Why is it that a country lavishly endowed with oil and gas resources should require nuclear power?

So they can sell more oil and gas overseas?

In an op-ed commentary former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger wrote that “for a major oil producer such as Iran, nuclear energy is a wasteful use of resources,” a position later cited approvingly by the Bush administration.

But U.S. leaders are engaging in a massive case of collective amnesia, or perhaps more accurately, intentional misdirection. In the 1970s the United States encouraged Iran to develop nuclear power precisely because Iran will eventually run out of oil.

http://irancoverage.com/2007/11/29/some-background-on-us-and-irans-nuclear-program/

Here is the newspaper ad that ran in the 70s:

irancoverage.com