It likely wouldn't be kinetic, but nukes didn't stop us from chipping away at the Soviet Union.
I could be wrong, but I don't buy the public story that this is about regime change. You don't topple a government with air superiority alone, and you don't do it in a matter of days. I also don't expect the US would be okay letting the Iranian people pick who comes next. We have a history of installing puppets and that similarly doesn't happen only via bombing runs.
> If Iran had deployable nukes, would they get invaded?
Honestly, maybe? Like if we had high confidence we knew where they were, and Israel consented to the attack, I could absolutely see the U.S. trying to take it out in storage.
If Iran had a nuke that could hit the U.S., I'd say no. But that's a stretch from "deployable nukes."
> Name a country that got bombed to credibly destroy the government, and had nukes
> if we had high confidence we knew where they were
That's a very big gamble. They only need to have hide one on a cargo ship and the attacker is going to have a Very Bad Day.
Nobody's made that gamble yet. Yes, there's been kinetics between India and Pakistan, and Iran sending missiles at Israel, but not a credible threat to the state.
> Pedantically, Ukraine.
Not sure when you mean. Did they get bombed while they had physical control in the early 90s? They never had operational control, but now that they're being bombed they don't have even physical control of nukes.
_heimdall|1 day ago
I could be wrong, but I don't buy the public story that this is about regime change. You don't topple a government with air superiority alone, and you don't do it in a matter of days. I also don't expect the US would be okay letting the Iranian people pick who comes next. We have a history of installing puppets and that similarly doesn't happen only via bombing runs.
knorker|8 hours ago
Khamenei: Dead. Ahmadinejad: Dead.
Maybe the US/Israel have a list of people they plan on making "ineligible" to run Iran? Then let the people choose from whoever's left?
We'll see how many people get ticked off the checklist, but if it's a long list then I would say regime change is a more plausible story.
Will it be as obvious as Karzai? Probably not.
knorker|16 hours ago
So all it stops is kinetic attacks? Do you not think that's a big deal? I'm pretty sure Iran and Khamenei think that's a big deal.
What do you mean by "How does that factor in here right now?"?
It pretty obviously does. How does it NOT?
> I don't buy the public story that this is about regime change.
They had Khamenei killed.
But this is also a topic very different from the nukes one.
JumpCrisscross|1 day ago
Honestly, maybe? Like if we had high confidence we knew where they were, and Israel consented to the attack, I could absolutely see the U.S. trying to take it out in storage.
If Iran had a nuke that could hit the U.S., I'd say no. But that's a stretch from "deployable nukes."
> Name a country that got bombed to credibly destroy the government, and had nukes
Pedantically, Ukraine.
knorker|15 hours ago
That's a very big gamble. They only need to have hide one on a cargo ship and the attacker is going to have a Very Bad Day.
Nobody's made that gamble yet. Yes, there's been kinetics between India and Pakistan, and Iran sending missiles at Israel, but not a credible threat to the state.
> Pedantically, Ukraine.
Not sure when you mean. Did they get bombed while they had physical control in the early 90s? They never had operational control, but now that they're being bombed they don't have even physical control of nukes.