Simultaneously with the rise of Massoud Pezeshkian as the president of Iran’s regime, supreme leader Ali Khamenei ordered the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to complete and expedite the nuclear weapons project. Prior to this, the Iranian regime had tried to hide the project or portray it as purely for peaceful purposes. However, the Iranian opposition group the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) exposed the regime’s atomic bomb project. Only then did the public become aware of the scale of this project, as well as the regime’s missile program.
These days, Iranian regime officials openly talk about building an atomic bomb, revealing their original intentions.
The primary reason for this is a strategic escape from the quagmire of war and the survival of the Iranian regime through nuclear weapons.
The nuclear project began in 1990, one year after then regime supreme leader Ruhollah Khomeini’s death. In a confidential internal report from the IRGC addressed to the leaders of the nuclear project, Khamenei’s desired path is explained:
“Given the course of war in the region and the prospect of its expansion, Iran needs a higher level of deterrence. The current balance is insufficient for the next stages of war. In these circumstances, the best way is to change the nuclear doctrine and design a new model of balance of power. In a conventional battle, the enemy’s capabilities, backed by imperialist support, create problems.”
The Iranian regime will face difficulties in a prolonged, conventional war. Therefore, according to regime officials, the time has come to take the “final step.”
In another report following Iran’s second missile attack on October 1, it was revealed that the “True Promise 2” operation used Khorramshahr, Ghadr, Emad, Kheibar, Qiam, Shahab-3, and the hypersonic Fattah-1 ballistic missiles. However, “repeating similar missile attacks will yield no new results.” Therefore, the next step must establish a balance of power with “high destructive capability and heavy casualties” and “a higher level of deterrence.”
Some senior officials have publicly addressed this issue in Iranian state media.
For example, on October 5, Hassan Khomeini explicitly said: “Our military deterrence must rise to a higher level; deterrence comes from power, not smiles.”
He also added that negotiations are useful, but “velvet gloves hide iron fists.” If we lack power, our hands will be crushed.
On October 9, 39 members of the regime’s parliament wrote a letter to the Supreme National Security Council, calling for a change in defense doctrine to include nuclear weapons.
Hassan Ali Akhlaghi Amiri, a member of the parliament’s cultural commission, referred to Khamenei’s fatwa on the prohibition of nuclear weapons, saying: “Time and place influence rulings, and secondary rulings can replace primary ones.”
On the same day, Mohammad Reza Sabaqian, another parliament member, announced that they would ask Khamenei to change the strategy and fatwa on nuclear weapons if deemed appropriate.
He added: “Building a nuclear weapon will be easy for us, and under the current conditions, creating deterrence capabilities and ensuring national security is essential. The enemy seeks to weaken Iran’s deterrence.”
On October 11, Kamal Kharazi, head of the Strategic Council on Foreign Relations, said in an interview with Al Jazeera: “If Israel harms Iran’s nuclear facilities, our level of deterrence will change, and if Iran’s existence is threatened, we will be forced to change our nuclear doctrine.”
On October 11, Brigadier General Ahmad Haq-Talab, commander of Iran’s “Nuclear Facilities Protection Corps,” said: “Revising Iran’s nuclear doctrine and departing from previously announced considerations is likely.”
Meanwhile, since June 1991, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) has held 120 press conferences, notably exposing uranium enrichment projects at Natanz and heavy water projects at Arak, to raise awareness of this threat among the Iranian people and the world.
The council emphasizes the need to invoke the snapback mechanism in UN Security Council Resolution 2231 and reactivate halted resolutions related to the regime’s nuclear projects.
Delays and inaction in this regard give the Iranian regime the opportunity to advance its plans. The NCRI, led by Maryam Rajavi, sees the overthrow of the mullahs’ regime by the Iranian resistance and people as the final solution to the regional crisis, stressing that external attacks will not bring down the mullahs.
