General Discussion

Iran was most likely already working to develop nuclear weapons. But you could apply that same logic to any of our bombings under Biden, Obama, Bush, etc. Likewise Russia or Israel. The only significant direct conflicts between nuclear armed countries that I can think of is India and Pakistan and even those have been limited. Obviously having nukes is a strategic benefit. That's nothing new.

Calling Iran a democracy in 1952 is a stretch. Not saying we should have overthrown the government, but the leader had just dissolved the Iranian parliament and was clearly moving increasingly to an overt dictatorship. Again not saying we should have staged a coup, but it wasn't a good government before we screwed up and the the Islamic revolution screwed things up even more.

Oh and the same guy was Shah of Iran from 1941 to 1979. We didn't appoint him Shah. We centralized power under him as he was deemed a better dictator than the prime minister who was nationalizing the oil in a rejection of the deal signed previously.