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Nuking Iran: Why Israel and the US gain nothing from crossing the ultimate red line

By Hadi Zaarour | The Cradle | June 10, 2026

A question many strategists and military planners have floated in recent months is whether the US or Israel could, or would, use a nuclear weapon against Iran.

Since the latest US-Israeli war on the Islamic Republic erupted, some have brushed the idea aside as too extreme to be taken seriously. Others, however, have treated it as a real option, even if only through the use of a so-called tactical nuclear weapon – a smaller-yield device designed to devastate a more limited area while still crossing the nuclear threshold.

One point should be beyond dispute: the question is no longer whether the US or Israel can strike Iran with a nuclear weapon. They can. The more important question is whether anyone in power is reckless enough to believe such an act would solve a strategic problem rather than set the world on fire.

A precedent with no return

Only a handful of countries possess nuclear weapons. Yet only one nation has ever used them in war, and used them twice: the US.

That historical reality inevitably raises an uncomfortable question. If Washington used nuclear weapons before, what, in absolute terms, prevents it from doing so again? And what prevents its ally Israel – whose leaders frequently invoke existential threats while standing accused across much of the world of carrying out mass atrocities against others – from considering the same path?

Since 1945, the world has lived under what many describe as the nuclear taboo: an unwritten but powerful restraint against the use of nuclear weapons in war. It is not a legal shield, nor is it a moral guarantee. Yet it has shaped state behavior for nearly eight decades. Once that taboo is broken again, particularly in West Asia, there is little reason to assume it can simply be rebuilt.

From a purely military perspective, both the US and Israel possess the means to strike Iran and successfully deliver a nuclear warhead. That much is not seriously in doubt. Both have demonstrated, directly or indirectly, the capacity to project air power, conduct long-range strikes, and deliver devastating payloads with precision. The real question, therefore, is not whether they can, but what happens if they do.

Certainly, such an act would not strengthen deterrence in the long term. If a country with the scientific and industrial capacity to acquire nuclear weapons is attacked with one, the strategic conclusion is difficult to avoid: acquire a nuclear deterrent, whatever the cost.

Rather than reducing fears of proliferation, a nuclear strike would guarantee them. Any state capable of developing nuclear weapons would draw the same lesson.

The illusion of a ‘limited’ nuclear option

A crucial point is often overlooked in discussions of nuclear war. A nuclear weapon is indeed a weapon of mass destruction (WMD), but that does not mean a single bomb destroys an entire country. Nuclear weapons have specific blast, heat, and radiation effects determined by their yield, altitude of detonation, terrain, population density, and many other variables.

The Hiroshima atomic bomb (“Little Boy”), often cited in discussions of nuclear devastation, had a yield of roughly 15 kilotons. Its destruction was immense and horrifying, yet even that bomb had a limited radius of severe direct damage relative to the scale of a modern nation. Newer nuclear weapons are more powerful, but larger yields do not magically erase geography. To destroy more, more weapons are required.

In broad theoretical terms, the US possesses a wide range of nuclear warheads, including weapons with yields far beyond Hiroshima, ranging from the low hundreds of kilotons to much larger strategic systems. Israel, while maintaining its policy of nuclear ambiguity and officially declaring nothing, is widely believed to possess a nuclear arsenal as well, with estimates ranging from dozens to more than one hundred warheads, though exact figures remain unconfirmed.

While the numbers matter, they are not the central issue. Nuclear weapons are not simply larger bombs. They are political weapons. Psychological weapons. Civilizational weapons. Their use sends a message far beyond the immediate target. It tells every country watching that survival may depend less on diplomacy, treaties, or restraint than on possessing a nuclear deterrent of its own.

The central question remains: why would Iran be targeted with a nuclear weapon in the first place?

One argument is deterrence. That argument quickly collapses under scrutiny. Another is the idea of compelling surrender in a major war, echoing the historical justification long invoked for Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Whether one accepts that argument or not, applying it to Iran is deeply questionable. Iran is not Imperial Japan in 1945, and the international environment today is far more dangerous, interconnected, and difficult to control.

There is also a major difference between various nuclear scenarios. A demonstration strike is not the same as a battlefield tactical strike. A strike on military infrastructure is not the same as a strike on cities. Limited nuclear use is not the same as a campaign of annihilation.

Some may argue that the US or Israel would not need to strike a city or a major military facility at all. Instead, they could detonate a tactical nuclear weapon in one of Iran’s vast desert regions as a demonstration of resolve – a terrifying signal intended to show Tehran that Washington and Tel Aviv are prepared to go all the way if Iran refuses to back down.

On paper, this may appear to offer a controlled or limited nuclear option. In reality, there is nothing controlled about breaking the nuclear threshold.

A nuclear detonation in an empty desert would still be a nuclear detonation. It would still break the taboo that has largely held since 1945 despite wars, crises, invasions, and confrontations between nuclear powers. More importantly, it would send a message to every government in the world that restraint offers no protection against nuclear coercion.

For Tehran, the lesson would be unmistakable. The only reliable guarantee against future nuclear threats would be the acquisition of a nuclear deterrent of its own. Any lingering debate over whether Iran should pursue such a capability would effectively end overnight.

Strategically, such a demonstration strike would have much the same effect as a direct nuclear attack. It would push Iran toward the bomb, establish the same global precedent, and destroy the psychological barrier that has kept nuclear weapons from being used for nearly eight decades.

