U.S, Israel developed Flame virus to slow Iranian nuclear efforts, officials say

One other difference is that this is equivalent to low-grade but effective sabotage. I guess we can expect more of this kind of sabotage, yet, it's not as though there aren't state actors and non-state actors attempting this kind of sabotage for either economic, political, military or other reasons on a routine basis.

I also imagine there are tacit rules by which they 'play'. That is, some is expected, some frowned upon, but seen as par for the cyber course, but other things might be seen as totally off-limits (like remotely sabotaging a reservoir's gates sitting atop a city). That's to say, this form does not involve collateral killings. So, in some ways, it may be preferable to the 'magnetic' bombs alternative which have been used to slow the Iranian atomic program.

More likely China will be looking into Flame's technology as to how they can BETTER access US military and business secrets to drive their own capabilities.

Israel, for various reasons, is not a power-projecting entity in the Middle East as it has displayed no strategic desire to exert hegemonic influence over the surrounding region. Its strategic posture is primarily defensive, so accordingly its nuclear strategy is also defensive. This is why Israel's neighbours are not massively concerned about its nuclear stockpile.

Iran's government and military on the other hand have openly stated the country's regional hegemonic strategic ambitions. It wishes to weaken the Sunni Arab balance of power (Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, etc) that has held sway over the region for the past few decades. Hence it should be regarded as a state which wishes to project power over its neighbours and become the primary influence in the region.

That difference in strategic outlook makes all the difference in the world, because it means that Iran is likely to use its nuclear capability as a protective umbrella under which it can undermine the Middle East's most powerful countries without fear of retaliation.

This is why the Wikileaks memos showed that most strong Arab powers were secretly in support of American or Israeli action against Iran. An unbalanced Middle East and an Iran free to use its proxies such as Hezbollah against whoever it chooses represent grave strategic threats to every established power in the Middle East. Any additional chaos in turn is dangerous for Israel, as are an unleashed Hezbollah and Hamas.

That's why it makes perfect sense for Israel to oppose Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons despite having an arsenal of its own and why other countries, including most of the EU, are more concerned about Iran building nuclear weapons than they are about Israel already having them.

The Iranians are decent people on the whole. The Iranian regime is not the sort of organization you want having control of anything sharper than a crayon.

Israel neighbors have made it pretty clear that they want to destroy the state of Israel and have tried many times. Iran is the top sponsor of Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah that launch rockets daily on Israel. Israel on the other hand has never called for the destruction of any of its neighbors. So it seems fair that Israel doesn't want Iran to get nuclear weapons while at the same times it's understandable that Israel wants to defends itself by getting nukes for themselves for deterrence reasons. I'm from Syria by the way (half)...

Countries struggle for power. It's how politics works.

If Israel had desired to do so, they could have glassed the entire Middle East a long time ago, and there is nobody that could or would do anything about it. Samson says so.