Nuclear dreams: A mural of Iranian scientists making the Fattah-1, Iran’s first hypersonic ballistic missile, in Enghelab Square in Tehran in 2024. — ARASH KHAMOOSHI/The New York Times
IT has been nearly two decades since any country elbowed its way into the club of nuclear- armed nations. US President Donald Trump, with his bombing of three Iranian nuclear installations last weekend, has vowed to keep the door shut.
Whether Trump’s pre-emptive strike will succeed in doing that is hard to predict, so soon after the attack and the fragile ceasefire that has followed. But already it is stirring fears that Iran, and other countries, will draw a very different conclusion than the one the White House intended: that having a bomb is the only protection in a threatening world.
