Nice rational logic. Applies well to all of the current nuclear powers.

But little problem... amongst many complexities inherent to how the post revolutionary system evolved, one of the big ones is the (intentional) tension between IRGC and Artesh.

That intramural fun actually led to the regime promising to the IRGC that when they *did* get the bomb, command and control would reside with the IRGC.

So the actual fanatic wing gets the bomb, or at least they've been promised and would expect that. Going back on that promise would be dangerous to the regime (assuming IRGC is still in play).

I tend to suspect that promise was made with the intention of not actually crossing the finish line in the foreseeable future. Rather they intended to keep rattling sabres and looking busy so as to not trigger IL too much, while appeasing their own wingnuts.

So the real danger is this: Left to their own devices, mullahs get coerced by IRGC into sprinting to finish, or replaced by IRGC loons who chose that option. IL finds out, the region gets a lot warmer, and the global economy takes a timeout.

There's some unfortunate ambiguity as to the actual state of the bomb program, what exactly IL knows about it on any given day, and what the regime will assess as the redline. So we have a region of uncertainty where a miscalculation could be made.

Better to just keep their nuke program well short of that ballpark. Unless perhaps there's some major evolution of the regime that minimizes the influence of the system which was intentionally established with fanaticism as a core component.

Again, it's complicated and it's not like the existing nuclear powers who are inherently rational.