Reply #38: One big difference.

[msmcghee]

The Soviets were atheists who had no delusions about a future life in paradise as a reward for killing millions of Jews.

i.e. the Soviets were not interested in destroying the West if all that would be left of the USSR was smoking rubble. I have no doubt that there are mullahs in Iran who see an Iran in smoking ruins - in a ME finally cleansed of Jews - as a pretty good outcome. Sort of like Iran's contribution to what they would see as a properly Koranic world order.

This is especially true if the mullahs think they can destroy enough of Israel's retaliatory capability that some parts of Iran might escape destruction - like the deeply buried caverns where they will be with their families before the attack is launched.

It's probably not very likely they'd have much left but a mutual deterrence strategy requires some amount of rationality on each side.