Why can't the West allow Tehran to have nuclear weapons?

It isn't fair! To give you some context for the West's unevenhandedness, mull over this news in today's New York Times:

The Iranian government confirmed Tuesday that a man was executed by stoning last week for committing adultery, and said that 20 more men would be executed in the coming days on morality violations. . .

A judiciary spokesman, Alireza Jamshidi, told reporters on Tuesday that a death sentence by stoning had been carried out last week near the city of Takestan, west of Tehran, despite an order by the chief of the judiciary, Ayatollah Mahmoud Shahroudi, not to permit such executions. . .

He said the 20 additional executions were for such things as “rape, insulting religious sanctities and laws, and homosexuality.” Most executions in Iran are hangings, often in public and at the scenes of the alleged crimes.

The police arrested about 1,000 people in May during a so-called morality crackdown. Mr. Jamshidi said 15 more men were being tried on similar charges and could receive death sentences.

The daily newspaper Etemad Melli reported Monday that Jaffar Kiani, 47, who had been convicted of adultery, was executed by stoning on Thursday in the cemetery of a small village near Takestan. “Villagers said the sentence was carried out by the local judge and authorities,” the newspaper reported.

As RFE/RL reported last October:

Under pressure from the European Union, Iran was said to have introduced a moratorium on stonings in 2002. But activists accuse judges of perpetuating the practice. . .

Women's rights activist Mahboubeh Abbasgholizadeh tells RFE/RL that one of the reasons new stonings are being ordered is because the moratorium was not enshrined in law.

"Since under our laws, judges are independent, one reason [for continued stonings] might be that with the new government [of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad] coming to power and the change in the political atmosphere, judges who are in favor of such sentences have become more active," Abbasgholizadeh says. "Therefore, we think stoning should be banned by law -- otherwise judges can issue such sentences as they desire."

As the RFE/RL report continued:

Women are buried up to their chests in a pit; men are buried up to their waists. And their hands are tied behind their backs.

Then, as lawyer Elham Fahimi explains, they are struck with rocks until they die.

"They put them in a hole and they wrap them in a kafan [a white sheet used for burial] -- this is how it should be done, according to the law," Fahimi says. "Then they call on those who have not committed any crimes to come and throw stones."

Death by stoning is slow and painful. Islamic code prescribes that "the stone should not be so big as to kill the offender with one or two stones" and "nor should it be as small as pebbles."

All the European pressures seems to have done is force stonings underground, so to speak. From the RFE/RL October report:

"Currently they don't carry out stoning in public. I don't know [why], maybe because of public opinion or international pressure," Abbasgholizadeh says. "Now it seems that they do it in the prison courtyards by prisoners or prison guards [casting the stones]. I even know...a political prisoner who was detained three or four years ago and had seen from his cell that they brought a woman and forced other female detainees to stone her."