As you’ve said, they’ve had a track record of power competition and want their sphere of influence in the region, but repeatedly have shown refrain towards other nations during times of escalation.
Iran had (/has?) a chemical weapons program after the Iran-Iraq war, and guess what? There never was a VX nerve gas attack on Tel Aviv. I’m not remotely concerned with them using a nuke offensively, because they’ve exercised restraint repeatedly when they did have other weapons of mass destruction. And they’ve proven they have the capability to get past Israel and allied missile defense, so it’s not a capability gap either
All this hand wringing over “they cannot have a bomb under any circumstances” is unspoken MAD calculus - because then Israel would be on a level playing field as far as ultimate escalation and regime security, and that’d be intolerable for Bibi/the US’s/Gulf State plans for the region.
As you’ve said, they’ve had a track record of power competition and want their sphere of influence in the region, but repeatedly have shown refrain towards other nations during times of escalation.
Iran had (/has?) a chemical weapons program after the Iran-Iraq war, and guess what? There never was a VX nerve gas attack on Tel Aviv. I’m not remotely concerned with them using a nuke offensively, because they’ve exercised restraint repeatedly when they did have other weapons of mass destruction. And they’ve proven they have the capability to get past Israel and allied missile defense, so it’s not a capability gap either
All this hand wringing over “they cannot have a bomb under any circumstances” is unspoken MAD calculus - because then Israel would be on a level playing field as far as ultimate escalation and regime security, and that’d be intolerable for Bibi/the US’s/Gulf State plans for the region.