Israel nears decision on Iran attack

[Mr. Morden]

I think Iran is rational enough not to launch a preemptive attack on Israel out of the blue.  But it's possible to take this logic too far.  Would you say that because both the US and USSR had rational leaders during the Cold War, that there was never any risk of nuclear war whatsoever, and we had nothing to worry about?

I think the danger is that in a crisis situation, there would be a miscalculation, and either Iran or Israel would attack the other, thinking that they've been backed into a corner.  To quote Fred Kaplan:

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Of course, that just tells us that Iranian nukes are something to worry about.  Whether it's actually possible to prevent them from being developed rather than just delay things by a year or two at potentially enormous cost of escalation is another matter.