One perplexing aspect of this nuclear dilemma is how serious the religious edict in Iran against nuclear weapons was and is. It does seem genuine, on one hand, and yet on another Iran has been a rather shrewd player in arming sometimes extremist allies across the region against its enemies. I’ve heard some say that Iran hovering for years at the nuclear weapons threshold was more about winning concessions from the west. Nevertheless, from Iran’s perspective, that deliberate delay strategy might have been fatally costly given that its government’s very existence is now threatened by Israel because of a lack of a nuclear deterrent

The counter to this is that Iran could have — emphasis on could — built up such a massive ballistic missile arsenal and impenetrable latent nuclear weapons program that this in itself is almost as effective as a nuclear deterrent against Israel. The evidence of this is the unprecedented damage that their missiles have had on Israeli society and infrastructure, all of which has been reinforced by Israeli military efforts to censor the reporting on the seemingly large-scale damage of these missile barrages. Still, a functioning Iranian nuclear weapons program might have deterred this fighting from ever happening in the first place — or it could have actually led to nuclear war 🤷

President Donald Trump has reviewed attack plans for Iran but is holding off to see if Tehran steps back from its nuclear program, a person familiar with the matter told CNN.

The plans were among an array of options the president’s military advisers discussed with him in the Situation Room this week, though officials stressed no decision has been made, as Trump said publicly on Wednesday.