I think the radiation from a 500KT nuke or even much less would be horrendous. Think Fukishma hundreds of times amplified.

Its a bit of a red herring anyway. Iran doesn't want a nuke to go down in a suicidal attack on Israel. They want to upgrade from Libya class oppressive regime to North Korea class repressive regime.

Pretty much whatever NK does we have to put up with, because they have nukes. Iran wants the same freedom of action in the region.

Of course what they will do is less important than what Israel believes they will do.

I really dont understand why people think iran would nuke the muslim holy land...

If you are a person who has been to either Syria or Lebanon....where Hamas and Islamic Jihad have passed out T-Shirts of a Mushroom cloud and the words Holy Muslim Nuclear Bomb....then I think you might see what the worry is.

The worry is that Iran might sell a Nuke to a Terrorist group and then have it trucked into Israel since the Iranians are not tech. savy enough to make one very small.

Even a small 10 Kiloton device can poison a wide area...Modern Nuclear Weapons such as the U.S. and Russia posses are Thermonuclear Fusion Bombs that have massive explosive potential...even still...the U.S. no longer makes massive 50 Megaton monsters as this makes no sense because of the amount of radiation they release.

The Nuclear Bomb is quickly becoming obsolete as the U.S. has much more advanced and CLEANER destructive options. Fortunately...the U.S. is far ahead in this tech. and these systems are Nuke Killers...but that is not the only way they can be used. Split Infinity