Apart from the Aegean, In the very near future, Greece and Turkey will have another hurdle to deal with that is much more dangerous. When, rather then if Iran acquires nuclear weapons, the region is likely to tip into an nuclear arms race. I am not sure what will happen then and to say that I am concerned is an understatement.

Will Greece automatically acquire nukes if Turkey does? Will Turkey acquire nukes if Syria or Iran does? I know one thing for sure, Egypt and Saudi Arabia will CERTAINLY acquire nuke the second Iran does. In fact, they may already have them.

What is your opinion?

Well Spartan, as you say, the countries that would be most concerned about Iran getting weapons already have them and/or support from the US. So for the rest of the world, too much worry is unesesary IMO. While I can't speak for TU, they havent fought with persia in over 300 years and they are increasing relations. I don't think TU will be too concerned over them.

As for us, I'm already beginning to support nuke for power generation seeing as fossil fuels are WAY too expensive, and only going to get more so, they pollute too much, and the natural energy that we can harness and increase still wont meet all our needs. So I think the nuke option will be one that more and more countires will HAVE to look at, for better or worse...

I would suggest that before we go shopping to think for a moment that even if one nuke land in Hellas or Turkey(west) then the whole mediterranean region will be harshly affected due to the nuclear fall out....It's a thing that both sides must consider.

I believe it is unlikely that Egypt and Saudi Arabia would pursue to acquire nuclear weapons when Iran has developed her nuclear arsenal. Egypt and Saudi Arabia are close US allies and would more likely rely on the US nuclear umbrella for protection against Iran’s nuclear arsenal. Besides Iran has not been deterred from waging a proxy war against a nuclear armed country like Israel, a nuclear arsenal is not effective as a deterrence weapon against state funded terrorists.

However from the political point of perspective, the Lebanon crisis has been a major set back for peace in the ME. Firstly the Israeli campaign has strengthened the belief in the ME that Nuclear weapons are the means to guarantee national sovereignty from foreign aggressions. Secondly the crisis has strengthened Iran in her path of becoming a dominant power in the ME, as the proxy war of the Iran-Syrian axes has proved "succesfull" against Israel. Greece and Turkey most likely will not build up nuclear arsenals as both countries can rely on the NATO defence structure against aggression from any state in the ME. However the status quo between Turkey and Iran can be disturbed if Iran’s nuclear arsenal is combined with further destabilization of the region by the Iran-Syrian axes and strong aspirations of Iran for regional dominance of ideological nature (Islamic Republic, Shia religion).

The greatest asset for Iran is of course the situation in Iraq. The instability and continued need for large scale involvement of the US military in Iraq, gives carte blanche for Iran to pursue her goals of becoming a dominant power in the region. The only way to stop this is in case the international community or at least the western world would become more involved in the stabilization of Iraq.

CID in the case of Saudi Arabia i have to contradict you. The Saudis are
playing a really dirty game there...They have already the carrier systems and the relations mainly to Pakistan for nuclear technology.
The Saudis tell always when they were asked about nuclear research/produciton in their country that there isn't any (or just civil)...and that is right...but they only shift the research (production) to other states....like Sudan where there are some facilities with a doubtfull background.

I read a good article about this some weeks ago...if i find it (or maybe other data) i post it.



About the point for Turkey....well i think Turkey will and has to go "nuclear".
We can't rely on the USA/NATO in such important questions...while the cold war
system was static and stable but like we see in the issue with the PKK-USA
connection these times are over. Turkey must have the guarantee for dangerous situations with our friendly neighbours in the south/east.

As for Greece well i don't think that the other EU states would be really happy about it as it is against "spirit" "policy" (or whatever) of the EU. The EU would not maybe accept this step against UN and other pacts/treaties...
Also it is not really necessary for Greece since a Turkish nuclear strike against Greece is somewhat unlikely...
You can't throw a bomb on Thessaloniki/Selanik and expect that there won't be any problems for western Turkey (mainly Istanbul)