Sssshh! Nothing To See Here.

It's not a tough question

Ideally, neither of them. But Israel should: a) come clean and admit they actually have them, and sign the NPT along with the other 191 member states, including 5 other nuclear-armed nations (US, Russia, China, France, UK), unless they want to join India, Pakistan and North Korea and not sign; and, b) present compelling evidence to the international community that Iran was indeed actively developing nuclear weapons and a threat to Israel was imminent. (I'm not aware they have done this.)

Also, killing 200 civilians and wounding many hundreds more on foreign soil, violating the sovereignty of that nation, carrying out a unilateral, preemptive attack including assassinations, and risking destabilizing the entire region and escalating conflict is not a good look if you're trying to claim the moral high ground and argue that you're acting in self-defence.

I think the country that hates us and wants to destroy us shouldn't have Nuclear Weapons , that's just me

I agree that I don't want Iran to have nukes (whether they're ever crazy enough to use them or not). Even N Korea hasn't used them. Kim Jong Un may be arguably unhinged, but even he's not that crazy. The only country on earth that has ever actually deployed nuclear weapons on a civilian population in a conflict is... the US. And Japan remembers that all too well.

Where we perhaps differ is in how Israel has acted. Iran is famous for slogans like "Death to America". They fund proxies and terrorist activity against Israeli and US targets. We all know this.

Would they actually use a nuke on the Israeli civilian population, or on US targets, or is it a bluff and do they desire them as a deterrent or an ego boost? Have they openly threatened to use nukes to destroy Israel once/if they ever get any? (If they have, I would be grateful for sources, actually.)

I don't think Iran even wants a war with the US. The US military would obliterate them and they know that. (At the same time, I'm pretty confident the US has little appetite for another land invasion in the Middle East, especially after Afghanistan. Iran is very mountainous. It would be carnage for all involved.) Also, I thought Trump's whole schtick was how he wanted to avoid wars?

So I don't want Iran to have nukes, which is run by an authoritarian, theocratic, repressive regime. I also don't want Israel to have them. At the very least, they should come clean and admit either way whether they have them or not (we strongly suspect they do, but how many other countries get away with this kind of ambiguity?). I'm also not sure even Netanyahu is crazy enough to actually use nukes on a civilian population, killing thousands of innocent civilians and assassinations notwithstanding (which, by the way, I'm fairly confident violate international law).

Trump has been posting on social media that he knows where Khamenei lives and could take him out if he wanted (and hints he could well do later). Isn't that a bit chilling? How many other modern Western democracies do you see using extrajudicial killings/assassination of top military and political figures as part of policy? Israel does this all the time. And they don't just kill their targets; they kill their wives, children and other innocent bystanders along with them. Innocent people and arguably a form of collective punishment. Is that the kind of behaviour you expect from a civilized country? Does the UK/France/Germany routinely assassinate foreign leaders?

Netanyahu was a KGB agent sworn to destroy the United States of America.

Classic example of FAFO

Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and has been since 1970. It was cooperating with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) until a few years ago and allowing intrusive inspections of its nuclear facilities.

In 2015, Iran agreed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) to massively reduce their nuclear programme in exchange for reduced sanctions:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Comprehensive_Plan_of_Action

It was Trump that withdrew from that deal in 2018. Since then, Iran has been less cooperative. Similarly, due to the recent attack by Israel, there is now a real possibility Iran will leave the NPT altogether, and no longer be legally obligated to cooperate with any nuclear inspections.

Israel, on the other hand, has never even signed the NPT, does not fully cooperate with IAEA inspections, and pursues a policy of nuclear ambiguity, neither denying nor conforming whether they possess nuclear weapons (but it's widely believed they do, possibly up to 100 or more). Bit hypocritical.

The US officially acknowledged earlier in 2025 (and several times over the years under successive govts) that Iran is not currently pursuing a nuclear bomb. The IAEA also does not believe they are developing one (although Iran's compliance with inspections has dropped since Trump pulled out of the 2015 deal). It's known that Iran has enriched uranium close to weapons-grade, well above that needed for civilian energy generation, but there is no clear evidence they were about to produce a nuclear bomb (or clear statements that, should they develop one, they intend to use it to strike Israel, despite hostile rhetoric towards Israel).

"According to U.S. intelligence assessments, Tehran has the capacity to produce nuclear weapons at some point, but has halted its nuclear weapons program and has not mastered all of the necessary technologies for building such weapons."

https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF12106

Israel no doubt has detailed intelligence on Iran that maybe even the US isn't privy to, and claims Iran was weeks/months away from developing a nuclear bomb. But it's not been demonstrated to the international community.

