Iran never had the deterrent North Korea had. And by being a theocracy they heavily skewed any threat calculus against themselves. What they were doing, inching towards nukes, was a horrible move. In their position, you either sprint covertly and not play at all. I suspect that after their nuclear program was discovered and set back they fell victim to the sunk cost fallacy and convinced themselves they could repurpo…
> Iran never had the deterrent North Korea had. I feel very conflicted about what's happening. On one side it is clear that no country should give up their WMD projects. You lack that deterrent you get attacked, as simple as that. Libya, Syria, Iraq gave up their WMD projects eventually got bombed/attacked. > What happened today likely saved millions of Iranian lives. That's speculation. Since you name NK that's a cl…
I think the point of this bombing is to change the calculus you just mentioned. Now there’s an actual reason to not try for nukes, you may get bombed.
NK’s conventional weapons (and SK’s pointed right back at them) saved them from conflict, that’s how they got to nukes without us doing something like this. They already had mutually assured destruction from conventional weapons and proximity to an ally.
Iran’s problem is we don’t care much about anyone around them except Israel, and they already would destroy Israel if they could, so they had nobody’s head at which to aim their bullet.
NK’s government is an evil one but the Kims really like being alive and that keeps them somewhat rational. They are quite obviously not religious since they claim to be God (and surely are aware they are not), so they don’t believe in benefits to martyrdom.
Islamism is a death cult (and I mean that literally) so their actions aren’t rational as we would define the word. We can’t rely on their self-preservation instinct the way we can with the Kims.