Many observers of the developments in Iran concerning nuclear related matters, , have equated a putative Iranian nuclear program with a determination on the part of Iran to acquire nuclear weapons. The picture, however, is far more complex. In Iran’s case, the rationale for its nuclear industry, both before and after the revolution, is primarily economic in nature. Having signed the NPT, Iran has been building an indigenous top-to-bottom control of the nuclear fuel cycle and all the technological accouterments involved with such an enterprise, to divert its domestic energy needs away from fossil fuels to nuclear. If one compares Iran with a country like France (i.e. similar population size), this makes much economic sense. The World Nuclear Association states that France derives over 75% of its electricity from nuclear energy and that 17% of its electricity is from recycled nuclear fuel. While Iran is a major player in global energy, possessing the third largest oil reserves and the second largest natural gas reserves globally, it has monumental problems with energy efficiency and public consumption. As the US Energy Information Agency has catalogued, though Iran is a “net exporter of electricity, increasing domestic demand has created shortfalls in supply during times of peak energy demand”. While this has been a dilemma for Iran even before the revolution, in conjunction with conflicting pressures of subsidization by the Iranian state and stringent sanctions by the West, naturally forces Iran to look for alternative supplies of energy for its domestic demand, improve efficiency at home, while diverting fossil fuels intended for the home market for export. And as sanctions tighten on Iran, it not only has to look East and South for trading partners, but also is forced to offer those partners discounts to balk at Western aims to isolate Iran economically. Yet, if Iran can exploit even half of what France obtains from nuclear energy, the costs in terms of sanctions and discounted rates for Iran’s consumer base would be more than offset by the savings it obtains at home from nuclear energy. This paper, in challenging the established security climate over Iran’s nuclear program, provides the economic logic behind Iran’s attempts at total indigenization of its nuclear industry.