The “One Second After” scenario is highly unlikely, so the EMP effect would not be total. It also takes a really large fission bomb to make a strong EMP that can fry circuitry. Can Iran produce a bomb of that size and a lifter capable of getting it into LEO?
There’s still enough of us left from the 1970s and before to kickstart the country even if all the electronics are fried. I know how to rebuild and operate an engine with no electronics, repair a Woodward centrifugal governor, and flash the field of a generator with a battery. Give me a mothballed Naval vessel and I can produce electricity. I am not alone in these skills.
I think that muzzles will go for incinerating a city becuase they are a death cult. Chinese would go for the EMP becuase they are thinkers and planners.
Just LOOK at what an air burst can DO to a city!
http://zidbits.com/2013/11/is-nagasaki-and-hiroshima-still-radioactive/