{"id":332263,"date":"2026-10-21T07:48:34","date_gmt":"2026-10-21T07:48:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=332263"},"modified":"2026-10-21T08:25:50","modified_gmt":"2026-10-21T08:25:50","slug":"iran-hard-liners-time-to-embrace-nuclear-weapons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=332263","title":{"rendered":"Iran Hard-Liners: Time to Embrace Nuclear Weapons"},"content":{"rendered":"

Newsmax via Yahoo \u2013 Oct 19, 2026<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Iranian hard-liners are increasingly calling for Tehran to develop nuclear weapons and abandon a decades-old religious prohibition against such weapons.<\/p>\n

They also want to withdraw from an international nonproliferation treaty following devastating U.S. and Israeli military strikes, the Financial Times reported <\/a>Monday.<\/p>\n

The growing demands mark a dramatic shift in Iran’s nuclear debate following the Feb. 28 killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who had long maintained that developing nuclear weapons violated Islamic law.<\/p>\n

His successor and son, Mojtaba Khamenei, has not publicly reaffirmed that prohibition, opening the door for hardline politicians, lawmakers and analysts to argue that nuclear weapons are essential to the Islamic Republic’s survival.<\/p>\n

“The latest military confrontations showed that achieving nuclear weapons for Iran is not an ambition, but a necessity more important than bread,” Davoud Modarresian, a political activist close to Iranian hard-liners, wrote this month.<\/p>\n

According to the FT, some regime insiders believe the war has fundamentally changed attitudes toward acquiring nuclear weapons, particularly as President Donald Trump continues to demand that Tehran dismantle its nuclear program.<\/p>\n

One regime insider claimed support for developing nuclear weapons among Iranian officials had surged from virtually zero to more than 50%.<\/p>\n

Hassan Ghashghavi, a spokesperson for the Iranian parliament’s National Security Committee, suggested last month that Mojtaba Khamenei could overturn his father’s religious ruling.<\/p>\n

Nobody could prevent the new supreme leader from issuing a different ruling, Ghashghavi said.<\/p>\n

Hard-liners argue that Iran needs a nuclear deterrent to prevent future American and Israeli attacks, pointing to North Korea’s atomic arsenal as an example of how nuclear weapons can discourage foreign military intervention.<\/p>\n

Abolfazl Bazargan, an international relations analyst, told the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-affiliated Tasnim news agency that ruling out nuclear weapons permanently would amount to “self-defeat.”<\/p>\n

He suggested Iran adopt a nuclear doctrine that rules out launching a first strike while maintaining the ability to retaliate against a nuclear attack.<\/p>\n

The debate comes as Washington and Tehran remain locked in a volatile confrontation over Iran’s nuclear ambitions and control of the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n

Trump has repeatedly warned Tehran against rebuilding its nuclear capabilities and has threatened additional strikes against Iranian facilities.<\/p>\n

Iran’s nuclear infrastructure suffered extensive damage during U.S. attacks on Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan in June 2025, with further military confrontation this year deepening concerns about the country’s nuclear future.<\/p>\n

Of particular concern is Iran’s stockpile of approximately 440 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60% purity, which experts say could theoretically produce enough weapons-grade material for about 10 nuclear bombs if further enriched.<\/p>\n

The material is believed to remain buried beneath damaged nuclear facilities.<\/p>\n

Trump has demanded that Iran surrender its highly enriched uranium and abandon its nuclear weapons ambitions.<\/p>\n

Tehran has resisted those demands, although Iranian officials have indicated they might consider diluting the uranium stockpile in exchange for sanctions relief and the release of frozen Iranian funds.<\/p>\n

Despite the increasingly aggressive rhetoric, Iran officially maintains that its nuclear program is exclusively peaceful.<\/p>\n

Mohammad Eslami, the country’s top nuclear official, said Sunday that Iran continues pursuing plans to generate 20,000 megawatts of nuclear electricity despite the war.<\/p>\n

Some Iranian reformists have also warned against allowing nuclear ambitions to jeopardize the country’s survival.<\/p>\n

Hossein Marashi, a senior reformist politician, said protecting Iran and the Islamic Republic was more important than preserving uranium enrichment capabilities.<\/p>\n

Ali Vaez, an Iran expert at the International Crisis Group, told the FT that the debate over nuclear weapons has become increasingly serious since the elder Khamenei’s death.<\/p>\n

“It’s a serious debate and is no longer a taboo due to the former supreme leader’s fatwa,” Vaez said.<\/p>\n

“The war has strengthened those who argue that a country exposed to existential attack ultimately needs the ultimate deterrent.”<\/p>\n

However, Vaez cautioned that Iranian leaders could ultimately decide to preserve their remaining nuclear infrastructure as leverage in negotiations rather than openly pursue an atomic bomb.<\/p>\n

Another possibility under discussion is Iran’s withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which would require Tehran to provide three months’ notice to other treaty members and the United Nations Security Council.<\/p>\n

Such a move would further escalate tensions with Washington and raise international concerns about Iran’s nuclear intentions.<\/p>\n

Two senior Iranian officials told the FT that abandoning the treaty was not currently a priority, although they refused to rule it out.<\/p>\n

“Our policy regarding the NPT has not changed yet, but this doesn’t mean it won’t in the future,” one official said.<\/p>\n

Source\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If Iran does develop nuclear weapons the U.S. and Israel will only have themselves to blame. For decades Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei opposed developing nuclear weapons as he felt it violated Islamic law. Having killed him in a targeted strike, the U.S. and Israel have since removed the main obstacle to Iran developing nukes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":330202,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-332263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feature-posts"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=332263"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":332264,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332263\/revisions\/332264"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/330202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=332263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=332263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=332263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}