Retired General Barry McCaffrey has recently gained some press coverage of his assessment of the current situation with Iran.  See this link for his Power Point Slides  where he presented his assessment of the Iran situation.  It's a good, "high level" summary.  Of particular interest was his assessment of the potential next crises in the world -- including Cuba. 

I understand that General Barry McCaffrey is a hero.  However I don't like him, or trust him.   He had an opportunity as "Drug Czar" to help resolve America's drug  (particularly Marijuana) problem.  Instead, he bowed to the crackpot so-called Christian right wingers, and the big-money drug interdiction industry and blew his opportunity.  I do agree with his assessment that it doesn't help to have Congress trying to conduct foreign policy.  

I can understand why Iran wants nuclear weapons.  Israel has them, and probably has them targeted at Iran. Israel has shown they are not a good neighbor.  I believe they want to continue to be the word's largest "welfare" state by continuing the Palestininan situation as long as possible so they can justify receiving immense foreign aid from the US. The US has been providing Israel and Egypt (as a bribe for peace) over $1000 per Israeli citizen since the country was founded.    Neighboring Pakistan and India have Nukes, and as McCaffrey points out, there is a chance that Pakistan could lose control of 110 weapons, which could become a threat to any or all neighboring countries.    I'm not too worried about Iran "getting" nuclear capability.  If they ever actually employed those weapons, they would need to recognize the "mutually assured destruction" situation they would be in.  Would they attempt an attack with the likely  response from the rest of the world being almost total destruction of their country?  Yeah, sometimes they seem crazy, but I don't think they'd be that crazy!  

I am concerned about how/where they would test their nuclear weapon?  Would they do it under ground? -- That is a huge undertaking, time consuming, and expensive.  Or would they test it in space?  It would not make sense for them to build it and deploy it without at least one test.