Indeed, this is further evidence that one popular theory stating that nuclear weapons can never be used (in the modern era) is invalid.
If we observe historical trends, then among the 5 countries/entities that are not recognized nuclear powers according to the NPT (Nuclear non Proliferation Treaty), India, "Israel'/Zionist regime and Pakistan got away with slaps on the wrist, for the most part.
North Korea had/has to endure harsh sanctions, isolation, embargo and demonization. Iran, too, has/had to endure much of the same.
What is worse is out of all these countries/entities only Iran declared formally that nuclear weapons are "haram" by a fatwa, or scholarly opinion, from their supreme leader Sayyid Ali Khamenei. Whether that fatwa is considered valid in other schools of Islamic thought, or whether that was an instance of Taqiyya - a crucial tool in the armoury of the current Iranian theocratic leadership - may be worth discussing elsewhere.
What remains true is Iranians had to endure the humiliating experience of their most revered General, their most revered "warrior", their most revered battle hardened commander in the form of Qasem Suleimani killed openly by their adversary without as much as extracting 50% out of the enemy in revenge.
All that because they have never publicly tested an ICBM and a number of nuclear warheads.
"Israel"/Zionist regime has never been sanctioned/embargoed by the United Nations nor by China or the Soviet Union. There are important lessons to be learnt from this observation.
India, due to its huge population irrespective of how malnourished, famished, diseased, corrupt, dirty, deceptive, fraudulent, crime-afflicted their populations may have been, could get away with testing nuclear bombs (multiple times, in 1974 and in 1998) and also develop ICBMs with the full blessing of the Western world and Russians/Soviets. Their space program is still not fully indigenous and the only reason they could succeed in developing ICBM might well be the explicit complicity of the West and Russia.
Pakistan has faced some wrath from the West because it has been the only OIC member that dared to pursue this path with some modest degree of success. Unfortunately, since Pakistan is also the only nuclear weapons state without any ICBM in its inventory, it had to suffer immensely since 2001 or thereabout.
If we observe the impact of titular sanctions imposed by the USA on India and Pakistan after the 1998 blasts, neither their trade volumes/values, nor their investment flows, nor their tourism/air travel/transport by sea/similar forms of interaction with the outside world suffered to any noticable degree.
It seems the leadership of Iran made a huge blunder by not testing ICBMs and nuclear warheads openly by now. They should have done so at least 15 years ago. It is also not clear why the wider Arab world, the wider Muslim world, the wider Turkic world, or even the relatively smaller Republic of Turkey led by the visionary Reis Erdogan has not actively, assiduously pursued a strategy to go nuclear and test ICBMs promptly.
The threat of sanctions, more than the sanctions themselves, apparently frighten many leaders and advisors in these countries for some inexplicable reason.
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