In Iranian Nuke Would Be Suicide Bomb, Nobel Prize-winning economist and game-theorist Thomas Schelling shares his thoughts:
Hope for the future rests on the fact that, despite plenty of opportunities to use the bomb in these past few decades — whether the United States in Korea or Vietnam, or Israel when Egyptian troops crossed the Suez in 1973, or the Soviets in Afghanistan — it wasn’t used.
This reality ought to impress India or Pakistan or anyone else who acquires nuclear weapons. By looking at these foregone opportunities, they will realize for their own case that using the bomb would incur universal opprobrium, if not bring devastation down on their own house.
By calling this record to the attention of the Iranian leadership in particular, I hope it will see that any actual use of nuclear weapons other than holding them in reserve for deterrence would cause it to lose any friend it has and multiply their enemies.