"And will show them that Mr A is wrong--that it's not necessary for Iran to have nuclear weapons to protect itself from a vaunted conspiracy by the West against it."

The trouble is, there are people who appear anxious to organise just such a conspiracy. And when you have the President of the United States talking about "an Axis of Terror" including Iran, and all that, it was bound to reinforce the feeling among Iranians that they do face the prospect of the same kind of attack that they have seen on their closest neighbours.

It was that kind of thing that helped Ahmadinejad be elected as president in 2005. When you are dealing with a country with an elected government rather than a dictatorship you do really have to be careful about that kind of thing. Assad in Syria can shrug off that kind of talk as politicking, but there's an electorate in Iran that is liable to take that kind of talk as serious rather than as politicking bluster.

It's rather like what Ron said a couple of posts ago: "We may see it as that. But, guaranteed, many Israelis see it as considerably more threatening." When politicians make threatening noises for the benefit of their own domestic audience, they can frighten the people at the other end into putting their trust in extremists.   

Iranians do want the kind of toys and fun stuff that Ron mentioned - but that gets pushed into second place when they are faced with what seem like threats of invasion and bombardment.