The Middle East - Like a Science Fiction Movie

Does anybody really know what's going on in the Middle East?  Watching BBC World and reading English-speaking media from around the world leads to more questions than answers.  Who are the players?  Do some people really want to destroy Western civilization?  Why?  Can't there be compromise?  How much information are we NOT getting?  The list is endless.  From my perch, safe on the Pacific coast of North America, the most important issue rising from all this chaos is what about the threat of nuclear war?  Is it real?  Years ago, we marched to "Ban the Bomb".  How naive we were.  Today, nuclear proliferation is rampant, at least in terms of technical information and the existence of nuclear reactors.  So what's the potential threat?

Iran is a key player in the Middle East conflict.  Iran and North Korea are close allies.  Ideologically, both have a deep hatred of America.  For decades, North Korea has been supplying sophisticated missiles and missile technology to Iran.  Iran has oil;  North Korea needs oil.  North Korea has conducted 3 nuclear tests in 2006, 2009 and 2013.  The first test was plutonium-based.  The other two tests were probably also plutonium-based.  Media reports said Iranian officials were in North Korea to observe the 2013 detonation.  This year, N.K. threatened to carry out a fourth test, which it said would take a "new form".  This could only mean uranium-based.  But they don't yet have the technology. 

Switch over to Iran.  The talks in Vienna to negotiate the end of any possibility of Iran producing nuclear weapons come to an end on July 20.  At least that's the deadline.  Iran claims it always intended its nuclear program for the peaceful production of energy - never weapons.  But at the bargaining table in Vienna, Iran refuses to give up its thousands of centrifuges, which could be used to produce weapons-grade uranium.

If I were writing a script for a science fiction movie, where would I go next?    Ah ha - outsourcing!  Why not?  Multi-national corporations outsource all the time.  Iran has the technology;  North Korea has the delivery systems and bomb-making facilities.  They've been allies for years.  A marriage made in Heaven (or Hell).

Speculation?  Of course.  Possible?  Yes.  Frightening?  Absolutely.  If you want a taste of nuclear madness, watch "Dr. Strangelove or:  How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb".  Fiction, yes but the ending has an ominous mood of foreshadowing - Amidst the mushrooming clouds of H-Bombs in flower, we hear the lilting strains of "We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when........