State sponsored attempts to hack public network infrastructure fit into a totally different category. These are not the same.
There's plenty of literature on this. Whoever created stuxnet created another monster too.
From what we know the US was doing everything possible to be restrained about this stuff, keep it on the downlow as is the way, and history has shown they were very much right. It's insane what's happened in the aftermath.
We created a monster. We really did. It's clear to anyone watching.
There are plenty of American military projects that deeply worry other countries.
"The US nuclear forces modernization program has been portrayed to the public as an effort to ensure the reliability and safety of warheads in the US nuclear arsenal, rather than to enhance their military capabilities. In reality, however, that program has implemented revolutionary new technologies that will vastly increase the targeting capability of the US ballistic missile arsenal. This increase in capability is astonishing—boosting the overall killing power of existing US ballistic missile forces by a factor of roughly three—and it creates exactly what one would expect to see, if a nuclear-armed state were planning to have the capacity to fight and win a nuclear war by disarming enemies with a surprise first strike."
https://thebulletin.org/2017/03/how-us-nuclear-force-moderni...
Box 2: A small theocratic dictatorship, ruled by a Supreme Leader for life, who has been at constant war with its neighbors for pretty much all of modern history and still openly calls for the obliteration of some of them. It's a place where people are executed for adultery and homosexuality, and until recently the preferred method was stoning. After losing a half-million people in human wave attacks during its last big war, the country's Supreme Leader wants a bigger badder boom.
If these two things are the same in your mind, you are so far outside the bounds of rational thought that I'll just have to assume you're trolling.
This democracy hasn't destroyed the world because it wants to live itself and MAD guaranteed that nobody wins a nuclear war. When it could use nuclear weapons without fear of retaliation, it happily used them on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Now it has gotten closer towards obtaining capability to start and win a nuclear war.
2. Iran hasn't started a war in a hundred of years, the Iran-Iraq war was started by Iraq, in which Saddam, who was supported by the US at the time, has used chemical weapons. You are clearly misinformed by your free press and Iran's desire to possess a nuclear deterrent is more than understandable.
* Since the invention of the H-bomb, nuclear powers have had the ability to knock out all fixed silos in a first strike. You don't need accuracy with a 10MT bomb. As accuracy improves, warheads get smaller, but the MAD calculus doesn't change: You can't guarantee you'll take out all the submarine, mobile, and airborne weapons too. Accuracy doesn't change anything.
* The US is not a dictatorship and the president doesn't have the ability to unilaterally start nuclear war. Hell, he can't even assassinate a foreign head of state[1]. While I'm not thrilled with this particular president, I am confident that the democratic institutions of the US make nuclear first strike impossible.
There are a couple problems with your view of Iran:
* Iran and Iraq have been fighting since they were named Persia and Mesopotamia. Long before the official start of the Iran-Iraq war, both were funding and encouraging insurgent groups in the other. Khomeini openly called for the overthrow of Saddam via Islamic revolution. It doesn't matter who attacked first.
* Iran spent more than half of the Iran-Iraq war on the offensive in Iraqi territory. When they had power, they pressed their advantage. Khomeini spoke openly about spreading Islamic revolution everywhere, which is probably why all the neighboring nations lined up behind Iraq. The US was a tiny bit player; all Iraq's hardware came from the Soviets and all the money came from neighboring Arab states like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait (the joke would be on them later, apparently).
* Khomeini himself didn't want peace, even after 10 years of war: "Happy are those who have departed through martyrdom. Happy are those who have lost their lives in this convoy of light. Unhappy am I that I still survive and have drunk the poisoned chalice..."
There's almost nothing positive you can say about Iran's dictators since the Islamic revolution (and probably long before). Theocracies with martyr complexes must not be allowed to have nuclear weapons.
[1]: https://www.google.com/search?q=trump+mattis+assad
Also read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran–Iraq_War
* Giving the overwhelming advantage of the US and NATO in conventional weapons, the US doesn't need to actually commit a first strike to reap benefits of this capability. Nowadays the US and Russia are afraid to engage in a conventional conflict for fear of it escalating into nuclear war that would destroy both countries. After achieving first-strike capability, the US will know that Russia will be afraid to escalate by using tactical nukes against American carriers and troops. Ultimately, this will mean that the US will be able to do towards Russian allies or Russian expedionary forces whatever it feels like.
As other pointed out, before stuxnet cyberwarfare wasn't as firmly acknowledged as an official arena, so this type of high profile attack on unprotected target is something you get to do once, and the CIA used it to toot its own horn basically.
I expect it was much like the Manhattan project: they spent all that time developing a weapon so when it came time to use it there wasn't much reflection about how to employ it strategically.
Stuxnet targeted some common industrial controllers being sold not only to Iran, and one usage was the control flows on the dams. Basically it just caused the control flow gates to jam. This one that I know of is not military at all!
The stuxnet targeted parameters was Siemens S7-300, connected with a Vacon or Fararo Paya PLC, spinning between 807 Hz and 1,210 Hz. It then periodically modified the frequency to 1,410 Hz and then to 2 Hz and then to 1,064 Hz.
What specific dam had their control flow gates jammed because of this? Please provide name, date and optionally a link.