> Would the world be safer (or more endangered) if Iran had a nuclear weapon

A nuclear Iran would mean a nuclear KSA, UAE, Qatar, Turkiye, Egypt, and Oman.

We literally had a war between two nuclear armed states barely 1 year ago (India-Pakistan) [0], and a standoff [1] that almost became a war [2] between two other nuclear armed states (India-China) barely 5 years ago. Additionally Iran and Pakistan had a border conflict barely 1 years ago [3] as well that also almost spiraled

The world is already crazy enough as it is - more states with nuclear capabilities would dramatically increase the risk of an actual nuclear war.

Edit:

> Not sure if North Korea is a good example, but is that not a detente? Bad for the NK people, but not a geopolitical crisis.

The PRC has committed to denuclearizing North Korea [4] in order to unlock a trilateral FTA between the PRC, SK, and Japan, which led NK to become closer to Russia in order to build second strike capabilities against both the US as well as China.

At some point, this will force SK and Japan to seriously consider going nuclear, which incentivizes Taiwan and potentially even the Phillipines, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Vietnam to join the scramble - and would cross multiple red lines for the PRC.

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_India%E2%80%93Pakistan_co...

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020%E2%80%932021_China%E2%80%...

[2] - https://theprint.in/defence/nearing-breaking-point-gen-narav...

[3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Iran%E2%80%93Pakistan_con...

[4] - https://english.kyodonews.net/articles/-/53131

Israel Strikes Oil Facilities in Iran