East.
I think the Iran situation is far overblown in the media, and it's an agitprop tool for defense spending here in the US.
There was just recently an article I read on how Pakistan is getting ready to start selling nukes to Saudi Arabia. Sounds like the Saudis are getting ready to take care of their own national defense rather than rely on us, and they're banking on MAD to protect them along with conventional forces.
Our poor relations with Iran date back to Nixon's petrodollar negotiations with Saudi Arabia, and Iran not being included or going along with that system. If the petrodollar negotiations are "nixed" then the reason for negative relations with Iran are basically flushed down the toilet. The whole nukular Iran thing is a load of hogwash, IMO. It's been a media bugbear that gets pranced out once a year, with Iran being "weeks away" from a nuclear weapon every year for the last decade or more. That boy has cried wolf too many times.
The Iranian program is definitely “real”, and I do believe the timeline to a deployable bomb is indeed “soon”. Reliable Paki/Indian-grade devices that can be put on re-worked Chinese and Russian IRBM tech, probably a few more years. (Like what the Saudi’s are cashing in on now with the Pakistanis.)
However, I too think the end-game is MAD. Iran essentially wants MAD to immunize them from any serious repercussions from their M.O. of engaging in constant Shia vs. Sunni/Wahabi, Shia vs. Jew, and Shia vs. West low grade proxy-warfare indefinitely.
Besides it playing into their ideological desires, they
need to keep poking everyone with Hezbollah and other client militant groups of theirs for their internal stability. At home, the “revolution” is increasingly unpopular, and by maintaining a constant state of external crisis, now hopefully limited from going “full rodeo” by MAD, dissent is perpetually painted as being that much more treasonous.
Ultimately, it's the Islamic version of the Orwellian: "WE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN AT WAR WITH
EASTASIA THE ZIONISTS."
I suppose there is the rather real chance of missteps, and things escalating out of anyone’s control, but for what it’s worth, I don’t think that’s Iran’s actual intent.
Putting on my really mean cynical bastard hat for a moment, and assuming we can stay mostly out of it, if there is to be another nuclear war in human history, better it be regional than global, and better it be "them" than "us".
