If you disagree with what I posted then provide something concrete to back your disagreement. If you read below, NATO countries take the threat of Iranian missiles seriously even if you don't:
In September 2009, President Barack Obama announced a new U.S. missile defense policy for Europe called the Phased Adaptive Approach (PAA).
The new U.S. approach is largely based upon the growing threat posed by Iran's ballistic missile capability.
New Threat Assessment: The intelligence community now assesses that the threat from Iran’s short- and medium-range ballistic missiles is developing more rapidly than previously projected, while the threat of potential Iranian intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capabilities has been slower to develop than previously estimated. In the near-term, the greatest missile threats from Iran will be to U.S. Allies and partners, as well as to U.S. deployed personnel – military and civilian –and their accompanying families in the Middle East and in Europe.
Advances in Capabilities and Technologies: Over the past several years, U.S. missile defense capabilities and technologies have advanced significantly. We expect this trend to continue. Improved interceptor capabilities, such as advanced versions of the SM-3, offer a more flexible, capable, and cost-effective architecture. Improved sensor technologies offer a variety of options to detect and track enemy missiles.
That's a very good post you made.
The Islamic caliphate issue is simple. The Shia-Sunni divide for almost the whole existance of Islam is about who should rule the Caliphate. The successful Shia caliph dynasty were the Fatimids who create a shism with the weakened Abbassid caliphate. 90% of Muslims are Sunni and 10% Shia. Over the centuries the disagreement of succession has led to many more theological disagreements that makes them looking at each other as heretics. In the Middle East around the Persian Gulf, these two Muslim factions clash, they have a history of mutual violence and atrocities that dates as far back as Islam!
In comparison it would be like introducing Mormonism as official state religion in the USA or from one day to the next to force all Chinese to become civilized Japanese people and forget their barbaric old culture. The funny part is that I have no doubts a Shia cleric is capable of declaring that goal, but before achieving it, the Shia faction, led by Iran, will establish contact with an extraterrestrial species.
The Iranian missile "threat" is very dangerous, they could ruin the golf club next door. Range of missiles does not include precision nor a significant payload. Iranian missiles have a maximum range with fuel conserving flight program to reach very far, but none has an idea where they will land. The prupose of these liquid fuel rockets is to hit targets much closer with a lot more energy = speed and precision. These are the circle of hostile military bases around Iran. If Iran wants to defend against a nuclear threat then these missiles are actually useful if they serve as vehicles for a radioactive dust dispenser that will poison a whole landscape for millenia. This is the often repeated dirty bomb threat. None needs a nuclear bomb for that. Sending a nuclear bomb requires precision to hit something where the compareably small diameter of explosive destruction has some use otherwise it's just a radionuclear poisoning device that affects a large area for a long time.
gives a pretty good overview by someone who knows what he writes about.
Now comes the political game. Iran is Shia, Iran is a Shia theocracy, this Shia theocracy is US hostile after toppling the US friendly "Shah", a military dictator who bought the most fancy military equipment with the oil money given to him by British Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), a subdivision of BP, and as well bought a brutal police regime that suppressed anyone calling for a larger share in oil and civil rights and democracy. We have Mohammad Mosaddegh as the tragic figure of an upright person supported by popular election who failed due to Angloamerican intrigues in a land of long knives. The creation was a theocracy that profed quite capable of conquering this land and ever since defended power on the base of upholding Shia Muslim values against all kinds of infidels, Muslim and non-Muslim.
The big problem is that the oilfields around the Persian Gulf are underneath the feat of a Shia majority population that only in the Iranian north is under a rule of their religion, while in the Gulf Cooperation south under Saudi Arabia a Sunni theocracy clings to power. Iraq is the largest checkerboard for Shia-Sunni violence and a strike against Iran will inflame this conflict all over. So we have the Sunni and Shia theocracy doing what they always did, trying to take over the Muslim world. The USA, under the strong influence of a fundamentalist Christian movement, is allied with the Sunni theocracy.
Now comes Israel, a country that tries to establish rule by another branch of the Abrahamic religions in "their ancient land" at the exclusion of all those "occupiers" who settled in "their land" after the Romans forced them to live in the diaspora. The Nazis and their like minded allies definitely made it clear that Zionism was a question of survival and ever since this is a small nation of outstanding soldiers.
