I hear this reasoning about rational actors used to defend the status quo constantly, but the argument lacks integrity when you put into perspective a few hard truths.
1) Only one nation to date has used a nuke or something resembling it on a civilian population, hint - its not one of the pantomime baddies we're all terrified of but rather one of the so called 'rational actors'. And as far as the Middle east is concerned, that same nation's regional ally and proxy is the only power in the region to also possess a nuke.
2) Your point about it falling into the hands of genocidal, morally-bankrupt, ethno-fascist fanatics that believe they're doing god's work being a recipe for catastrophic disaster. You're spot on. It also so happens the aforementioned proxy power in the previous point fits that description.
The nuclear weapon is definitely one of humanity's most tragic and disgraceful conceptions, but its only saving grace is the powerful deterring factor it holds amongst adversaries. If it acts as a buffer that prevents major powers from engaging in devastating, direct conflicts that decimated Europe in the 20th century, then surely we take that as an acceptable, albeit reluctant compromise. The ideal scenario is no one possesses nuclear weapons, but considering that's an impossibility, the next best thing is anyone who possesses nuclear weapons is deeply hesitant to use them for fear of equally devastating reprisals. That stalemate only works when there's a nuclear power balance which currently doesn't exist in volatile regions like the middle east.
That's a gross misrepresentation of USA's approach to using nuclear weapons on Japan and their consequent policy afterwards.
The Battle of Okinawa was the first real invasion of the Japanese home islands, in which case the allied suffered 15,000 combat dead and Japan, in total, suffered 150,000 - 200,000 dead both civilian and combat alike. For a tiny island about 35% smaller than the Isle of Skye.
Despite being defeated in everything but officially, Japan refused to surrender, even conditionally, and vowed to fight to the death. As it became obvious a land invasion of the home islands was approaching, The Japanese Military Government began to hand out rifles, molotov's, to every able person, female and male. Even in Okinawa, all males aged 14-17 were drafted and even kids as young as 9 years old were handed grenades in an unofficial capacity.
US War Planners in the Pacific began to show severe doubt regarding the inhumane human cost that a land invasion of Japan would bring. A Plan was devised called Operation Olympic which, upon first draft was sent to the Executive Branch for sign off, only for it to be rejected. Why? Expected casualties were 2.1 million US soldiers KIA and 9+ million Japanese KIA. For months, the plan was revised down, shrunk in scale and Olympic got into its final draft that war planners and the executive branch agreed upon. Expected casualties: 1.0 million US KIA and 5.5 million Japanese KIA. To do this the US changed the plan to just the southern third of Japan to be invaded and use that as leverage for a peace settlement with Japan.
Then obviously the Nukes came along and the rest is history. Without the Nukes Operational Downfall and Operation Olympic would have been brutal beyond anything we would have seen in the war. It would have made the Eastern Front seem tame, simply due to the absurd population density Japan had at the time (and still do). Nagasaki and Hiroshima were horrible things to happen and it resulted in 150,000 civilian deaths, but the only plausible alternative would have resulted in death and destruction orders of magnitude higher.
After that, the administration changed their view towards nukes (despite popular media rhetoric towards Truman's views). Nobody wanted to use it. When Douglas McArthur proposed using nukes to beat China and North Korea in the Korean War, Truman consequently fired McArthur, his entire Joint chiefs of Staff and his backroom staff.
......The regime knows they have maximum 10% support within the country and in case of a full-out war, there won't be any public support for it, so they just harp and bark and keep getting their asses handed to them by Israel. I was passively listening to an X space of regime fans and I really felt some of them have finally come to the same conclusion about the regime's impotence and paper-tigerish as well ... hopefully it'll mean they'll lose even some of the remaining 10% as a result.
