Well, they deny wanting nukes, so how else would they do it?
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, all but said on Sunday that negotiations over the country’s illicit nuclear program are over and that the Islamic Republic’s ideals include destroying America.
It's the regime, stupid.
Yes, yes, I know the nuclear program is popular with Iranians. But as I've long argued in pushing regime change as the preferred option over a strike campaign to knock out nuclear arms or negotiations that will never touch the core of the nuclear program, even if a non-nutball Iran has nukes, their possession will be less threatening.
And I've argued that if a free Iran has a choice between economic progress and nuclear weapons, the popularity of nukes could fade:
People opposed to striking Iran's nuclear facilities like to say that Iran's nuclear program is a matter of pride for even non-nutball jihadist Iranians. Fine. But an Iran not under the control of nutball jihadists simply isn't in the same order of nuclear danger as a nutball regime with nukes. It would be a proliferation danger and not an attack danger. A nutball regimes in Tehran proves it is a danger even without nukes every week, does it not?
And an Iran under non-nutballs might actually decide that the cost of the nuclear program is too high given Iran's other problems and limited money to address them. Pride is one thing. Providing for your family might be preferable to eating grass and having nuclear weapons. Iranians might want to ask Pakistanis how that bargain is working out for them.
Huh:
Iranians have become increasingly and openly hostile to their government over the last year as the increased sanctions hurt the economy and hit most Iranians directly. To the relief of the government there were no major uprisings in reaction to the increased prices, but opinion surveys show falling morale and more Iranians believing that if it comes down to prosperity or nukes, they prefer higher living standards to being a nuclear power.
Get rid of the nutball rulers who aim to destroy us--somehow--and Iranians could be friendly and unwilling to waste money on nuclear weapons.
Gosh, somebody might point out that even though apologists for Iran's expensive nuclear program claim Iran needs nukes to deter an American invasion, in 35 years of mullah nutballery, we haven't actually invaded Iran.
I remain frustrated that we can't seem to get anything going to get rid of a regime that has such little popular support among the people.
Sadly, the small base of support for the mullahs is ruthless and willing to kill as much as they need to when confronted with Twitter revolts.
UPDATE: Seemingly related:
Spies based in Iran created a bogus news organization used for espionage since 2011 against US and Israeli military targets, security researchers said.
Others were targeted, as well.
You have to go a long way in the article to get to "why":
Of particular interest to the network were people involved in nuclear non-proliferation and sanctions that could affect Tehran.
Iran wants to know what they can get away with. I'm sure they now know that if Iran pretends to halt their nuclear weapons track that we will pretend to believe them.
