Paul has made a good point.

Have Hiroshima and Nagasaki recovered?

How many atmospheric nuclear tests have been carried out?

Chernobyl is now regarded as the greatest wildlife sanctuary in Europe.

Where it becomes dangerous is if someone believes that a nuclear war is viable.

During the "Cold War" period, where the USSR and Warsaw Pact countries opted for Chemical and Biological Weapons, NATO did not believing them to be too indiscriminate and unreliable. To counter these C & B weapons NATO developed tactical nuclear weapons and made no secret of the fact that if the Soviets used C&B weapons NATO's immediate response would be to go tactical nuclear. That was the stand-off and it worked for the best part of 40 years, as did MAD.

Neither the US, Russia, China, France or the UK are going to use their nuclear weapons, because each country mentioned there possesses second and possibly third strike capability.

The new members to the nuclear club, Pakistan, India and possibly/potentially North Korea, Iran and Israel. Are all states that only possess first strike capability, where the accepted dictum always was - "who strikes first wins".

Some on this forum regard Israel's possible nuclear deterent as being threatening. They say that if pushed into a corner any such weapons that Israel possesses will be used, well if such was the case they would have been used during the opening phases of the Yom Kippur War, they weren't. Now what if nuclear weapons are developed by Iran. What if those weapons are smuggled into Israel, by either Hamas or Hezbollah. Take the target cities as being Tel Aviv and Haifa. The result would be that the State of Israel would be finished, Hamas and Hezbollah would have in effect made good their promised and avowed intention of wiping the state of Israel from the face of the map.

World reaction? Who do you strike back at? Proof of Iran's involvement would have to convince the entire world and no amount of proof would convince France, Russia or China - All of whom have too much invested in the middle-east to allow it to be destroyed by nuclear stikes against Iran. All the Arab nations of the region then have to wait for is for the dust to settle before they themselves settle what used to be known as Israel. Middle-East problem solved - or would it be??

Dangerous stuff indeed.