IRAN'S TRUE NUCLEAR AMBITION: BREAKOUT CAPABILITY

"... Iranian leaders say that nuclear weapons are contrary to the Islamic law of war, that they do not want them and could not legally deploy them. They hold that the enrichment facilities are intended to produce fuel for a string of nuclear reactors that will keep Iran from having to use its precious petroleum, a key earner of foreign exchange and guarantor of national independence, for domestic power generation...

"Iran's leadership is seeking what is sometimes called the "Japan option" or a "rapid breakout capability." Unlike North Korea, India and Pakistan... Tehran genuinely does not want to actually construct and detonate a nuclear device. India and Pakistan are such large and important countries that they defied the First World nuclear club successfully and so joined it. North Korea, much smaller, weaker and poorer, has made itself an international pariah in this way, and is suffering more and more severe UN sanctions... most senior Iranian leaders wish to avoid those heavy sanctions, having seen what they did to Iraq...

"But having a rapid breakout capability-- being able to make a bomb in short order if it is felt absolutely necessary to forestall a foreign attack-- has a deterrent effect. So Iran would have the advantages of deterrence without the disadvantages of a bomb if it could get to the rapid breakout stage.."

http://www.juancole.com/2009/11/iaea-condemnation-of-iran-omen-of-new.html