[sharikone]

The article is from 2012 and today in 2021 Iran still has no nuclear weapons. So it did, after all, slow them down.

This tactic has been successful for the Israelis against the Egyptian missile program in the '50s, after significant setbacks.

So I understand why it appears to be a last sort extreme measure. Risky, difficult to get right but sometimes successful.

I personally think that next batches of new weapons - killer drones, biological warfare, etc... could easily get more "effective" than nuclear weapons. So it's not like it's a static world where the atomic bomb is the ultimate one. It's nations fighting to keep an edge over others in a dynamic setting where older weapons will eventually lose their relevance.