re: Retaliation
From here:
One of Iran’s most influential ruling cleric called Friday on the Muslim states to use nuclear weapon against Israel, assuring them that while such an attack would annihilate Israel, it would cost them "damages only".
"If a day comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with the arms Israel has in possession, the strategy of colonialism would face a stalemate because application of an atomic bomb would not leave any thing in Israel but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world", Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani told the crowd at the traditional Friday prayers in Tehran.
You going to trust to fate that this guy isn't going to have his hand on the button? Is retaliation an issue for a philosophy that worships suicide as a way to destroy an enemy?
A reasonable person might think that a major faction allied with the rulers of Afghanistan would not attack the United States either for fear of retaliation. But they did, didn't they?
I don't think I'm the one having failure of imagination.