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During the 1970s, under the last shah, Iran’s nuclear program seemed to be gearing up so that nation could gain the option of declaring weapons capability if deemed necessary and at a point when the international community could no longer forestall it. So re-examining activities during the Pahlavi dynasty and using them as a context for the Islamic Republic's more recent actions casts light upon motivations for pursuing weaponization and intransigence in reaching accommodation with the West after the rise of the ayatollahs, despite differences between the two Iranian regimes.