Granted, the US is the only country in history that has dropped the bomb, but that was against a country FULL of religious fanatics who would have fought to the last man. The Japanese culture at that time was in the belief that their emperor was LITERALLY a descendant of the god of the Sun, and therefore a divine entity. Furthermore, the Japanese culture did not permit surrender of any sort, as it was seen as the ultimate disgrace. Everyone strictly adhered to the samurai code, and the code was such that suicide was less of a disgrace than surrender. The Japanese army would have fought to the last man, with catastrophic amounts of casualties to both sides. So in theory the dropping of the bomb during the second world war was something that saved far more deaths than it caused.

Don't get me wrong, I am anything but advocating the use of nuclear weapons against another country by anybody, and personally I believe they should be wiped off the face of the planet. However, the rationale behind the dropping of the bomb was far different because of the circumstances posed by the Japanese culture and their radical devotion to their "divine emperor" and the samurai code at the time. The dropping of the bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki was what horrified emperor Hirohito into proclaiming to the people that he was not a god, and thus the people were not obligated to protect him by the samurai code any longer. Instead of the war lasting until the States had completely over-run Japan, it ended much earlier. The end of WW2 was horrific no doubt, but dropping the bombs forced an early end to the war, which saved much more bloodshed than would have happened had the Japanese fought to the last man.

Nuclear arms are not a practical weapon, but rather a deterrent. The world has seen the devastation that they can cause, and nobody, not even the United states, would even think to use them again, unless they were attacked by nuclear weapons themselves first. Not to mention the leaders of such a democratic country as the United States would be committing political suicide to use them against another country, as there would be dramatic public outcry to such an act.

So basically all of this "Iran and all other countries should have nuclear weapons so that they are not nuked" is all cock-and-bull, and really, the issue is that there would indeed be a huge amount of discord in the middle east if a country like Iran was to manufacture nuclear weapons. I am not suggesting that Iran would use nuclear weapons if they had them, but I am saying that the sort of arms race that would result from their manufacture would escalate tension in an already tense area of the world, and in tense situations, tempers flare, and if you are afraid of your close neighbour attacking you when you are feeling threatened by many other nations in the same vicinity, then the temptation to use the bomb is just too much of a risk to have in those sorts of areas.

The will to use them in that area would have nothing to do with morals or fanaticism, but rather a feeling of being threatened, and of course nobody in this thread wants such a thing to be possible.