The above image is a scan of a piece of Trinitite. This is desert sand that was underneath the explosion of the world's first Atomic bomb in New Mexico as part of project TRINITY, hence the name Trinitite. The heat from that blast melted the sand into a green glass, not unlike the Fulgurites that result when lightning hits sandy soil.
Now, imagine an entire nation looking like the above sample, melted into green glass. Buried in the green glass are the charred remains of the people of that nation. It's not an idle fantasy. The US spent $5 trillion dollars (1950s dollars) building a nuclear deterrent capability that can actually do that; melt any nation and it's people into a giant slab of green glass. The USSR knew it, the world knows it, Saddam knew it. The government of Iran knows it.
More...