Good old fashioned Gunboat diplomacy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunboat_diplomacy
Guest Post: Iran: Oh, No; Not Again 01/11/2012 Says it very succinctly:
" As a signatory to the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) treaty, Iran has every legal right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes, such as making nuclear fuel rods for a research reactor, and Iran is claiming that all their current work is towards this end.
Maybe it is; maybe not. But even if a nuclear bomb is being pursued, there's nothing in the NPT that provides for military action to pre-emptively prevent any nation-state from carrying out such development work. In fact, if a preemptive strike is carried out, it will be done without the benefit of any international laws or treaties that could justify the action.
Also left out of the narrative is any explanation of why it was okay for Pakistan to develop nuclear weapons or why North Korea is permitted to hold them.
The simple answer is because they don't have any oil. A quick view of the US military presence surrounding Iran, coupled with the Iraqi experience of being attacked for supposed weapons of mass destruction that did not exist (nor were used by Iraq to threaten the US), reveals why Iran may be so motivated to develop a nuclear weapon:
If Iraq had a nuclear weapon in 2002, it is quite doubtful the US would have invaded -- a lesson that has not gone unnoticed. "
