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What does this have to do with me?

As to Iran getting a nuclear bomb: I assume that they are as self-interested and non-suicidal as any other government. Yes, their leader says some stupid shit, but lots of nuclear powers have leaders who say stupid shit and even do stupid shit. For instance, the President of the US claims that God told him to invade Iraq....so he did. Despite all that, the US has not used nuclear weapons since WWII. Or take the Soviets: Despite adhering to the dumbest economic system ever devised, they did not commit suicide by using nukes.

I'm not 100% confident in this analysis. It's the sort of thing that only has to be wrong once and it's all over. But the costs of 100% certainty are huge, and the process of seeking 100% certainty might actually make other regimes feel sufficiently threatened that they decide to seek nukes. So as horrible as it would be if this analysis is wrong, trying to prevent proliferation by force is probably just as dangerous--disastrous short-term consequences, and self-defeating long-term consequences (i.e. increasing the incentive to get nukes).

I don't take the Terrorist Nuke that seriously for Thoreau's reasoning. Nukes bring you into the Big Boy club, and the Big Boy club, just like the Rotter's Club, has rules in exchange for the privileges. One rule is, no ostentatious displays of wealth--you can have nukes, let it subtly be known you have them, and that they are big, and impressive, and sure to cause any foreign government to swoon, I mean look at the size of -- but I digress. So there's much more for a state to gain by having nukes than it does in using them. Using them gets you booted from the club. It's just Not Done, old boy.

And using them by proxy? Well, you see what happened to Afghanistan after some people based there used some planes on a building. Imagine if they were responsible for a nuke? Remember, the other players would still have lots and lots of working nukes, and the rules, well, the club protects its own.

I agree, but there's one problem with expanding the club: The more members in the club, the harder it becomes to finger the source of any smuggled nuke. Iran? Pakistan? North Korea? Corrupt guard at Russian nuke site?

With only 4 suspects, I'm not too worried. But 5 suspects? 6 suspects? It becomes harder with each name on the list. Of course, it's not like there'd be zero information in the aftermath of a smuggled nuke going off, but still.... And with each name on the list, that's one more chance for the calculation (that leaders are self-interested and non-suicidal) will fail, or one more chance for a self-interested and non-suicidal leader to trust the wrong scientist, or put the wrong guard at the gate of the nuclear facility.

If I thought that a forcible intervention against an aspiring nuclear power would work without too much fallout (figurative and literal) I'd deviate from my non-interventionist stance. But I look at the way that an intervention could get out of control, and the body count could rise to 5 digits or more...and I'm not sure that a 5 digit body count is an acceptable loss to prevent a low-probability event, even a very catastrophic one.

So I'm left accepting that deterrence of self-interested and non-suicidal leaders is all we have to go on.

Good point. If you let somebody else set it off and take the credit for it and you say nothing, then you get the satisfaction of seeing your enemies burn but you don't get to say "See, this is what happens when you fuck with me!" Because as soon as you say that, they say "Well, this is what happens when you fuck with us!" and you get zero strategic or geopolitical benefit from having shown what happens to those who fuck with you.

Still, like you say, as the club gets bigger the chances increase that something will go wrong.

Intervention worked in Iraq that one time, but the lesson it sent to everybody was that nuclear facilities need to be deep underground and as decentralized as possible. I don't think that intervention will work against another aspiring nuclear power. The necessary interventions will involve unacceptable measures.