Several problems exist, like does a Jew, who decides to follow a reformed branch of Judaism lose his right to live in Israel? Christianity and Islam claim nothing but being reforms to the same true roots as Judaism and with the nice and only God having decided to allow all people join the select club, you must no longer be descended from a Jewish mother. For millenia there have been conversions to Judaism and people of Jewish belief intermixing with others. Now we have Jews fighting all other branches of Abrahamic religion in their conquered ancestral land with a few allied ethnic/religious groups of different denomiation.
Long story short, a typical situation in Western Eurasia and North Africa that only lost its traction in Europe after centuries of bloodshed, leading to secularism.
These Jews are and will be in the future under constant threat by people who often share, but deny, the same degree of Jewish heritage to be "driven to the sea out of the Middle East" because they are invaders and occupiers of other's lands. The immigrating Jews and the natives had shortly after WWII a military clash and ever since the army of Israel fought a war or could analyze a war very recent in everyone's memory. Israel early on acknowledged the necessity for a way out of these wars by becoming undefeatable - becoming a nuclear power. They have since lost minor engagements and still face a terror nuisance, but no power tries an open challenge that could result in a nuclear backlash that eliminates much of the urbanized Muslim population in the Middle East and makes the land uninhabitable for decades. Iran did not give up the fight, they are Shia and used to keep a grudge for fighting for centuries, and ist working on a solution to negate the overwhelming Israeli might via their nuclear strike capability. One nuke striking Tel Aviv would destroy that small country and a theoretical nuclear capability is enough to threaten Israel with that option. It's an option and the missiles are required to make that threat believeable while also serving many other purposes. This option by Iran is from their perspective an act of self-defense against the Damocles sword of threatened Israeli nuclear terror. Under the umbrella of that protection the Muslim warriors can once again take in full force the fight to the Jews who trample the rights of the Muslims.
You are right that Iran makes the capability of having anuclear strike option his prime target and they risk a lot for it. Judging Iran by their acts, you have to concede their moral behaviour during the Iran-Iraq War when they were attacked with poison gas and missiles indiscriminately hit and killed civilians in Tehran. Under this test they stayed true to Islamic military jurisprudence and did not strike back with equal means they were capable of, but abstained. Few nations in history did that.
The problem is that the Iranian nuclear programm is an existential threat to Israel, but this threat is on a too theoretical basis for John Doe. So a pseudo-threat scenario is created that is as true as GWBush's Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, but much easier to understand.
The Sunni theocracy has a modus vivendi with Israel and would rather eliminate from power all those who "pretend to be Muslims", but are Shia pigs. A new chapter in this complicated game of millenia old unresolved perpetuum mobile conflicts is the Turkish resurgence of national influence as vehicle for their great power aspirations and a less goad-able elected Egyptian gouvernment (their election system is as flawed as it is in the UK and the US).
Syria is ruled by the Alawi, a Shia minority group, and Hezbollah is the Shia faction in Lebanon that showed themselves military capable during the civil war and ever after. So we really do have a major battle between theocracies, what a wonderful world and yes, it's possible that things get complicated if more than one group gets nukes.
Pakistan for example could span a nuclear umbrella over the region that would as well endanger Israel, but for some strange reason they feel more hatred towards the Hindus next door.
Delft mentioned it before, the current emphasis on some kind of ballistic missiles reaching the untouchable lands of NATO and other US allies. It's possible that some kind of dictator tries to send poison or even a nuke via such a missile into an unsuspecting village. It would be much cheaper to use US mail services for anthrax letters, but since Sasha Baron Cohen, we had more insight into a mad dictator's mindset.
That would be of great benefit for any US prsident because he can choose the weapons and destruction range to declare that threat terminated and get reelected without breaking a sweat. Ballistic missile defence is about longterm research to defend military structures against enemy interference in war and raise the bar of minimum nuclear deterrence at the same time. This will force China to rethink their nuclear armament amount and doctrine because under current conditions they would be able to fight a real war instead of a phony Cold War in case of increasing tensions with the US. And as all know, China is likely able to gain the upper hand in conventional military power during this century.
