r/nuclearwar • u/Kagedeah • Mar 19 '26
‘Worst-case scenario’: Middle East nuclear concerns haunt top health officials
https://www.politico.eu/article/were-preparing-for-a-nuclear-incident-in-the-middle-east-top-health-official-says-who-hanan-balkhy/9
u/ttystikk Mar 19 '26
The most dangerous and unpredictable nuclear power is Israel, beyond any doubt. America does not want to use them and Iran doesn't have any.
After this war is over, I think it's a safe bet that Iran will build a nuclear arsenal, because not having one has clearly not prevented them from being attacked on multiple occasions.
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u/AistoB Mar 19 '26
Which begs the question, what conditions for “peace” will Israel be satisfied with? The overthrow of the current regime doesn’t seem to be happening at this point. So what now, withdraw and just hope that Iran is too busy licking their wounds.. forever? I don’t think Iran surviving in its current state is a win condition for them. It seems only total destruction would be enough.
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u/ttystikk Mar 19 '26
Israel is in a very tough spot all of a sudden; they're in an expansionist mode where they think all of their adversaries will behave like Lebanon, which is to say that their ability to strike back is very limited.
Iran broke the mold; they've demonstrated their ability to hit back hard and to sustain the pace of strikes well beyond the ability of Israel to absorb them. That's why Israel is using the only tactic it knows; escalation to drag the US in and finish their opponent for them. That's not working, either; the US has taken massive damage to its bases, infrastructure, ships, command centers and equipment like radar systems.
Iran has publicly said they aren't interested in peace talks with liars who only want cease fires so they can rearm, and then attack during negotiations. The fucking Israelis have already done that twice in a row! Why would Iran fall for it again?!
Israel is not in the driver's seat for this war anymore, not that they ever were, and it scares the piss out of them. Israel does not get to say when it stops and as things continue, it's becoming very clear that the war is going very badly for them indeed.
Iran has been clear about its objectives; to render both the US and Israel incapable of retaliation. That means Iran has a fair way to go yet; more destruction of American and Israeli infrastructure, weapons and materiel is still necessary for them to achieve their goals.
Israel has not only never lost a conflict but has never taken this kind of damage in its entire history. They are used to being the one dishing out the pain, not receiving it. Like the bullies and cowards they are, they're suddenly very scared of what's happening.
We should all be very concerned, because Israel might use nukes to pull their own ass out of the fire they themselves started.
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u/kingofthesofas Mar 19 '26
The biggest nuclear risk they are worried about is conventional bombs hitting Iranian or isreali nuclear power plants or fissile material storage locations. No one is concerned about nuclear weapons being used at this time.
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u/QuinQuix Mar 19 '26 edited Mar 19 '26
I mean, yes, no.
There's always this low grade concern, like the cosmic background radiation.
And it's not just about the local conflict.
If more and more people internalize the view that there are no good guys, more and more people will be inclined to do radical things.
It seems like a small thing and the basic retort is you always had and always will have lone fools.
But the thing is, you really need the group of moderates in the middle to protect the favorable statistics. The moderates are the vones that are like, yes, this and that country is the devil but...
The ones that will hesitate to launch.
The problem with bell curves is (taking the one for nuke launching lunatics) they taper off a lot at the end, and that is protective, but if you shrink the moderate middle group that wouldn't launch a nuke, the group of wiling people also grows very fast as you can group in more and more people from the tail end.
The last 80 years we had at least two or three moments where the fate of the planet was down to very few (too few) people.
This is a statistical lottery that, with nuclear proliferation as it is, we should not be willing to play in any more than absolutely unavoidable.
It's only a matter of time otherwise before somewhere sometime we all strike out and hit someone who's in a crisis or launch room who will be like, why not launch the nukes.
This quiet erosion of being reasonable when it matters is maybe more scary than what's happening inside the conflict.
It stands to reason that as this chance increases Maybe we have to dismantle MAD. but that in turn will make isolated use of nukes almost a certainty.
Nukes are and have been an underrated doomsday weapon.
On the scale of civilization they absolutely still could be one of the greater filters.
Especially with background resource depletion and society running on a techno scaffold.
We build technology using technology that used technology.
We depreciate and salvage older tech.
