By the end of the 2000s, tensions in the Middle East were growing. The United States was bogged down in a bloody two-front war in Iraq and Afghanistan, meanwhile, Iran was pressing on with its nuclear weapons program. A theocracy fanatically opposed to the U.S., Iran was threatening to create a nuclear weapon and use it against U.S. interests and allies in the area.
Then in 2010, seemingly all of a sudden, the Iranian nuclear program started falling apart and Iranian scientists leading the country’s covert nuclear program witnessed in dismay more than 1,000 centrifuges spinning to their destruction without any apparent reason. But there was plenty of reason, and it had a name: Stuxnet.