I am sick of Trump apologists always using the same bullshit nuclear argument.

[OGBuzz]

This morning on CNN Table for Five, Arthur Aidala said that Iran would have 'blown up the world' if they ever got their hands on a nuclear weapon. FYI Arthur, there have been 2,045 nuclear detonations since 1945, 528 were above ground, and you are still here.
Iran was held in check by the JCPOA until Trump tore it up because....Obama!
If Iran ever needed a reason to develop a nuclear deterrence, your boy just gave them one.

[Midnight Writer]

1. Reminds me of W Bush defenders.

"If Bush hadn't took out Saddam, we'd all be speaking A-rab right now."

[OGBuzz]

4. Saddam was a terrible man but he was also a sworn enemy of Al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda gave rise to ISIS. Bush skipped the...

lecture where they covered 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend'.

[ProfessorGAC]

6. Another Point On That

Sadam Hussein was the only dictator in the world at that point who learned first hand what happens when you cross the United States.
The took out the "world's 4th largest military", who had Soviet backing & war technology in under a week.
He was the opposite of a threat to the US, because he got his ass handed to him once already. And the only reason he was still in power is that the allied countries decided they had proven their point.
He was never going to attack the US or its friends again!

[OGBuzz]

11. For the same reasons I don't believe that Iran has any interest in attacking the U.S., or Europe, or.....

anyone else for that matter. Iran is not suicidal. People fearmongering about Iran's nuclear threat should learn a bit about the bigger picture.

The 9 Nuclear-Armed States:

Russia: Estimated 5,459 warheads
United States: Estimated 5,277 warheads
China: Estimated 600 warheads
France: Estimated 290 warheads
United Kingdom: Estimated 225 warheads
India: Estimated 180 warheads
Pakistan: Estimated 170 warheads
Israel: Estimated 90 warheads (Israel maintains a policy of ambiguity and has never officially confirmed or denied its nuclear status)
North Korea: Estimated 50 warheads

[ProfessorGAC]

12. As To Russia...

...as a side note, we have no idea how many of those actually work.
They've been overestimating their military competence since before WW1.

[OGBuzz]

14. Their conventional military weakness is on full display in Ukraine.

What Putin thought would be 2-3 weeks exercise has turned into 4 years and it's looking worse for Russia by the day. I do however worry about their 'Tsar Bomba'.

[ProfessorGAC]

17. Worry Is Reasonable

Still not convinced it actually works.

[Melon]

2. Iran has freely admitted that they are enriching uranium well beyond

any kind of domestic energy program. They are enriching uranium for weapons. The regime government is fanatically religious extremist that fund Hamas, Houthis and others.

Trump can be shit without believing for one second that these guys should posses nuclear weapons. A nuclear weapon going off a mile underground or in the South Pacific is not equivalent to one being sent into London or Riyadh.

[OGBuzz]

5. It will be Donald or Bibi who will set off the nukes.

[Emile]

10. Trump withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear agreement.

So apparently there wasn't a threat, until Trump made it possible.

[Melon]

15. Trump is shit. Iran should not posses nuclear weapons.

Two truths in the same issue.

[dpibel]

18. London! Riyadh!! Then what happens?

If Iran were to set off a nuke in London or Riyadh or anywhere else, what do you imagine would happen next?

The world would surrender to the Ayatollahs?

Or perhaps the much-lusted-after-by-some "glassing over" of an Islamic country would come to pass.

It beggars the imagination to believe that even religious extremists would commit national suicide.

Unless, I guess, one is you, in which case that proposition is a very real bogey man.

[Eko]

22. They simply did not and were not enriching it to 90%.

Uranium enriched to 60 per cent cannot be used to make a useful nuclear explosive device, and Iran has no other realistic use for this material.

Nevertheless, 60 per cent was not an arbitrary choice. Cascades of centrifuges are designed to enrich uranium in steps; Iran’s centrifuges are likely set up to enrich up to 20 per cent, from 20 to 60 per cent, and from 60 to 90 per cent. Assuming the 60 per cent-enriched uranium is stored in the form of uranium hexafluoride (UF6) gas—and there would be no point in Iran converting it to any other chemical form—the enrichment step from 60 per cent-enriched to weapons-grade uranium is very short.

