When Iran’s secret nuclear program attracted international attention more than two decades ago, the Iranian government insisted its intentions were peaceful and that it had no plans to develop weapons.
The country’s supreme leader at the time, Ayatollah Khamenei, went so far as to issue a fatwa, a legal ruling based on Islamic law, banning them.
But his death last month at the hands of the United States and Israel could pave the way for the administration’s most hardliners to reconsider the sentence. Public debate in Iran is already moving in that direction.
“The nuclear fatwa is dead,” Trita Parsi of the Quincy Institute for Responsible States told CNN. “Not only public opinion but also elite opinion on this has changed dramatically. This is not surprising since Iran has been bombed twice during negotiations between the two nuclear powers.”
The former supreme leader has for years resisted internal pressure to allow Iran to build nuclear weapons, especially after US President Donald Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal negotiated between Iran and the Obama administration in 2018.
In the face of escalating hostilities between the United States and Israel, Khamenei instead stuck to his doctrine of what experts call “strategic patience.” He has allowed Iran to steadily move forward with its uranium enrichment program, bringing the material closer to weapons-grade levels without crossing the threshold of developing an actual bomb.
Calls to develop a nuclear bomb grew louder after Israel launched an unprecedented military operation against Iran last year that killed several of the country’s military and nuclear leaders. Calls rose again after President Trump ordered attacks on three of Iran’s most important nuclear facilities.
Even before these attacks, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) had warned that Iran was prepared to change its nuclear posture.
“A reversal of Iran’s nuclear doctrine and policy, including a shift from previous considerations, is likely and conceivable” in 2024, said Ahmad Haqtarab, commander of the Revolutionary Guards Corps, which is responsible for protecting Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Iran has not yet publicly reversed its doctrine. However, it possesses over 400 kg of highly enriched uranium. This would be enough to build several nuclear weapons if Khamenei’s son Mojtaba, Iran’s new supreme leader, revoked his father’s fatwa. Uranium is an important fuel for nuclear power plants and, when enriched to high levels, can be used to make bombs.
Mojtaba remains in hiding as the Revolutionary Guards tighten their grip on the country, raising speculation about his health and decision-making abilities.
Asked if Iran’s nuclear policy would change under the new leadership, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told Al Jazeera this month that he was not sure about the new leader’s “jurisprudential or political position” on nuclear weapons.
He added: “I understand that policy should not be too different from previous policy, but we will have to wait to see what he thinks.”
Mojtaba’s first speech as leader was a statement read out by a state TV newscaster. In it, he vowed to avenge his father’s death and those killed in the war, but made no mention of nuclear development, leaving observers to speculate about the fate of Iran’s nuclear doctrine.
Iran’s surviving leadership is also grappling with growing domestic calls for a change in nuclear policy. The pressure is mounting as the Revolutionary Guards consolidates power and reappoints hardline retired commanders to lead a younger generation of more vengeful fighters.
“We have entered a new phase,” hardline commentator Nasser Torabi told state television in a program aired this month. “After this war, Iran will be recognized as a global superpower…We must take steps to produce or possess nuclear weapons.”
Sina Azodi, author of “Iran and the Atomic Bomb: The United States, Iran and the Nuclear Issue,” said Iranian hardliners and the Revolutionary Guards now appear to feel they have room to change long-standing nuclear principles.
“One of the reasons they exercised nuclear tolerance was the terror attacks by Israel and the United States,” Azodi said. “But at this point they attacked anyway, all bets are off for them.”
“This war has fundamentally changed everything because this country has accepted many punishments,” he added.
The production of nuclear weapons depends on the reversal of fatwas, access to highly enriched uranium, and the ability to produce functional bombs.
Azodi said that assuming the Iranian regime has access to highly enriched uranium stockpiles, it may choose to build crude nuclear devices rather than sophisticated missile-capable weapons.
Even this simpler, less complex design could produce a true nuclear explosion with destructive power comparable to earlier weapons. However, missile delivery would be less efficient and of far less military utility.
Its main value is rather political, experts say: demonstrating nuclear capability and providing some degree of deterrence.
But whether it is the possibility of creating a crude device known colloquially as a “dirty bomb” or the production of a more sophisticated nuclear bomb, deterrence is not guaranteed.
“Iran cannot threaten the United States with its nuclear forces. Iranian missiles cannot reach the United States, and even if they could, 50 nuclear warheads would not deter a country with 5,000 nuclear weapons,” Azodi said.
He points out that Iran’s deterrence policy for decades has focused primarily on Iraq, Israel, and more recently Saudi Arabia. And if Iran were to develop its own weapons, Riyadh would likely be the next regional candidate to develop a bomb, he said.
The de facto Saudi leader made that clear eight years ago.
Back in 2018, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman declared, “If Iran develops a nuclear bomb, there is no question that we will follow suit as soon as possible.”
