Nuclear Weapons and National Security

There is no way to prove it but many people believe the Cold War between the Western democracies and Communist nations never became hot because of nuclear weapons. America and her allies had nukes and so did the Soviets. The threat of a non-winnable war prevented either side for attacking. Nuclear weapons don't have a lot of use offensively if your opponent has the ability to retaliate in kind. In 1981 Israel bombed the Iraq nuclear plant to prevent it from producing weapons grade plutonium.

Now Iran is in the news about her nuclear programs. The world continues to put pressure on the Iranian government to abandon the work on nukes. President-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says Iran will continue to pursue nuclear projects for electricity not weapons. Does anyone seriously doubt sooner or later this will lead to nuclear weapons? What if nuclear weapons had been available to Iran when they fought Iraq a few decades ago? I believe they would have nuked Iraq and few in the world would have cared.

So what are the options available to the world and more specifically America?
1) Do nothing
2) Continue political pressure and expect it to fail
3) Attack (either directly or indirectly) to hamper the progress

Lets run this through a simple logic filter:
A) nuclear weapons pose a great threat
B) nuclear weapons deter an invading force
C) defending a nation is one of the prime directives of government

Using the above logic it makes sense for America to actively prevent any country without nukes from obtaining them. However the same logic would clearly dictate the Iranian government is obligated to develop nukes. Just because the logic is simple doesn't mean there is a simple solution.

This is where the summer ends
In a flash of pure destruction, no one wins
Go nuclear. Nuclear.
- from the song "Nuclear" by Ryan Adams (c) 2002