Publicly proclaiming stupid nonsense and knowing it is the speciality of not just the current Iranian regime, but the large majority of the Arab regimes as well, as I'm sure I don't need to tell you. In Iran's case, you might want to consider the defensive (yes, defensive, not offensive) strategic considerations behind those statements - and behind the attempts to gain a nuclear warhead. Iran gains nothing by trying to attack Israel, and loses everything, and they know it very well. But threatening talk, besides keeping certain parts of the population happy, also serves to deter attacks on Iran - deterrence can work both ways. If Iran has a nuke that can hit Tel Aviv, that would be a serious deterrant against any attempt by the US or Israel to employ military means against Iran, for whatever reasons. They lose far more than they gain if they actually *employ* nuclear weapons, but to merely have them would gain them a significant advantage - or, looking at it from their point of view, restore some balance to the situation.

Here I'll just refer you to Jen's reply.


And here you seem to misread Zakaria completely - your comment doesn't actually make any sense in reaction to that sentence, quite aside from whether or not one agrees with you.