OPINION | Iran, Nuclear Power And Politics Of Control: A Question That Challenges Global Order
It is a question that does not sit still. It travels across borders, across drawing rooms, across WhatsApp groups and television studios. It arrives in India too, carrying with it an unease that is not easily dismissed. Is Iran more irresponsible than Pakistan, a nuclear-armed state with a history of military coups and militant spillovers? Is it more dangerous than North Korea, which has tested nuclear weapons with theatrical defiance and declared itself unanswerable?
Or is the issue something else entirely? Not recklessness, but alignment. Not capability, but compliance.
If tomorrow India were told by Washington that it must dismantle its nuclear arsenal, the reaction here would not be philosophical. It would be visceral. Sovereignty does not negotiate easily with instruction.
That is where the Iranian story begins to acquire its sharper edges.
The Memory of a Coup
Iran’s present cannot be understood without its past, and that past is not a calm archive. It is a wound that has not fully healed.
In 1953, Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh nationalised Iran’s oil industry, challenging British economic dominance. It was a move that spoke the language of sovereignty, but it collided with the interests of empire. What followed was a covert operation by British intelligence and the CIA. Mossadegh was removed, arrested, and silenced. The Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, returned to power with Western backing.
For many Iranians, this was the moment democracy was interrupted, not by internal failure, but by external design.
The Shah’s rule that followed was ambitious, modernising, and deeply authoritarian. Iran was pushed rapidly toward a Western model, but political dissent was crushed. The secret police became a symbol of fear. The state spoke the language of progress, but society carried the weight of repression.
Revolutions do not arrive overnight. They gather in silences, in resentments, in the distance between rulers and the ruled. By 1979, that distance had become unbridgeable.
The Revolution and Its Afterlife
The revolution that brought Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to power did not merely change a government. It altered the vocabulary of the state.
Khomeini’s Iran was not interested in moderation. It spoke in absolutes. The United States was the Great Satan. Israel was an illegitimate presence. These were not passing provocations. They became doctrine.
Khomeini is gone, but his imprint remains. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei did not inherit just authority. He inherited a worldview. It continues to shape Iran’s posture toward the world, even as the society beneath it evolves in ways that are more complex, more restless, and often more pragmatic than the regime allows.
Iran today is not a monolith. It is a state with ideological rigidity and a society that is young, educated, and frequently at odds with that rigidity. This produces a politics that is neither fully closed nor fully open. It negotiates, resists, adapts, and occasionally hardens.
The Nuclear Knot
The nuclear issue sits at the centre of this story.
Iran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. Its critics are unconvinced. The suspicion is not only about capability but about intent, shaped by decades of rhetoric and regional rivalry.
In 2015, there was an attempt to resolve this impasse. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action brought Iran and the P5+1 countries into an agreement that was cautious, technical, and imperfect, but functional. Iran agreed to limit its nuclear activities and allow inspections. Sanctions were eased in return.
For a while, the arrangement held. There was a sense, fragile but real, that diplomacy could work.
Then, in 2018, the United States withdrew from the agreement under President Donald Trump. The decision was framed as a correction of a flawed deal. Its effect was to unravel the fragile trust that had been built. Iran responded by stepping back from its commitments.
Agreements, once broken, do not easily regain credibility. The message that travelled beyond Iran was simple. Commitments in global politics are contingent, reversible, and subject to domestic shifts in power.
Israel’s Anxiety, Iran’s Defiance
No account of this story is complete without Israel.
For Israel, Iran is not an abstract concern. It is a state that has questioned its legitimacy and supported groups hostile to its existence. Israel’s security doctrine has long been shaped by the idea that threats must be neutralised before they mature. The possibility of a nuclear-armed Iran is seen not as a distant risk but as an unacceptable one.
Iran, on its part, sees itself as encircled. Sanctions, military threats, and diplomatic isolation have reinforced a narrative of resistance. Its regional engagements, often through proxies, are both a strategy of influence and a buffer against perceived threats.
Between Israel’s anxiety and Iran’s defiance lies a region that absorbs the consequences.
The Uneven Rules of the Game
At the heart of the Iranian question lies an uncomfortable truth. The global nuclear order is not even.
Some countries possess nuclear weapons and are recognised as legitimate powers. Others are told they must not acquire them. The rules are enforced selectively, shaped by alliances, interests, and strategic calculations.
This asymmetry is not lost on countries like Iran. It feeds a narrative that the system is less about non-proliferation and more about control. It allows regimes to frame their ambitions as acts of resistance rather than escalation.
India’s own nuclear journey reflects this reality. It developed nuclear weapons outside the framework of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, arguing that the treaty itself was discriminatory. At the same time, India has articulated a doctrine of restraint, seeking to balance capability with responsibility.
Whether such a balance can be achieved elsewhere is uncertain. What is clear is that the rules of the game are not applied uniformly.
Sympathy and Its Sources
In India, public sentiment on Iran and Israel often follows familiar lines, but not always predictable ones.
Support for Israel is shaped by strategic cooperation, intelligence sharing, and a perception of resilience in the face of adversity. There is also a cultural narrative that frames Israel as a small nation holding its ground against hostile surroundings.
Sympathy for Iran, where it exists, is often rooted in a critique of Western interventionism and a recognition of the historical grievances that shape Iranian politics. It is less about endorsement of the regime and more about discomfort with the way power is exercised globally.
These positions are not fixed. They shift with events, with wars, with images that travel faster than context.
Beyond Simple Blame
It is tempting to look for a single point of responsibility. To say that the current situation is the result of one decision, one leader, one country.
Reality resists such simplicity.
The withdrawal from the nuclear deal by the United States was a significant rupture. Israel’s persistent opposition to Iran’s nuclear ambitions is a central factor. But Iran’s own policies, its rhetoric, and its regional actions are also part of the equation.
This is not a story of innocence and guilt. It is a story of accumulated choices, each shaping the next.
A Country of Possibilities and Constraints
Iran remains a paradox.
It is a country rich in natural resources, with a long history and a strategic location. It has the potential for economic strength and regional influence. Yet, it struggles under sanctions, internal constraints, and political rigidity.
Its people are not reducible to its government. They carry aspirations that are often at odds with the state’s ideological posture. This gap between state and society is where Iran’s future will likely be contested.
The Larger Question
In the end, the question of Iran’s nuclear ambitions is not just about Iran.
It is about the kind of world order that exists. One where power determines permission. Where rules are negotiated, not universally applied. Where history is not past but present, shaping choices and justifications.
To ask whether Iran should have the bomb is to ask a question that sits uneasily between principle and pragmatism.
What remains is a quieter, more persistent thought.
A world that relies only on coercion rarely finds stability. A system that demands compliance without offering fairness invites resistance. And a politics that simplifies complexity often ends up deepening conflict.
The Iranian question, then, is not just a question. It is a reflection.
Ashutosh Kumar Thakur writes on society, literature, arts and environment, reflecting on the shared histories and cultures of South Asia.
[Disclaimer: The opinions, beliefs, and views expressed by the various authors and forum participants on this website are personal and do not reflect the opinions, beliefs, and views of ABP News Network Pvt Ltd.]
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