Worst case scenarios

To better prepare, what's the worst thing that could come of this? Here's one. We drop a few nukes on Afghanistan. Osama gives the order to set off a smuggled soviet nuke in NYC. Is this impossible?

THAT's your worst case scenario?

I can easily imagine that the responsible is not the usual suspect, but only means to provoke us into war against Afghanistan. The same responsible is probably telling the Afghans that WE are the ones who bombed Kabul on Tuesday.

Once we are at war, Saddam will take this opportunity to do something really evil like invading a neighbour or siding with Afghanistan.

Then China, for reasons that I have yet to figure out, sides with the enemy, and the arabs get tired of having our men over there and start driving us out the hard way. Then Britain says "hey, just a minute there".
Then WW3 erupts.

After that, the true conspirator, Bill Gates of course, reunites the whole planet under his reign.

-Tom Clancy

[Don Quijote]

To the last anon, Tom Clancy would do better, I think.

1) US, with some NATO help, responds with heavy air power against sites in Iraq, Afganistan, Syria and Libya. Some planes get shot down, but not many.
2) sleeper terrorist cells, principally Libyan in origin, release sarin gas in Washington, London and Rome, killing only a few hundred, but by coincidence killing the Pope.
3) Shock reaction agains the use of weapons of mass destruction leads the US to mount a full scale invasion of Lybia, sparking a joint Iraqi-Syrian invasion of Israel
4) Islamic mullahs lead Iran and Egypt into the fray. Indonesia, Bosnia, Albania, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan try to stay nuetral but are rocked by internal dissent and revolution which spills into Greece, Serbia and Croatia. (Afganistan, Jordan, the PLO and Lebanon also join in the Arab coalition but can´t project much power)
5) Both China and India activate major army groups and send them to their western borders.
6) Russia responds to the Chinese(solely for their own security) by sending army groups to the south, where they clash regularly with their previous SSR´s, but manage to advance with significant casulties to the Turkish border
7) Rouge Pakistan airforce general uses nuclear bombs on Indian army group which apparently has crossed the Pakistanis opinion of the border. India responds in kind.
China, having offered twice to mediate the conflict cannot risk the use of nuclear force on their borders. They give an ultimatim to Taiwan to surrender or die (can´t leave the flank unguarded) and invade Afganistan, Pakistan and India to provide a forward defense line. With Russia to the north, Afganistan is already weaked, and China pushes through into Iran.
9) Haven´t forgotten Israel, who at this point are hard pressed from all sides (except the sea where NATO controls) and are begging NATO to allow them to use nukes on the Egyptian and Syrian army groups.
10) They proceed to nuke all the Middle Eastern oil fields dropping the entire world into an energy inspired depression which lasts 100 years and reduces most countries to sustenence farming

(there are alternate religous endings to the story, but I won´t include them for space)

Where do you people come up with this stuff?

That's good, but where's the sex?

Why not add a few extra-terrestrials for color?

Hey Tom Clancey, that sounds like an awfully long novel to read. I'll think I'll wait for it to come out on video.