>>>>>I have read in an article by Seymour Hersh that Iran's nuclear facilities are so far underground that bombs wouldn't reach them, even the so-called bunker busters.
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>>>>>It's just hard for me to believe Iran would nuke either Israel or the U.S. They have to know they would be nuked back. There is a reason no one has attacked with one in over 60 years.
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>>>>Yeah, attacking like that when they know they would be attacked in return would be ... well,suicide! and what culture would do something like that ?
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>>>>They'd have to believe they were in the end times and the 12th Imam was still alive and waiting to return ...
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>>>>But hey, not to worry. All educated, civilized people know all people are really the same everywhere and deep down inside want the same things and can be reasoned with if we just become vegans and our Department of Peace offers warm hugs instead of macho nastiness. I say let the UN handle it. What could go wrong?
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>>>Exactly! ;-)
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>>>I know you're just having some fun but I hope you don't think that's an accurate representation of my views. I am not under any illusions about Iran's intentions or hatred of us. I just don't think they would be dumb enough to nuke the U.S. or Israel.
>>
>>And if you were the head towel in Iran I wouldn't worry about it either - but they are marching to a different drummer. Mutually assured distruction does not sound the same translated into 7th century Persian.
>
>I hope that isn't all of them, just a few fanatics.
>
>Don't they speak Farsi, or is that Iraq?

A friend of mine was a Farsi interrogator. His language training was all day long for a year. Nothing but language everyday all day. His native language was Arabic. To him, Farsi was a tough language to really learn. Of course, they had to learn many dialects and the different forms and classes (newspaper, common speech on the street, politics, medical terms, etc). I also had another friend who was from Saudi Arabia. Her family moved to the U.S. when she was 15. They trained her to speak Spanish. That course was similar but only lasted 6 months. She had a really difficult time learning Spanish. By the time they were finished (which included an additional 6 months of language immersion in a host country living with a family), both were fluent in 3 languages.