Forget Iran. The Real Nuclear Threat Lies East [China, India and Pakistan]

RCW ^ | 04/02/2015 | David Brewster

[Cronos]

Whether they threaten with nukes — well, they don’t need to do that with Afghanistan, they use the Taliban for that. And, as for Iran, they worry about Irani support for the Baluchis. Also, their nukes are at the disposal of Saudia and Iran knows that, so they do subtly threaten Iran with nukes

[Cronos]

"The Taliban has its sights on" -- there are two groups of Taliban -- the ones fighting the Afghanistan government and the Pakistani Taliban who killed those kids in school. The Pakistani government and the ISI kid themselves that those are different, and to some extent they ARE different -- with the latter being more Punjabi and with a different command structure

Pakistan has, since the 80s made it's insane mind up that there are two types of terrorists -- the "good" ones they use to cause mayhem in India and Afghanistan and the "bad" ones that attack within Pakistan.

Those "good ones" always had the Pakistani government (well, the army and the army is much more powerful than Nawaz Sharif) ear and in particular the ISI, the Pakistani "CIA" which is a state within a state within a state and independently powerful -- the ISI supported, created and supports the terrorists even now, believing them as the best for "unequal war" against India.

[Cronos]

Paki nukes under Taliban control -- well, the fear IS and was that it would come under jihadi control, not necessarily the Taliban. There is a strong possibility that this will happen soon in any case as Pakistan disintegrates

[Cronos]

I don’t recall Pakistan ever using their nukes for bluster with other nations than India, itself a nuclear armed state. -- as I said, they use the Afghanistani Taliban to threaten Afghanistan, they don't need to use nukes to bluster with them and they fear the Iranis in Baluchistan.

[Cronos]

Pakistan is obsessed with India for historical reasons -- it was created (partly by the Brits) as a "homeland for the moslems of the sub-continent" -- but what happened was that 40% or so of Moslems remained in secular India, so putting a lie,right at the beginning, of what the state was about.

Then in 1970 the western Pakistanis (which is dominated by Punjabis) ended their 20 year discrimination of Bengali Moslems by committing genocide in East Pakistan which got independence and became Bangladesh (the "desh"/country of the Banglas/Bengalis)

With this, the entire raison d'etre of Pakistan collapsed -- what is it? it's only unifying factor was islam and yet it had sunnis (a large bunch of whom were Sufis), shias, Ahmaddiyas, Bohris etc. along with non-Moslems.

so, under the dictator Zia-ul-huq in the 70s and 80s it became more and more radicalised under Saudi Wahabbi tutelage.

Right now the military takes up a large % of the government budget (supposedly 50%) while the country languishes.

After being defeated by India in 4 wars (1947, 1965, 1971, 1999) the Pakis decided they couldn't defeat India in conventional methods so used terrorists

They are also the ONLY nuclear power that holds to the "first use theory" -- they will use nukes as an offensive option in a war, not a defensive.

Pakistan is obsessed with India and would only bluster against India, no one else. It's a mono-maniac

[Cronos]

Iran, which if it did obtain the bomb is almost certain to do exactly that. It would threaten all it’s neighbors with use of the bomb.

Not really. It would bluster with Israel, but that was more Ahmadinejad, the rest of Iran don't care about what happens in Palestine -- they thought it would get them beanie points in the Sunni world, but they've given up that idea

Who else would they threaten?

• Pakistan? I've already shown that Pakistan has a "first use" clause
• Afghanistan? No, they have no aims there
• Turkmenistan? No, it was greater Iran before the 12th century but there is no movement there
• Azerbaijan? No, they are Irani people
• Kurdistan? No, irani people
• Iraq? No, they are Shia allies
• Turkey? No, no arguing factor
• Bahrain? No, it has a Shia majority?
• Saudi Arabia? If the Iranis use nukes against the "holy land" of Saudi Arabia they will immediately be invaded by Sunni Pakistan, Turkey, Malaysia, Egypt etc.etc.

so, the nukes are no more than "show" -- and that's what they are using to get all sanctions lifted against them

[Cronos]

I am not alone in this thought. Saudi Arabia, the Emerate Nations, and a number of others are concerned with this as well.

As I said above, the Iranis would not threaten dropping nuclear bombs on the "holy land" of Saudi Arabia. Also, they would be bombarded by Pakistani "Islamic nuclear bombs" a few seconds later

They may use the cover to invade the Emirates and Saudi Arabia, but I would love to see the Sunni-Shia war get hotter -- let them kill each other rather than us.

[Cronos]

If one takes Pakistan to task for bluster, then they should also take India to task for bluster. Heck, I’m taking Putin to task for it right now.

India hasn't used its nukes for bluster. It doesn't need to.

[Cronos]

Neither side has intimated they were on the verge of using nukes over it.

That cover was used by the Pakistanis when they initiated the Kargil war in 1999. But India called the bluff.