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Comment by drivingmissm | Hacker News Reader

Yes, Iran's totalitarian leadership is a threat to its neighbors, particularly Israel.

A war between Israel and Iran would be an epic disaster; too bad to even consider leaders of either country being that stupid. I think the arming of Israel with nuclear weapons is probably the biggest mistake the US has ever made... If Israel didn't have nuclear weapons there would be no way I'd consider Iran trying to get them (at almost any cost - we should have aiming for a nuclear free world), but with the situation as it is I wholly sympathise with their position.

It was far more France than the US that enabled Israel's nuclear program.

(A ground war between Israel and Iran is a practical impossibility, by the way - neither country has the strategic reach for that).

Oh maybe France sold them the material, but we all know America is consulted all the way on these things. If America had have said no it wouldn't have happened.

Fortunately, leaders of Israel do not rely on your consideration when determining what is necessary to protect their country. It is very nice that you wouldn't consider Iran attacking Israel if Israel didn't have advanced weapons - but there's a little wrinkle in this otherwise perfect argument. Iran doesn't need your consideration to attack Israel - they are perfectly capable of doing so without it, and already doing it, albeit through proxies. If Israel did not possess advanced weaponry, they would do it directly - as was done many times before in history, and only the repeated failure taught those countries that direct attack does not work. Some of them learned the lesson and reluctantly accepted the existence of Israel, some just concluded they need a different, smarter tactics.

Well, the nuclear industry disagrees with you.

According to their experts, a nuclear Iran is a good idea.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Shah_of_Iran_building_two_...

It's funny how oil was running out in the 70s and still running out 40 years later. I'd imagine it will be running out pretty much the same way in 40 years, and 40 years after that.

Besides that, that Iran doesn't exist anymore.

>I'd imagine it will be running out pretty much the same way in 40 years, and 40 years after that.

It will run out, though. The only questions are when, and what the contingencies will be once it does.

Or it won't, since technology will replace the need for it long before that. We don't use horses to drive our cars not because we've run out of horses.

Well, there's some unsubstantiated optimism if I've ever seen it. Let's hope you're right, but right now the physics and economics do not support your exuberance.

It is substantiated by centuries of human history. And by physics and economics too. Particularly, economics teaches us that when resource's price raises, attractiveness of substitutes and thus investment into improving these substitutes raise considerably. And physicists are working on solving problems that block our progress for finding alternatives right now (e.g. on increasing energy density for electrical storage, increasing energy efficiency of solar cells) - and there are some encouraging signs there too. E.g. this one: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/natu... may allow producing solar energy much cheaper than before.

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