Iran's recent alleged attempts to acquire nuclear weaponary have been met with interesting responses by the wider world. While the message has been firm, 'Stop your nuclear program or we will stop it for you.' The actual response has been limited to diplomacy which seems to be making little if any headway. Either the international community doesn't really care about nuclear proliferation (which would just be stupid... not that i'm ruling it out of course) or they are impotent to act against Iran.
The second possibility has been examined a lot already. The basic point is that, what with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the US drones flying around launching rockets in Pakistan (not to mention the whole Israel-Palestine thing), tension in the region is already pretty high. So it's possible that American and European diplomats are worried about kicking off a new Islamic revolution to put all the rest to shame if they are seen to be starting a war with another Muslim country.
But there is another possibility. What if the leaders in the west want Iran to get nuclear weapons. Might seem a little strange, let me explain.
Israel.
You don't get it do you? OK, more explanation then.
The country of Israel was created by the Zionist movement with support from Britain and America as a nation for the Jews. The process started at the turn of the twentieth century with calls for Jewish people from all over the world to move to Palestine (the Aliyahs), the homeland of the Jews. The Holocaust in Europe added extra impetus to this movement and soon after the end of WWII the allied forces created the state of Israel, handing over 2/3 of Palestine (including much of the most fertile land) to the Jewish people despite the fact that they only made up 1/3 of the population and also despite the land being promised to the Arabs for their assistance in defeating the Ottoman Empire in WWI (see Lawrence of Arabia).
Israel has been portrayed in the Western media as the underdog: a small, brave nation surrounded by larger enemies intent on their destruction. However it is important to realise that Israel has a large, well trained army equipped with the best weaponary that America and Britain can provide. Also their neighbours aren't nearly as hostile as we are told, wars between them have mainly been (failed) attempts to restore balance between the Jewish and Arabic peoples of Isreal-Palestine and they have been restrained in the forces committed.
And now Israel is a nuclear power, with the power to utterly annihilate any Muslim country which faces up to them. They have become arrogant in their dealings with the rest of the world and especially in their treatment of the Palestinian people. They have broken more UN resolutions than any other country in the world. They have broken the Geneva convention in their occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. They constantly break many basic Human Rights when dealing with none Jews in both Israel and Palestine, most noticeably and undeniably the Freedom of Movement. They flaunt common decency and get away with it.
My conspiracy theory is that the Western Powers (or one or a group of them) has finally become sick of Israel's un-challenged dominance of the Middle East and has decided to even things out a bit more so that there's more chance of diplomacy happening and some sort of solution to the numerous problems of the region being found. And so they have given Iran the technology required to become a Nuclear power too so that they can provide a check on the regional dominance of Israel.
Insane? Perhaps, but it could be an effective strategy, the threat of mutually assured self-destruction is a powerful one. Direct conflicts between nuclear powers are a highly risky business and in such circumstances there is much more incentive to sort things out through diplomacy.
As an afterthought, maybe a similar thing happened between India and Pakistan.
(If you're interested in hearing more about the history of the Isreal-Palestine thing then i recommend watching Occupation 101 - a very informative and heart wrenching documentary)
