[fakedang]

Or maybe the US and its allies actively pursue shit that's threatening to the Iranians? Eg: Yemen, Syria, etc.

Let's drop the farcical argument about how the Iranian programme is a threat to US interests. Meanwhile the tiny UAE can actively buy nuclear tech from the US, while also letting the Chinese build a military base and themselves building a base in Djibouti. Or the Saudis who can easily acquire a nuclear weapon from Pakistan with far less effort than the Iranians can with their nuclear program, nuke or not (because the Saudis funded the Pakistani nuclear programme, and above was one of the conditions).

Iran is currently "threatened" by 3 potential or active nuclear US allies - Israel, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, so bad guys or not, geopolitics dictates that they too have to acquire nukes to maintain their survival. For the very reason that North Korea still exists while Ukraine has been invaded.