If Israel attacks facilities
Iran threatens to change its nuclear doctrine
April 18, 2024, 4:46 p.m
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Officially, the mullahs’ regime maintains that its nuclear program is not military-oriented. If Israel targets Iranian nuclear facilities, that will change, it is now said in Tehran. The International Atomic Energy Agency is concerned.
Amid military tensions in the Middle East, an Iranian commander has hinted that the country could take a new course in its nuclear program. If Israel threatens to attack Iranian nuclear facilities and thus wants to put pressure on the country, a “review of the Islamic Republic’s nuclear doctrine and policy” and a departure from old principles is “possible and conceivable,” said the commander for nuclear security, Ahmad Hagh-Taleb, according to the Tasnim news agency. Until now, Iran’s leadership had always emphasized that it would not strive for nuclear weapons and would use the domestic nuclear program for purely civilian purposes.
After Iran’s major attack on Israel at the weekend, tensions between the enemy states have increased significantly. There are fears that the conflict could expand in the event of a harsh Israeli retaliation. The background to Iran’s attack is a suspected Israeli attack on the Iranian embassy compound in the Syrian capital Damascus, in which two generals of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard were killed at the beginning of April.
Doubts about purely civilian use
In recent months, previous Iranian leaders had already hinted that the Islamic Republic was technically capable of building nuclear weapons. Iran’s former nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi was asked about this in two interviews, but denied military intentions. “We are not seeking nuclear weapons (…) if we were, we would have announced it,” he added. Nevertheless, according to Salehi, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had also expressed concerns that Iran had the technical capabilities to build an atomic bomb.
Iran is currently enriching uranium to a purity of 60 percent; experts say more than 90 percent is needed for nuclear weapons. In the past, critics had expressed doubts about the civilian use of such highly enriched uranium. The former nuclear chief also justified the fact that his country was not striving for nuclear weapons with a fatwa, a religious legal opinion, from Iran’s religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran’s head of state banned weapons of mass destruction. Khamenei has the final say on all strategic issues in the Islamic Republic.
In 2015, Iran committed itself to severely restricting its nuclear program in an agreement. In return, sanctions were lifted. The pact, which was intended to prevent the construction of Iranian nuclear bombs, was canceled in 2018 by then US President Donald Trump. In return, Tehran greatly expanded its uranium enrichment and restricted IAEA controls.