So umm, Iran’s leadership won’t stop nuclear weapons development. It can’t stop. Therefore to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons, it means that the US has to help remove Iran’s leadership. Now why would this turn out any better than any of the previous times they’ve done this, including in Iran?
They can absolutely stop; they just choose not to. And hamstringing their attempts to develop their nuclear program is a far better option than trying to topple their government in terms of maintaining stability in the region. Toppling the Iranian government would make every other Arab nation skittish and potentially be a rallying cry for them. Keeping their military options limited is far less incendiary.
Your argument is refuted by the existence of plenty of other non-terrorist-supporting, non-dictatorship-led, non-oppressive, non-nuclear nations in the world that the U.S. isn’t fucking over in the manners you describe.
Given what we’ve seen over the last little while, do you think Israel won’t be able and willing to topple the regime if they don’t have a lethal gun pointed towards Israel? There’s pressure from the outside, and from the inside on them. They have to keep terrorising to maintain the internal pressure. They have to be able to stop Israel from taking them out as a result of their terrorising. I don’t know if their current arsenal is a deterrent enough for that. If I were a supreme leader who wanted to stay in power, I’d be overturning mandatory prayer for the nuclear scientists and enginners working overtime to get to a test detonation (not over Israel) ASAP. As a supreme leader I feel like last year, perhaps even weeks ago, I did have the option to not make nukes. After the attacks in Lebanon that left my primary deterrent in an unknown state of degradation, I’m not feeling so lucky.
No one is forcing Iran’s dictators to remain dictators. They could become benevolent leaders or simply flee the nation. Israel gains relatively little from creating a power vacuum in Iran that will likely just be filled by another Israel-hating regime. They gain much more by destroying Ming the current regime’s ability to attack Israel.
Their ability to make nukes has been delayed several times in the past, another delaying action is likely better than letting them get nukes.
It’s scary how even during 2 horrible wars, people still can’t accept the simple truth that war is always the worst possible option.