The Nuclear Double Standard

ran, the Bomb, and the Countries No One Talks About

For decades, the world has clung to the convenient illusion of "nuclear order", a self-serving doctrine where a handful of nations, shielded by historical timing or brute military dominance, reserve the right to wield the deadliest weapons known to humankind. Everyone else? Permanently consigned to vulnerability, under constant threat, and told to play by rules that their more powerful neighbours openly ignore.

Nowhere is this hypocrisy more brazen or more meticulously enforced than in the case of Iran.

Since 1970, Iran has been a founding signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), theoretically binding it to peaceful nuclear development under international oversight. It has endured endless rounds of intrusive inspections, suffocating sanctions, and a perpetual threat of military action, all not for building a bomb, but for merely possessing the scientific capability that could eventually lead to one. Meanwhile, nations that flaunt the same treaty or refuse to sign it altogether face no such punishment, provided they stand on the right side of Western favour.

Meanwhile, Iran finds itself trapped in a geopolitical minefield, surrounded by nations whose nuclear arsenals are protected by silence, secrecy, or sheer geopolitical muscle, and the rules, predictably, don't apply to everyone.

To Iran’s west lies Israel, the region's most glaring example of nuclear exceptionalism. Israel neither confirms nor denies its nuclear arsenal, a carefully cultivated ambiguity. Yet, it is an open secret that the country holds around 90 nuclear warheads, according to estimates by independent organisations such as the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) and the Federation of American Scientists (FAS). Israel has never signed the NPT, and its facilities, particularly the Dimona nuclear site in the Negev desert, have long been shielded from international inspection or oversight. Not only has Israel refused to sign the NPT, but its nuclear facilities remain entirely off-limits to inspectors. Instead, Israel has adopted a more aggressive doctrine: if you even think about building nuclear capacity in the region, they will strike first.

In 1981, Israeli fighter jets launched Operation Opera, obliterating Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor. Publicly condemned at the time, the strike was quietly welcomed behind closed doors in Western capitals. The double standard was plain: while the West expressed concern over regional instability, they were more than content to see a potential Arab nuclear programme erased before it could challenge Israel's strategic superiority.

Fast forward to 2007, and Israel repeated the playbook. Operation Orchard saw Syria’s suspected nuclear facility near Deir ez-Zor flattened overnight, no warning, no debate, no consequences. The same double standard followed: public silence, private approval. Because maintaining Israel's nuclear monopoly isn't just tolerated, it's actively protected. It ensures the region remains locked in a status quo where only the "trusted" possess nuclear leverage, while others are bombed, sanctioned, or strangled before they can alter the balance.

It’s not just Israel. To the east, Iran is boxed in by Pakistan, which has over 170 nuclear warheads and remains outside the NPT entirely. Pakistan’s nuclear programme, once dismissed by Western intelligence as unfeasible, now forms the backbone of its national security doctrine. The relationship between Iran and Pakistan is uneasy at best: nominally neighbours and Muslim-majority states, yet divided by deep geopolitical fault lines. Iran views Pakistan’s close alignment with Saudi Arabia, the United States, and China with suspicion, particularly as Islamabad’s nuclear umbrella indirectly strengthens the Gulf monarchies opposed to Tehran’s regional influence.

Just across the border, India possesses 172 nuclear warheads, another state that refuses NPT oversight. While relations between Tehran and New Delhi are often pragmatic—centred on trade and energy, India’s deepening military ties with Israel and its alignment with U.S. strategic goals in the Indo-Pacific complicate this picture. India’s nuclear posture, though primarily aimed at China and Pakistan, serves as another reminder that nuclear capability remains the currency of regional influence.

Further east, China, a declared nuclear power under the NPT, continues its rapid arsenal expansion—approaching 500 warheads and counting. While Beijing and Tehran share a growing economic and security partnership, cemented by long-term energy deals and opposition to Western dominance, China's relationship with Iran is transactional, not an alliance. Beijing is unlikely to jeopardise its global ambitions by unconditionally backing Tehran, especially on the nuclear issue.

Then there's Russia, looming in the north with the world’s largest stockpile: 5,580 nuclear warheads. Moscow and Tehran cooperate in Syria and share opposition to Western sanctions, yet their relationship is one of cautious collaboration rather than genuine alliance with Russia ultimately pursuing its own strategic calculus.