This strongly suggests that Iran’s decision was intended to send a political message: ‘We have gone as far as we can go in response to provocations without producing weapons-grade uranium.’
https://www.sipri.org/commentary/essay/2021/why-iran-producing-60-cent-enriched-uranium

This sentence from you is false. "They are enriching uranium for weapons." they would have to be at 90% for that to be true.

[Melon]

23. So your stance is that the enrichment to 60% is for what exactly? To scare other nations that

They are enriching uranium? If so, it worked and now they are catching the result of that “bluff”. If nuclear power is using 5%…then it’s quite a stretch to think anything other than the fact Iran is enriching uranium to higher and higher purity for weapons. Even 60% uranium can be weaponized although with less yield than a 90% weapon. Thus it’s not false.

[Eko]

25. Jeeze.

On 13 April, Iran announced its intention to enrich uranium to 60 per cent U-235. This was characterized by Iran as a response to a sabotage of its vast underground enrichment cascades at Natanz two days before. The move comes against the backdrop of sensitive negotiations happening in Vienna aimed at rescuing the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and bringing the United States back into compliance with the deal.
Is there any reason you can think of for Iran wanting the US back in the JCPOA? Any?
If not here are some. legally binding relief from crushing economic sanctions, unfreeze billions of dollars in foreign assets, and normalize its international banking and oil exports.

You were correct with the 60%, but with further research done I found that you can even do it with 20%.
The IAEA considers HEU, which is defined as uranium enriched to 20 percent or greater, as a “direct use” material, meaning it “can be used for the manufacture of nuclear explosive devices without transmutation or further enrichment.”
https://thebulletin.org/2025/07/iran-can-still-build-nuclear-weapons-without-further-enrichment-only-diplomacy-will-stop-it/

All that being said you were still wrong with this statement. "They are enriching uranium for weapons." There are research reasons, medical reasons, even as shown political reasons. Your statement only gives one possible one that may be true. Saying with certainty that with no evidence they were actually trying to make a nuclear weapon is false. Is it possible sure, just as other answers are possible.

Which would you have rather happened, the US enters back into the JCPOA or where we are now?

[AZProgressive]

31. I think Iran would use a nuclear weapon for defensive purposes like other countries that have nuclear weapons

Yes they ally with other Shia groups but those groups largely have their own interests or concerns like Houthis mostly battled with Saudi Arabia when Saudi Arabia was committing a genocide in Yemen and they committed acts of piracy after Israel began with their genocide. Saudi Arabia has long allied with the Wahabbi terror groups and even Hillary Clinton when she was Secretary of State under Obama raised concerns about Saudi Arabia still funding terror groups according to leaked cables but Saudi Arabia already has a deal with Pakistan to receive a nuclear weapon on demand.

I don't know what the costs are to prevent Iran from enrinching uranium. Keep the Strait of Hormuz closed indefinitely? A large scale ground invasion? I would rather try to come up with some sort of peace deal and involve all the countries that are being affected by all this war in their region.

[Skittles]

3. YES

and MAGAts worship a "nutcase with nukes"

[OGBuzz]

8. And you know he's been thinking about it....

“If there’s no ceasefire, you’re just going to have to look at one big glow coming out of Iran,” Trump said at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, May 7, 2026.

[Whip-poor-will]

7. Get the minuteman missile out of your eye before you pluck the drone out of their eye

Who proved they couldn't possess but not use nuclear weapons so far ?

[BlueTsunami2018]

9. If Iran had a nuke, none of this would be happening.

Because we don’t bully nuclear nations in a physical way. The imperialists would have to deal with them on a mostly equal footing. They never want that. You can’t loot and exploit nuclear countries.

[OGBuzz]

13. "Little Rocket Man" over in North Korea agrees 100%. It's all about deterrence.

[Disaffected]

16. It's a kind of Faustian Bargain

Little or no conventional war but at a price of the possibility of annihilation.

Trouble is, the longer such a situation lasts, the greater the possibility of said annihilation occurring (either deliberately or accidentally). The result has been about 80 years w/o a world war but, it is a major miracle IMO that we have avoided a nuclear disaster so far.

How much longer till our luck runs out? The more countries with nukes, the shorter our life expectancy.

