Iran never had the deterrent North Korea had. And by being a theocracy they heavily skewed any threat calculus against themselves. What they were doing, inching towards nukes, was a horrible move. In their position, you either sprint covertly and not play at all. I suspect that after their nuclear program was discovered and set back they fell victim to the sunk cost fallacy and convinced themselves they could repurpo…
It's not so much them being a theocracy IMHO. It's that they believe they have a religious duty to destroy the state of Israel. Put those Israeli shoes on. There's a state armed with ballistic missiles in easy range of you, they have the facilities necessary to enrich weapons grade Uranium, recently acquired more advanced centrifuges, they have the uranium already enriched far beyond what's necessary for civilian use…
Be serious.
This is no justification to ignore international law. But that's dead now. Nobody will ever care again until we're done with the next big war or something. Bomb away...