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Iran lives in a dangerous neighborhood occupied already by four other nuclear powers—Russia, Pakistan, India and Israel. It's also been labeled as part of the "axis of evil" by the leader of what its mullahs call the "Great Satan," the United States of America, a nation that has already invaded two of Iran's neighbors, Afghanistan and Iraq.
Looking at the situation from Iran's point of view, these are all seemingly good reasons to acquire nuclear weapons of its own.
But the five oldest nuclear powers are determined to stop the spread of nuclear weapons for the very simple reason that the more countries that have them, the more likely they will be used. And the Middle East, the most dangerous region on earth, is not a place for nuclear weapons, even though Israel most certainly has them.
Recently Iran has made it clear that it will not be pressured into giving up its nuclear program. The issue has become one of national pride in Iran, making it increasingly difficult for Tehran to back down. Iranians feel that if the Americans, British and French can have their own nuclear weapons, why can't they?
At the same time, America and its coalition partners in Iraq, burned by mistakes made over weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in neighboring Iraq, seem content for the immediate future to let the Europeans slowly apply more pressure on Iran.
An Iranian threat emerges
In the 1980s Western attention was on the Soviet threat and events in Eastern Europe. Immediately after the collapse of communism, Iraq invaded Kuwait and attention was diverted to the Middle East, with Saddam Hussein's Iraq clearly seen as the major threat to the Western world, at least by Washington.
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