Even U.S. and Israeli intelligence officials have admitted it, repeatedly. From Ted Snider at antiwar.com:
“You know, it’s not a complicated formula,” U.S. President Donald Trump said. “Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. That’s all there is.” So, negotiations should be successful because Iran neither has, nor are they pursuing, a nuclear weapon.
The United States has for years threatened that “all options are on the table,” including “bombing the likes of which they have never seen before,” if Iran doesn’t come to an agreement that guarantees they will not pursue a nuclear bomb. But Iran signed precisely such an agreement in 2015 with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). It was Donald Trump and the United States, and not Iran, that illegally broke that agreement.
Broad and unquestioning public acceptance that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapon is build upon what A.B. Abrams has called a “greater vilifying metanarrative.” The U.S. and its partners, both government and media, repeat a claim so often that a foundation is built in the public imagination upon which current accusations are easily established.
But next time the government or media feeds you the steady diet of evidence free claims that Iran is building a bomb, remember two things. Iran is not building a bomb. And, despite what you are being told, no one really believes that they are.
From the birth of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the building of nuclear weapons has been banned by a law higher even than civic law. Nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, and any weapons of mass destruction are haram: forbidden by God.
The supreme leadership of Iran has always ruled that nuclear weapons are a violation of Islamic morality. The founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, first and consistently laid down this ruling; his successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has consistently reiterated it. Khamenei has insisted that “from an ideological and fiqhi [Islamic jurisprudence] perspective, we consider developing nuclear weapons as unlawful. We consider using such weapons as a big sin.” In 2003, Ayatollah Khamenei issued a fatwa, an official religious ruling, that declared nuclear weapons to be forbidden by Islam. “There is complete consensus on this issue,” said Grand Ayatollah Yusef Saanei, who, before his death in 2020, was one of the highest-ranking clerics in Iran. “It is self- evident in Islam that it is prohibited to have nuclear bombs. It is eternal law, because the basic function of these weapons is to kill innocent people. This cannot be reversed.”
