References and a comment:

For information on Iran's missile program see this on the website of the Federation or American Scientists:

Iran-North Korea-Syria Ballistic Missile and Nuclear Cooperation
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/R43480.pdf

Quote:

>>The U.S. intelligence community assesses that Iran has the largest number of ballistic missiles in the Middle East. It also notes that Iran’s ballistic missiles are inherently capable of delivering weapons of mass destruction and that Iran’s progress on space launch vehicles improves Tehran’s ability to develop longer-range missiles, including an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM)>>

Once Iran has ICBMs all NATO countries including the USA will in range of Iran's nuclear strike force.

Technically the negotiations are between the Iran and the "P5 + 1", not the US. However it was the US that was doing most of the running.

Steven,

Israel is already a nuclear state, so the 'mad mullahs' could argue that they need nuclear weapons to protect themselves from the 'Zionist entity'.

Iran has always been the main game, it's rather like Germany in the EU, too powerful in its region to be kept under American control, Persia will rise again and that's a fact that Israel and its friends in the US will just have to live with. Whether they will get the message is another question entirely, let's hope that post-Obama there's not another right wing Muslim hater in the White house and that Israel doesn't set the agenda. Sooner or later the strategists in the Pentagon are going to come to the conclusion that in the long term, continual unconditional support for Israel is pure folly, perhaps they already have.

Of course anything could happen, from all out nuclear war in the ME to a 'suitcase' bomb in the hands of some crazy jihadi.

Anybody believing that Iran can be trusted is a moron, just like Obama is a moron.

Hi mac

I thought you might respond.

You wrote:

>> so the 'mad mullahs' could argue that they need nuclear weapons to protect themselves from the 'Zionist entity'.>>

The impetus for Iran's nuclear program was actually the "Saddam Hussein entity". The Iranians were much more afraid of Saddam than the "Zionist entity".

I agree that Iran is too big to be constrained. It is, as you say, the "main game". It is emerging as something of a tech powerhouse in its own right.

My own feeling, by the way, is that the Israelis are panicking needlessly. The Iranians can be deterred with the threat of nuclear retaliation just as the Soviet Union was. The corrupt mullahs are quite happy to send young men, and even children, to their deaths but show no inclination to risk having their own sacred backsides reduced to radioactive vapour.

Some irony. China is Iran's biggest trading partner. It is also Israel's second largest single trading partner and rising fast. It looks as if China will surpass the US as Israel biggest trading partner with three years.

Israel has had remarkable success in diversifying it's trade away from Europe and North America. India is also emerging as a major market for Israeli exports.

Steven,

"The impetus for Iran's nuclear program was actually the "Saddam Hussein entity""

Yes, in fact, the US provided support to the Saddam regime during the Iraq-Iran war, I was referring to the current strategic situation. Perhaps one day we will discover why Saddam was set up over Kuwait.

"The Iranians can be deterred with the threat of nuclear retaliation just as the Soviet Union was."

Agreed, although I think that luck was a major factor in our survival during the Cold War.

I was a teenager at the time of the Cuban missile crisis and was perhaps more sanguine about the situation that I should have been at the time. According to some recent reports the world came very close to cataclysm, we can only hope.

In the stick and carrot approach many believe we should have just used a bigger stick, regardless of the unintended consequences for ordinary folk!

This overdue approach finally uses more of the till now missing carrot!

Currently the only nuclear armed nation in the middle east is Israel, and given their treatment of their near neighbors, why should they be more trusted to keep the peace than the mad mullahs?

I mean if they intend to renege, we will know and retain the option to turn the desert sands into a sea of molten glass!

I see no real reason why the Iranians would not keep to their word given their main protagonist Iraq has been effectively nullified as a threat to them!

Seriously, the only other option was a hot war and millions of lives sacrificed And who but warmongering hate filled morons would want that!?
Rhrosty.