General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: If President Obama goes to war with Iran, would you be open to listening to the case for it? [View all]Hippo_Tron
(25,453 posts)But if it's simply regarding the nuclear program, then no.
The fact is, though, that Iran is probably not going to test a nuclear weapon. Once a state crosses the nuclear threshold, it is seldom able to go back. The only nation to do so is South Africa and that occurred because of a regime change. While Iran would like to become India, Pakistan, or Israel where the world officially doesn't like that they're a nuclear state but does business with them anyway, they know that this won't happen. If they test a bomb, they will wind up isolated like North Korea and face enormous economic pressure to give up their weapons.
What will happen is that the US and Israel (very begrudgingly) will accept that Iran can develop its nuclear program to the point that it could assemble nuclear weapons if they wanted to, but have inspectors to verify that they are not doing so. This allows them to save face with their domestic audience and deter their Arab neighbors from attacking them.