Iran is encircled by nuclear-armed states, friend, foe, and unreliable partner alike. Some flaunt international treaties, others ignore them entirely, yet all enjoy de facto acceptance either shielded by their strategic alliances, their economic clout, or their geopolitical usefulness to the West. Iran, meanwhile, remains the regional outlier isolated, undermined, and targeted not because of any proven breach of nuclear obligations, but because of what it might one day be capable of. This double standard isn't accidental it's strategic. A nuclear-capable Iran, even without actual weapons, would undermine the carefully managed balance of power in the Middle East, restricting Israeli military dominance, complicating US regional hegemony, and emboldening Iran's ability to project influence without fear of regime change.

Yet when it comes to Iran, the rules, and the methods, shift dramatically.

Iran’s nuclear scientists have not merely faced diplomatic isolation; they have been systematically hunted down. Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, long described by Western intelligence as the architect of Iran’s nuclear programme, was assassinated in broad daylight in 2020, an operation widely attributed to Israel's Mossad, though never formally acknowledged. This was not an isolated incident but part of a sustained campaign of covert eliminations stretching back over a decade.

Beyond assassinations, Iran’s nuclear infrastructure has been subjected to relentless cyberwarfare. Stuxnet, the sophisticated virus jointly developed by the US and Israel, remains the most infamous example, a digital weapon that crippled Iran’s centrifuges and marked the dawn of cyber-sabotage as a tool of statecraft.

Western governments, while offering hollow declarations of support for diplomacy, have simultaneously waged economic siege warfare crippling sanctions designed to suffocate Iran's economy all under the familiar, hypocritical banner of "non-proliferation." The double standard is blatant: negotiations in the spotlight, sabotage in the shadows.

But history tells a different story one soaked in double standard and hard-nosed realpolitik.

When Iraq showed signs of nuclear ambition, Israel struck Operation Opera in 1981 obliterated the Osirak reactor. Western governments, after offering muted public condemnation, quietly acknowledged the "necessity" of preserving Israel's military edge.

When Syria was suspected of the same, Israel struck Operation Orchard in 2007 flattened the Al-Kibar facility. International silence followed, the message clear: Israel's undeclared arsenal is off-limits to scrutiny, but its neighbours' aspirations will be ruthlessly pre-empted.

When Libya's Muammar Gaddafi abandoned his WMD programmes under Western pressure, he received no security guarantees only regime change. NATO's 2011 intervention shattered Libya, serving as a brutal reminder that compliance with Western dictates offers no protection when geopolitical interests shift.

In each case, the rules were rewritten not for reasons of global security, but to maintain strategic imbalance in favour of Western allies.

Iran has survived so far. But the reality is unavoidable: nuclear capability is only "illegitimate" when you aren’t part of the exclusive club or its preferred allies. That double standard was laid bare yet again on 21st June 2025, when reports confirmed that Israeli warplanes, with tacit backing from the United States under Trump’s reinstated administration, bombed key Iranian nuclear research facilities. While the Israeli government framed the strikes as "preventive self-defence," the reality is stark: nations like Israel, themselves undeclared nuclear powers, wield the bomb as both deterrent and blunt instrument while ensuring their regional rivals remain permanently vulnerable. Western silence in the aftermath spoke volumes because when it comes to the bomb, the rules are written by the few, for the few.

The real nuclear order is not built on treaties or moral clarity. It’s built on raw power, ruthless enforcement of strategic interests, and the quiet double standard that defines modern geopolitics. Only certain nations by virtue of military dominance, Western patronage, or convenient silence are permitted to possess the bomb. The rest are shackled by treaties, harassed by sanctions, and bombed into submission if they dare disrupt the carefully guarded status quo.

The irony? The West’s relentless campaign to block Iran’s nuclear potential has arguably made the logic of pursuing a deterrent more attractive than ever. For years, Tehran could point to Ayatollah Khamenei’s fatwa, a religious decree forbidding the development or use of nuclear weapons, as proof of its peaceful intentions a rare ideological barrier to weaponisation that no Western government acknowledged. Instead, Iran was sanctioned, isolated, and attacked regardless.

But now, that restraint appears to be eroding. With Israel's latest airstrikes and the West's open endorsement, Iran is reportedly preparing to formally withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) a seismic decision that, if confirmed, would mark the death knell of decades of diplomatic efforts and signal that the era of self-imposed limitations is over.

Because in this brutal geopolitical landscape, one lesson keeps repeating with cold, ruthless consistency, etched into the pages of modern history: Those without the bomb get bombed. Those with it, don’t.