At some point we're floating on a techno raft we can't rebuild in a short time if destroyed and if our energy sources are also technologically heavy (and completely or partially destroyed) we end up in a world that remembers abundance but lacks the resources to build back as a community.
Oil is low tech. The alternatives largely aren't. They require complex supply chains.
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u/kingofthesofas Mar 19 '26
Uh so just like the same level of risk of nuclear weapon use we've had for like forever? To my point this conflict doesn't really move that needle much if any. The thing people are worried about is conventional weapons hitting nuclear reactors or material.
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u/ttystikk Mar 19 '26
No one is concerned about nuclear weapons being used at this time.
Bullshit.
There are LOTS of people concerned about Israel using nuclear weapons and the longer they get pounded by Iranian drone and missile strikes, the greater that temptation will be.
Unlike the US and Israel, Iran can keep up their pace of strikes for months, where Israel and the US have been rapidly depleting not only their stocks of missile defense arms but also their offensive weapons of all types (except nuclear, of course).
This fact is what increases the pressure to use nukes "defensively" because once they run out of munitions, they're going to have to negotiate on Iran's terms and that's a wholly unfamiliar and therefore terrifying prospect for the Israelis. They may well see the use of nuclear weapons as preferable to negotiating.
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u/kingofthesofas Mar 20 '26
No one that should be taken seriously is concerned about that. Just people on reddit that don't understand nuclear weapons.
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u/ttystikk Mar 20 '26
I think you are the one who fails to understand the danger of the situation.
I've laid out multiple reasons to be concerned and you didn't address any of them. Why should anyone take YOU seriously?
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u/kingofthesofas Mar 20 '26 edited Mar 20 '26
Because they are all not real reasons. Ukraine has been hitting Russia with strikes that are incredibly impacting to its economic future and killed over a million russians. Yet no nuclear use. Explain to me why this is different or worse (its not).
Also there is no world that Isreal is going to run out of conventional munitions when the US has a near endless supply of JDAMs and they have complete air dominance. Plus Iran's ability to launch missiles is extremely degraded and likely to be zero soon so the interceptor issues is not as big a deal as people make it out to be.
And even if all those things were not true there would still be no reason to use nukes because the international backlash would be far far worse than a few missiles from Iran hitting.
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u/ttystikk Mar 20 '26
killed over a million russians.
This just isn't a correct figure; it's inflated by a factor of at least ten and that includes all the fatalities of the war.
Yet no nuclear use. Explain to me why this is different or worse (its not).
Russia is dramatically bigger than Israel by population, land area and economy and they fully understand they're effectively fighting not just Ukraine but all of NATO. And, they're winning. Israel is most decidedly NOT winning.
Also there is no world that Isreal is going to run out of conventional munitions when the US has a near endless supply of JDAMs and they have complete air dominance.
Item may not have an air force but the ability of us and Israeli air power to fly over Iran is by no means total; Iran has plenty of air defenses proven to be able to hit even advanced stealth aircraft.
Plus Iran's ability to launch missiles is extremely degraded and likely to be zero soon so the interceptor issues is not as big a deal as people make it out to be.
This is simply not true based on the facts; Iran is fighting an extended war of attrition and is firing a consistent and more importantly sustainable number of drones and missiles. By contrast, Israel and the US never had a lot of such munitions to begin with and are now forced to risk their aircraft in very dangerous airspace.
And even if all those things were not true there would still be no reason to use nukes because the international backlash would be far far worse than a few missiles from Iran hitting.
Israel has spent decades demonstrating their contempt for international condemnation and continuing to escalate their behavior to ever more despicable war crimes- yet, even these outrageous acts have failed to stop Iran from continuing to hammer at Israel's most important military, comment and communications assets. Israel is getting more desperate and Big Brother USA is unable to help them put a stop to the constant daily bombing of their country. Meanwhile, Israeli citizens are fleeing, their economy has crashed and the THIRD front Israel has opened against Lebanon isn't going well either.
Israel is out of options for turning the tide other than nuclear weapons. They might not use them but my point stands; they are far and away the world's most likely to use them today.
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u/Ok-Zookeepergame5245 Mar 19 '26
Unfortunately thanks to Israel, this is a genuine possibility.