So long as Saddam Hussein, who had launched a brutal eight-year war against Iran in the 1980s, and whom influential Westerners openly accused of seeking to acquire nuclear weapons, remained in power, the Iranian government’s plan to develop nuclear weapons followed a certain realist logic. Once the US military ousted Saddam’s regime in 2003, Iran’s most acute security threat vanished.
伊朗这样做不难理解。只要在20世纪80年代悍然发动持续了八年的对伊朗战争、西方影响力人士公开指责寻求拥有核武器的萨达姆仍在掌权，伊朗政府发展核武器的计划就有一定的现实逻辑。而在2003年美军推翻萨达姆政权后，伊朗最紧迫的安全威胁已经解除。