As someone who absolutely hates American bullying of a hegemony. This is one case where I believe people of Iran might come out beneficial of it. In the long term? I am not so sure.

But will that happen? I doubt it. A country like America likes authoritarian regimes that like to listen to America. So Iranian things in the best interest of America would be the same theocracy but docile to America at least in the near future (or worse a full fledged military dictatorship which they anyway installed once).

However I just hope/dream (and it's too much of a hope) for the sake of Iranian people - it ends up getting a democracy after all (maybe).

However there is one thing clear - there is no rule based foreign relations, business, diplomacy anymore in this post truth world of ours. It's plain simple - you look after your own hind lest you find someone is at the door wanting to take it; might be an ally just as well.

A side note: I can't thank four of my country's ex PMs [0] enough that they ensured we had nukes inspite of stringent sanctions from other nations which ironically, among them, almost all already had nukes :D

The point is - we wish there were no nukes in our heating beautiful world; but tough luck, so you better get your own and get it soon.

[0] esp. Indira Ghandhi; also, probably the only head of sate that actually succeeded in "selling freedom" thing. Something America specialises in and uses as a premise to routinely reduce various parts of the world to rubble. A positive outcome of such endeavours - its defence industry getting push from it and of course it goes about trying to re-build it, giving push to other of its industries, half or quarter way and then finds other sundry places to subject to this routine.

But wasn't Iran already docile to America? Sure, it wasn't a crystal clear ally like Saudi or the Gulf states, but behind the anti-Zionist propaganda and "evil US" blabbering, there were decades of backchannel negotiations, regional pragmatism, and even moments of cooperation — especially when mutual interests aligned, like in post-Taliban Afghanistan or the fight against ISIS.

I'm tired of hearing that American support for Israel is about supporting our hegemony, or about bullying for oil. This myth actually gives this relationship more support among Americans.

The truth is it doesn't benefit us at all, we simply do it because pro-Israel lobbies have a ton of power. Trump even diverted resources from Ukraine for this, and that war is really about US hegemony even though there's a moral aspect to it too.

> The point is - we wish there were no nukes in our heating beautiful world; but tough luck, so you better get your own and get it soon.

Exactly my thoughts. We were absolutely blessed to have been developing our own nuclear capabilities at a time of intense international scrutiny. We were sanctioned to oblivion by the West for that until they realized (after Pakistan too developed their nukes, comfortably) that you can't simply ignore the elephant in the room. And we paid for it dearly too (with the assassinations of leaders in our nuclear programme).

At this point, it should be expected of any rational self-serving sovereign nation that they should develop nukes, especially if they have a record of historical non-aggression. South Korea, modern Japan, the EU (especially those in direct threat of Russia like Poland)... I don't expect Germany to grow a pair to not rely on the US, any time in the near future.

"A country like America likes authoritarian regimes that like to listen to America."

I dunno. America seems to like Norway, and they don't seem particularly authoritarian.

Trump will declare that his BIG BEAUTIFUL BOMBS won the war, nuclear facilities are no more. Israel cannot claim otherwise, because that would be against big brother. Iran will continue covertly making nuclear bomb, but that will take more years, and will continue peace talks for now. Trump will get Nobel peace prize for peaceful bombing and will be happy.