Speaking to Fars News Agency, Iran’s atomic energy chief Mohammed Eslami reported that the nation has the technical capability to produce an atomic bomb, but that they have no intention of trying to do so.
Eslami is not the first official to point this out. Top aide to Ayatollah Khamenei Kamal Kharrazi said the same thing last month. Eslami would be in a better position to know the technical capacity of the nation.
At the same time, an aide to the Supreme Leader would be in a better position to know Iran’s intentions, especially with Khamenei declaring nuclear arms to be haram, or religiously forbidden, to even attempt to acquire.
That’s the crux of the nuclear dispute with Iran for years, as Iran works on a civilian capability that they absolutely have every right to, and the US won’t accept Iran’s ruling out of weaponization, despite the vast majority of nuclear energy powers on the planet making similar decisions.
iran has been saying for decades that they do not want any atomic weapons
I can certainly respect Iran’s opinion, on not wanting to develop nuclear weapons but it is a nuclear world and those with nuclear weapons are likely to take advantage of countries that don’t have nukes. It’s a bit of a conundrum…
I’m not sure … I think they are playing a canny game: the ability to manufacture weapons on short notice if they are pushed to it may be worth more to them security-wise than the actual existence of a few.
I mean, you don’t really have retaliation ability against the likes of US or Russia with just a handful of nukes. And if Iran were to develop some, Turkey and Saudis among others would claim theirs. Iran’s real security would thus deteriorate.
Hi Caliman:
You raise some good and relevant points. I’ll have to ponder them…
and American intelligence has been saying the same thing consistently since 2003 … the whole nuclear “issue” is a manufactured one for purposes of empire.
The article errs in stating “the US won’t accept Iran’s ruling out of weaponization”. It’s Israel that won’t accept it, the US is just following orders.
The Israeli PM said yesterday “These other capabilities (nuclear weapons) keep us alive and will keep us alive as long as we and our children are here”. The Israelis know the game is getting real and at some point they’re going to have to use their nuclear arsenal both to eliminate the Iranian capability and demonstrate their nukes as a functioning deterrent the way Truman did with Japan. The neocons are trying to get nukes onto the palette by getting them used in Ukraine or Taiwan so that Israeli nukes can be used. The Russians and Chinese aren’t going to accommodate them so they need the US to use tactical nukes to get the nuclear door open. All the neocons have to do is get the US into a war it can’t shoot it’s way out of with conventional weapons, which is what a shooting war over Ukraine or Taiwan will be. The way to stop this from happening is to recognize it.
Iran may say nuclear weapons are haram (forbidden in Islam). It should now say they are halal (permissible in Islam) and develop nuclear weapons to keep the US, Israel, Saudi Arabia etc out of its territory, it should also let Russia and China establish bases there to keep the USA, Israel etc out of its territory.