Iran's Insane Gamble

Iran and the West, led by the United States, have signed an historic agreement designed to limit Iran's nuclear activities.  The goal is to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon at some point in the future.  In return for agreeing to inspections and continued embargoes on military and missile technology, Iran will see sanctions lifted, and will return to the "comity of nations."

Iran is playing a very dangerous game.  If it is pursuing nuclear weapons - and it seems obvious that it is - it risks virtual annihilation at the hands of the Israelis.

Iranian leaders are Holocaust deniers.  Iran has hosted conferences devoted to questioning the Holocaust, and as late as 2013, Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei questioned the veracity of the Holocaust.  This matters in Israel, which was born out of the Holocaust and which is led by people who will do whatever it takes to protect the Jewish population, wherever Jewish people live.  They have "never again" as the cornerstone of their defence and foreign policy.

Israel has a history of attacking any facilities it thinks may be used to build nuclear weapons that could later be used to attack Israel.  In 2007, Israel destroyed a nuclear site in Syria. Before that, in 1981, it destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor.  This lesson of history seems crystal clear - if Israel thinks it will face a nuclear-armed opponent at some point in the future, it has no problem resorting to acts of war to eliminate the threat.

Iran's nuclear facilities are encased in concrete and are buried deep beneath the earth.  The Fordow facility in Northwest Iran is probably immune to attacks with conventional weapons, including munitions designed to breach just such facilities, called "bunker buster" bombs.  It is with noting that the only reason these facilities have been built like this is to secure them from Israeli and/or American attack.  Facilities with peaceful purposes do not need to be secured like this.

The game that the Iranians are playing is simple.  

Israel has between 80 and 250 nuclear weapons - it denies this, but everyone knows they exist.  If Israel thinks that Iran is about to get The Bomb, and that conventional weapons won't suffice to eliminate the threat, Israel has weapons within its arsenal that can certainly get the job done.  The Iranians are therefore betting that Israel would not cross the nuclear threshold even in the face of potential annihilation, and that they will be able to continue to develop their weapons in peace.  

They are wrong.  

If they continue on their present path, the Fordow facility will become the second place on Earth to be destroyed by nuclear attack, along with every other facility in Iran that could potentially threaten Israel.  The implications for all of us from the nuclear genie being let out of the bottle are dire indeed.  Would Pakistan and North Korea see a new green light for their own ambitions from such a turn of events?