Originally Posted by
EDLB
All large population centers in Iran would be glassed if they would use a single nuke against Israel.
Well, that's the conventional 1950's paradigm. Mutual Assured Destruction, aka "MAD". But would that really make sense for Israel?
Palestinian Arabs hate Israeli Jews, that goes back to Isaac vs. Ishmael, or maybe even Cain vs. Abel. Persians do not. Minority Iranian peoples certainly do not. Hatred of Israel is only a creature of the fanatical Islamic government.
So why would Israel, even if mortally wounded, play into the mullah's hands by exterminating millions of Iranians? Where's the benefit? No amount of revenge killing would put Tel Aviv and Haifa back together.
Furthermore, what's the deterrent value of a gun with an empty magazine, so to speak? If Israel expends its entire nuclear arsenal on a revenge attack, no cards are left to play.
Seems more likely that the Israeli response would be directed at the Islamic regime, its leadership, its forces, and its symbols than at the general population. And that the Israelis would never expend all their nuclear ordnance.
And more likely that Israel would be willing to carry out a nuclear preemptive strike, since they don't have the strategic depth to absorb the damage from a first strike.