could contribute to it becoming self fulfilling, the reason I'm not a fan of rhetoric which assumes that if Iran goes nuclear then others will too. The causal logic required to get from today to a world in which Egypt acquires a weapon is filled with assumptions in at least four areas: Iranian breakout, Saudi/Egypt threat perception & calculus, non-intervention by the west, and capability acquisition. Hell, if we could work through these assumptions and get to credible answers then we'd also be able to predict with certainty how the Iran issue would come to a head. Johnboy | September 26, 2012 GWH: "Your arguments are reasoned, but have been considered and rejected by nonproliferation experts." Not meaning to be rude, George, but have you considered that "nonproliferation experts" AREN'T actually experts on the religious and/or ethnic tensions between Arabs and Persians, Shias and Sunnis? And not being experts in those fields then maybe, juuuuuust maybe, they should not presume to base their predictions on Things They Can't Really Claim That They Understand? George William Herbert | September 26, 2012 ian - Iran's coming down to two questions --  1) How close to the line can Iran push without triggering intervention (Israeli or US/larger coalition)? 2) Has Iran made or will Iran make the political decision to go from capability / threshold status (now) to actual weapons in inventory? We know those are active questions; we can't answer them yet, but we can predict outcomes because the possible answer set