The target may be an empty stretch of desert, but the message would be heard in every capital in the world. Once a nuclear weapon is used as political signaling, nuclear blackmail becomes part of modern warfare.

The fantasy of destroying Iran 

Consider the most extreme scenario, one in which the objective is not merely coercion, but the destruction of the Islamic Republic as a functioning state.

Iran is a vast country covering roughly 1.6 million square kilometers, with difficult mountainous terrain stretching across much of its territory. Geography matters. Mountains, dispersion, strategic depth, and terrain all influence how blast effects spread, how infrastructure survives, and how populations are distributed.

Even if one assumes the use of a nuclear weapon in the tens-of-kilotons range, the notion that a country the size of Iran could be “destroyed” with one or two bombs belongs more to fantasy than military reality.

Take Tehran alone. The metropolitan area is enormous. To comprehensively devastate it through direct blast effects would require not one weapon, but multiple strikes distributed across a vast urban area. And Tehran is only one city.

Even a city as large and densely populated as Tehran could not simply be erased by a single low- or medium-yield weapon in the manner often imagined in political rhetoric or popular culture. The destruction would be horrific, but comprehensive devastation would require multiple strikes, coordinated targeting, and the acceptance of civilian casualties on a scale that would shock the conscience of much of the world.

And even then, Tehran is not Iran.

One must also distinguish between direct destruction and indirect consequences. Here, the discussion concerns only the immediate effects of blast and thermal radiation, not the long-term consequences of fallout, environmental contamination, infrastructure collapse, mass displacement, economic devastation, regional instability, or generations of human suffering.

In reality, the aftermath would likely prove even more destructive than the strike itself, because nuclear war does not end at detonation. Its effects expand through time, geography, illness, panic, and retaliation.

That raises an unavoidable question. What exactly would be the objective? Regime change? The destruction of military infrastructure? The collapse of civilian morale? Forced surrender? Or, in its most extreme formulation, the destruction of Iran as a civilization?

The experience of that war matters because it suggests that overwhelming violence does not necessarily produce submission. A nuclear strike might just as easily generate the opposite outcome, producing rage, radicalization, mass mobilization, and a permanent national commitment to acquiring a nuclear deterrent. In that sense, the strategy risks failing before its immediate objectives are even achieved.

The world after the nuclear threshold

The broader questions are perhaps the most important.

Would the world simply stand by as millions were killed, displaced, or poisoned by the consequences of nuclear warfare? Would governments issue statements, convene emergency meetings, and then return to business as usual? Or would such an act fundamentally alter what remains of the international order?

What would become of NATO if the US were directly involved in a nuclear strike, or openly supported one carried out by Israel? Would every European government accept being politically, morally, and strategically tied to such a decision? Would NATO remain unified, or would internal fractures deepen under the weight of an action many of its own populations would likely regard as indefensible?

The same questions extend far beyond Europe.

What kind of isolation would Washington and Tel Aviv face afterward? Countries that already view the US-led order with skepticism would see their suspicions confirmed in the most dramatic way possible. The political fallout would reach far beyond West Asia, making it increasingly difficult for even close allies to defend actions that much of the world would regard as indefensible.

Countries that already accuse the US and Israel of operating under a different set of rules would see those accusations confirmed in the most dramatic way possible. The implications stretch even further.

What would nuclear-armed Pakistan do in such a scenario? How would the wider Muslim world respond politically, socially, and emotionally if Iran became the target of the first wartime nuclear strike since 1945? How would non-state actors react?

How long would it take for North Korea to conclude that the nuclear taboo had effectively collapsed? What calculations would Russia make regarding Europe or Ukraine in a world where nuclear use had once again become thinkable? And what precedent would such an act establish in a world that still claims to be civilized?

This is where the real danger lies. One or two nuclear strikes on Iran would not resolve the underlying strategic problem. They would all but guarantee that Iran – or whatever political structure emerged from the aftermath – would pursue a nuclear deterrent with absolute urgency. A large-scale nuclear campaign, meanwhile, would not remain confined to the region. Its consequences would ripple through the international system politically, strategically, and potentially militarily.

Whether limited or large-scale, both scenarios amount to strategic failure. Neither offers a realistic path to stability, and both carry consequences that would extend far beyond Iran itself.

So the original question remains. Can the US or Israel nuke Iran?

Technically, yes.

Whether they will is a different matter altogether.

Yet it is difficult to believe anyone is that reckless – not even the Israelis, for all the brutality, escalation, and dangerous rhetoric that have accompanied this war. They understand, as everyone else does, that once the nuclear threshold is crossed, there is no meaningful return to the world that existed before it.

Yet even after all of that destruction, Iran would not be erased in any absolute sense, nor is there any guarantee it would surrender. From every strategic angle – military, political, diplomatic, moral, and civilizational – the logic of a nuclear strike on Iran collapses under scrutiny.

There is no credible path to stability at the end of such an action. A nuclear strike would weaken one of the few restraints that have survived since 1945, accelerate proliferation, invite retaliation, and encourage future nuclear brinkmanship by states that conclude such weapons are once again usable.

The real danger, therefore, is not whether Washington or Tel Aviv can cross the nuclear threshold, but what kind of world emerges once they do. The first wartime use of a nuclear weapon in eight decades would not remain confined to Iran.

Its consequences would reverberate through the international system for generations, leaving behind not order or deterrence, but escalation, instability, and a precedent from which the world may never fully recover.

June 10, 2026 - Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Iran, Israel, Middle East, United States, Zionism