(Bloomberg) Michael Rubin interviewed by Tobin Harshaw - Michael Rubin: "I do not foresee a [nuclear] breakout attempt in the near term. Rather, Iranian leaders would try to develop as much of a bomb program as they could without crossing that line....Even if Iran does develop a nuclear weapon down the road, I don't think they are suicidal. Rather, the nightmare scenario is that the regime might become terminally ill." "If there is a spark in Iran that leads to mass protests such as those of 1999, 2001, 2009 and in recent years, but the security forces join in and turn on the regime, the situation could become very dangerous. Custody of any nuclear weapon would likely be with a specially-vetted unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps....It is conceivable that they could use their nuclear weapon against enemies near or far." "Regime change is coming to Iran and it won't have anything to do with the U.S. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is 80 years old, has acknowledged having had cancer, and is partially paralyzed from a 1981 assassination attempt. A lot of the old guard have died....The key to any positive change in Iran is to fracture and temper the Revolutionary Guards." Michael Rubin, an adviser to the Pentagon on Iran and Iraq during the George W. Bush administration, is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
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