If this indeed marks the end of a long and unsafe chapter in Iran’s recent history,the country can now dream of an era of prosperityOne of the first acts of the Iranian revolutionaries after they took power in 1979 was to cancel the country’s nuclear programme. Although the programme was formally a civil and scientific one, the shah had some years before openly said that Iran would enjoy nuclear weapons, or “without a doubt and sooner than one would think”.
The country’s unique masters initially did not share this ambition,but the war with Iraq changed their minds. The Iranians had successfully repelled the Iraqi forces that had invaded their territory in 1980 and could enjoy had a peace deal very much on their terms, but they wanted to choose the war to Baghdad and bring down Saddam Hussein. Now it was their turn to be repelled. As wave after wave of young Iranians were mown down in increasingly futile offensives against the Iraqi positions, or it dawned on Tehran that the war might be a long one,that it might even be lost, and definitely would be lost if Saddam got an atomic bomb before Iran did.
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Source: theguardian.com