The Glade 4.0

No, we don't want them to have nukes because we are afraid they would use them, and some of our allies are a lot closer to them than we are.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

We have been in a proxy war with Iran for several years now, we just don't advertise it that well. One of allies in the middle east, Saudi Arabia, has been fighting separatists in Yemen who are supported by the Iranian Republican Guard but our biggest fight comes via Venezuela. The sanctions we have imposed have forced Iran to have an aggressive foreign policy and they have found allies in Latin America, specifically with Chavez and Brazilian president Lula de Silva. Chavez poses the biggest problem for us. He has alliances with Russia and China. Drugs come in from the Al Qaeda run poppy fields through Iran. Iran has direct flights to Venezuela where they trade the drugs for weapons that Chavez obtains from China and Russia. Those drugs then come up through Central American and Mexico into our country. While not all the illegal drugs sold in the US are obtained that way, it's sufficient to keep Al Qaeda with a steady flow of income, gets Iran the weapons and military equipment it needs to support its operations, and allows Chavez to flaunt UN and US policy regarding Iran.

It's all a big, complicated mess. I doubt that we'll attack Iran directly unless Ahmadinejad does something so blatant that even China and Russia (who benefit from the weapon pipeline via Venezuela) can't ignore or justify. More likely I would say that we simply won't interfere when Israel comes a calling.

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~Tolyn~

"A penny for your thoughts; $20 to act it out."

For that reason, they would almost certainly refuel on the way out, or on both legs. However, it wouldn't affect the number of weapons they can carry. Fighter-bombers have only so many hardpoints, and they can only carry certain combinations of weapons or pylons with weapons on them. For a long-distance mission there's going to be pretty much preset loadouts.

The other thing is, laden with fuel tanks they aren't going to want to load up with extra weapons even if they theoretically have the fuel for them. There's a Max Takeoff Weight for any airplane and then there's the real takeoff weight you actually aim for to get efficiency and not need excessive amounts of runway. Fuel tanks add a lot to that weight limit when full, which they obviously are at takeoff.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."