Iran willing to use nuks vs israel even if it means heavy losses of Muslims

Would Iran be willing to suffer millions of casualties in order to destroy Israel, thereby becoming an heroic and even a martyr nation to many Muslims, elevating the Shia side in the thousand-plus-year battle with Sunnis for pre-eminence in the Muslim world? 
 Iran has more than 1000 cities and 78 million people 

Obama LIED when he said Iran had fatwa vs nuclear weapons. To clear up the confusion, the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) examined Khamenei’sfatwas dating back to 2004. MEMRI found no evidence that Khamenei had ever said Islam did not allowIran to produce nuclear arms. ³⁹⁶  Michael Rubin, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, similarly noted: “Khamenei lists all of his fatwas on his webpage, but the nuclear fatwa isn’t among them.

Some argue Iran would never launch a nuclear attack against Israel because no Muslim leader would risk an Israeli counterstrike that might destroy them. This theory doesn't hold up, however, if the Iranian leaders believe there will be destruction anyway at the end of time. What matters, Middle East expert Bernard Lewis observed, is that infidels go to hell and believers go to heaven. Lewis quotes a passage from Ayatollah Khomeini, cited in an 11th grade Iranian schoolbook, "I am decisively announcing to the whole world that if the world-devourers [the infidel powers] wish to stand against our religion, we will stand against the whole world and will not cease until the annihilation of all of them. Either we all become free, or we will go to the greater freedom, which is martyrdom. Either we shake one another's hands in joy at the victory of Islam in the world, or all of us will turn to eternal life and martyrdom. In both cases, victory and success are ours."²⁸⁸

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, believes the most important task of the Iranian Revolution was to prepare the way for the return of the Twelfth Imam, who disappeared in 874, thus bringing an end toMuhammad's lineage. Shiites believe this imam, the Mahdi or "divinely guided one," will return in an apocalyptic battle in which the forces of righteousness will defeat the forces of evil and bring about a new era in which Shi'a Islam ultimately becomes the dominant religion throughout the world. The Shiites have been waiting patiently for the Twelfth Imam for more than a thousand years, but Ahmadinejad may believe he can now hasten the return through a nuclear war. It is this apocalyptic world view, Lewis notes, that distinguishes Iran from other governments with nuclear weapons.

There are those who think that Iran would never use such weapons against Israel because innocent Muslims would be killed as well; however, Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, Ahmadinejad's predecessor, explicitly said he wasn't concerned about fallout from an attack on Israel. "If a day comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with the arms Israel has in its possession," he said, "the strategy of colonialism would face a stalemate because application of an atomic bomb would not leave anything in Israel but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world." 

The Islamic regime’s logic is rooted in a potentially lethal cocktail of history, religion and politics. It is the religious aspect, in particular, that differentiates Iran from the Soviet Union and other nuclear powers. The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, believes the most important task of the Iranian Revolution was to prepare the way for the return of the Twelfth Imam, who disappeared in 874, bringing an end toMuhammad’s lineage. This imam, the Mahdi or “divinely guided one,” Shiites believe, will return in an apocalyptic battle in which the forces of righteousness will defeat the forces of evil and bring about a new era in which Islam ultimately becomes the dominant religion throughout the world. While Shiites have been waiting patiently for the Twelfth Imam for more than a thousand years, Ahmadinejad may believe he can hasten the Mahdi’s return through a nuclear war. It is this apocalyptic world view, Middle East scholarBernard Lewis notes, that distinguishes Iran from other governments with nuclear weapons.²⁸¹

Lewis quotes a passage from Ayatollah Khomeini cited in an 11th grade Iranian schoolbook, “I am decisively announcing to the whole world that if the world-devourers [the infidel powers] wish to stand against our religion, we will stand against the whole world and will not cease until the annihilation of all of them. Either we all become free, or we will go to the greater freedom, which is martyrdom. Either we shake one another’s hands in joy at the victory of Islam in the world, or all of us will turn to eternal life and martyrdom. In both cases, victory and success are ours.”²⁸²

Would leaders who did not hesitate to use children as cannon fodder in the war with Iraq, or who send suicide bombers to kill the innocent, be reticent about using nuclear weapons? How can the idea of Mutual Assured Destruction that prevented a superpower clash apply to people who believe the end of the world will lead to “eternal life and martyrdom?”Some might argue they don’t mean what they say and when the time came, the Iranians would “love their children too” and back down from the nuclear brink, but would you be willing to take that chance with your children?