[indusurb]

19. We have gone through this same song and dance when a country we don't like gets a nuke

"OMG they're going to blow up the world!" Russia, China, Pakistan, North Korea. The fact of the matter is that a nuclear bomb is, in many ways, the most useless weapon in the world, because all or these "bad guys" know that if they drop the bomb anywhere, be it on the US, Isreal, wherever, that somebody is going to drop a shit ton of nukes on them. MAD, mutually assured destruction. Even the craziest of world leaders knows this. The only thing a bomb is good for is to deter another country from dropping the bomb on them.

Fact of the matter is the US is still the only country to drop the big ones in war, and we were only able to do so because nobody else had one. After Russia got the bomb, and MAD was established, not another bomb was dropped. Meanwhile they sit in their silos, eating up billions in maintenence costs, never to be fired.

I'm not terribly worried about Iran getting a bomb because like North Korea, they're not going to use it. They have a healthy sense of self preservation.

[OGBuzz]

20. 100%

[dpibel]

21. It amazes me

How do people overlook this utterly straightforward fact?

You have to imagine a commitment to national suicide.

And for nothing. The tiny nuclear powers can cause some harm. But they're not going to win any prize except annihilation.

[Melon]

24. Several Iranian backed terrorist groups have used suicide bombings as a primary tactical tool

No other nuclear country is remotely equivalent. Iran backs terrorism within and outside their region. They have religious fantastical that gladly kill themselves for the opportunity to kill westerners and Jews. There is no equivalent. You’re advocating for an enemy of the United States to have nuclear weapons when they’ve used suicide bombings to kill Americans.

[303squadron]

26. The Ayatollah's never sacrifice themselves

Osama planned 9/11, but he wasn’t going to put his ass in the seat of a jet airliner.

I’m old enough to remember the red scare of the 50’s. The Russians were said to be fanatical atheists who would stop at nothing in using a bomb.

That’s a very effective use of “othering” to drive the military industrial complex and the congressmen who enriched themselves on those stock portfolios. Think Vietnam War. Think putting “In God We Trust” on our money. Think the red scare in Hollywood.

Interesting that the only Muslim country with nukes hasn’t gone all religious fanatical and blown up the world.

I guess the only country that doesn’t understand MAD is Iran.

The statement in this thread that Israel has 90 nukes is too low an estimate. They have enough nukes to turn major portions of Iran into fused glass.

[Eko]

28. Just google "settler attacks" to find the equivalent.

After you do that you can go here No settler violence on West Bank has been prosecuted since 2020 for killing Palestinian civilians
To show how it is if not state sponsored its state supported and to fulfill your last specific yes they have killed Americans and they have Nuclear Weapons

https://dawnmena.org/u-s-citizens-killed-by-israel-soldiers-and-settlers-in-palestine/

[indusurb]

29. It is one thing to use suicide bombers, an entirely different thing to commit to killing your entire country.

Rulers of such countries, in fact any country, want to have a country to rule, otherwise what's the point? Iran won't commit national suicide, no matter how fanatical they are.

[Melon]

34. It's literally doing it right now

The government of Iran doesn’t care about the people. They give direct orders to kill the people. The people are only in place to allow the extravagance of the ruling families.

[OGBuzz]

33. Not advocating at all. I'm just not convinced that Iran was 2 weeks away from turning earth into a nuclear wasteland.

And you are forgetting Pakistan, the only Muslim nation which is nuclear armed. It's also where most of the Taliban leadership escaped to from Afghanistan during the war.
Trump tore up the JCPOA and then attacked Iran on Netanyahu's orders. Now there is even more motivation for Iran to pursue a deterrent.

[Emile]

27. Trump withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear agreement.

So apparently there wasn't a threat, until Trump made it possible.

[D_Master81]

30. If crazy people with nukes would instantly use them

Why has North Korea never nuked South Korea? By their logic as soon as NK got one SK would be a goner yet here we are.

[Johonny]

32. It turns out the Strait was more important

Than having a nuclear weapon. And they've used it to maximum affect. Their nuclear bomb, which doesn't exist, hits one country, the Strait shutdown has affected the whole globe in one action. It's crippling diplomacy of a major super power and changing the world order.