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I said it in an earlier post and I'll try to make this real clear for you. Read it slooooooooooow.

1. If Iran neither a) supports terrorists who attack Israel, nor b) develops nuclear weapons, then Iran has no justifiable fear of Israeli attack.

2. Iran has made a threat to wipe out Israel and thus is shown to be the true threat.

So the only reason left that you can have to excuse Iran developing nukes is because you think they also have a right to support terroristic attacks on Israel and should be able to defend themselves from Israeli retaliation for same.

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ACPlayer exlained the problem with this thinking very effectively just a few posts ago. Weatherman also tried to tell you. To analyze an international conflict you can't just look at it from the US perspective, but from the "bad guys" perspective as well. The Arab Middle East FEARS the US, and for many the War in Iraq confirmed their worse fears about our intentions. They DO see our alliance with Israel as western imperialism aimed at controlling the whole muslim world, its likely their most pressing fear, and for good reason given their history.

Part of this comes from propaganda demonizing the US, but mostly the moderate majority fear and hatred of us is an unfortunante byproduct of having US troops in Saudi Arabia, bombing Iraq, "starving Iraq's children", invading and occupying Iraq, and having Israel in "Arab lands" and further occupying the rightful residents of Palestine (with full US support). Without these factors, the terrorists pool of moderate muslims converts goes dry.

See how things look a little different from the "bad guys" side? An objective look at the whole situation is much different, but how can you expect an equivalent bluffTHIS in Iran to see the whole picture? He will see it close to how I've outlined above. He will see America and Israel as the bad guys, and as threats. Our policy should reflect an actual calculation of interests including analysis of the "enemy" position, as opposed to just supporting the good guys (Israel) and taking out the bad guys (Iraq, Iran, others).

Like AC said, Iran FEARS Israel and the US, and nukes are seen as a good deterrent. Iraq had no nukes and we went after Saddam, while we didn't go after North Korea becasue they had nukes. Sounds like a great incentive to get nukes from the bad guys perspective. If your a non-democracy and have nukes you get negotiations or friendly relations, if not you had better get them fast or the US is gonna attcak you. Can't you and M see how this PERCEPTION is inevitable given our policy right now?