On top of that, Israel attacked preemptively and aside from assassinating key military figures/govt scientists (already a highly controversial action), over 200 people, including mainly innocent Iranian civilians, were killed. I'm not a lawyer, but I suspect that might violate a few international laws.

You didn’t convince me.

What kind of thing would convince you (if at all)?

Truth

Fair enough. I think we all want that. I'm curious if anything I wrote in my longer message above is not truthful or inaccurate. If any of it is, I would welcome genuine feedback to correct any factual errors I may have made. Most of it was just pointing out basic facts.

(I may have simplified some details: Iran ratified the NPT in 1970 but actually signed it in 1968, but that doesn't change the point, which is that Iran is a signatory to the treaty. Whether they have always fully complied with regulations is a bit more complex. I'm just pointing out they have signed it. Unlike Israel, which officially has never even confirmed its own nuclear capability. If another country did that, I wonder how we would view them.)

Do you want more detailed intel on Iran's nuclear programme that presumably Mossad has access to? I'm afraid I can't access that. It seems even Trump isn't aware of it, given that his own administration (along with previous US govts) have stated they do not believe Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapons programme. (At least, that's what they said publicly. But if they are genuinely aware of Iran's secret plans to build a bomb, in violation of the NPT Iran has signed, it seems rather odd, since that would lend further credibility and justification to Israel's attacks, which the US is supporting.)

Do you want more background on why Trump pulled out of the 2015 deal? I only touched on that briefly.

Do you want better, more credible sources? I use Wikipedia just as it's convenient for people to access and gives an easy overview to a lot of topics and links to related ones. But you can find plenty of other sources that confirm the same thing.

From Trump's own administration, outlining his reasons for pulling out of the treaty:

https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-joint-comprehensive-plan-action/

But I simply stated that the JCPOA existed, and that Trump withdrew from it in 2018. I didn't comment much on the rationale.

Are you skeptical of the civilian casualties in Tehran? As it's reported by Iranian sources? If you can find a non-partisan source, I'd love to see that. I've read a bunch of stories of the innocent civilians killed. One story that is doing the rounds is a young Iranian girl called Parnia Abbas, who was reportedly killed along with her family by an Israeli airstrike. You can track those people down and check if they're still alive.

Iran funding terrorist proxies? Not disputing that.

What flag?

You mean Israel? You can say the name, you know. We're not a police state, yet. I've been there. Great place. Even if I don't condone their lunatic government.

I have no problem with the Israeli flag. I don't generally care for flags anyway. People take them way too seriously IMHO. I personally couldn't give a flying F what you do with my country's flag. Spit on it. Burn it all you want. I don't give a flying f**k. But I guess I differ on that with some Americans. I don't worship my flag. It's just a symbol.

I pointed out some details and provided some sources (admittedly, Wikipedia is not the most credible source).

They weren't convinced. That's fine. I'm just curious what *would* possibly convince them. Assuming they're open to rational discourse, that is. I can't change someone's deeply held partisan beliefs, especially if religion comes into it. Nor do I wish to. Got better things to do.

All I know is I just watched 200 absolutely innocent ordinary Iranian civilians get killed by Israeli airstrikes on the pretext that this was an act of preemptive self-defence based on unsubstantiated evidence that Iran poses an imminent existential threat to Israel. With no credible evidence presented to the international community to justify this latest act of unprovoked aggression.

And I find that wholly unconvincing and, frankly, deeply immoral. But Netanyahu isn't exactly the global poster boy for Human Rights Champion of the Century. He should be in the Hague. Or, by his own morality, we should just assassinate him, like he does to so many people he disagrees with, in flagrant violation of international law. But that would be stooping to his barbaric, animalistic level. The man is arguably a monster. I don't know if justice will ever happen, but I pray that the world will see some sense while he's still alive.

Milosevic, Gaddafi, Hussein. We all agreed these were tyrants. But we let Netanyahu act with impunity and get away with the most outrageous human rights violations. The only reason he's not in prison for war crimes is because he's best buds with the global superpower and millions of Americans support him no matter what because they arguably have a distorted understanding of what being a Christian really means. I think they need to read their Bible a bit better.

I'm a human. And I value other human life and I don't care where you're from or what colour you are. I can't speak for people who don't share those values. So I can't reason with that.

I don't give a shit where he lived or what languages he speaks. I only care about backing up your sources and being a human being who doesn't condone mass slaughter of innocents. (If you do, then I admit it's a bit harder to debate with you. We're not quite on the same page.)

I can quote Hebrew and Arabic language too if he wants. Try me.

In fact, I welcome that. We'll see who knows their case endings.