You're right. Aliens are something to worry about if and when they come, and then only if they have hostile intentions. The real issues we're facing today are quite a lot more pressing.Originally Posted by Ireng
I'm pretty sure that Iran is not going to start a nuclear war with anyone, any more than the US would. It's simply not a sensible decision for a government that likes having a population to govern. Iran's a more liberal Islamic government than the extremists who get the media attention; they're fairly strict, but not dangerously fundamentalist, so they'll not willingly throw away their own lives and those of their people.
However, like the US, they'll be prepared to use force in self-defence. Other world powers are always saying, "we want you to obey our demands and let our inspectors tour your country, to see if you're developing weapons like ours, which we think you're not allowed to have because we don't like you. We're prepared to bomb your country if you don't obey our demands, because it's our job to set the rules about what you're not allowed to do, even if we don't follow those rules ourselves."
Failure to heed these words makes one a "rogue state", apparently. I shudder at the thought of how Great Britain, for instance, would react if (for example) the Russian government "demanded" that they open their nuclear power plants and weapons silos for inspection.
A fear of being treated like a subservient, second-class country could drive a lot of states to war. Threats of intervention from the west were part of the reason for North Korea's increased arms production.
