Cornered and wounded, will Iran now go for a nuclear bomb?

By Mostafa Salem, Leila Gharagozlou, CNN

(CNN) — When Iran’s covert nuclear program came to international attention over two decades ago, Tehran insisted that its intentions were peaceful and that it had no plans to develop weapons.

The country’s then-supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, even went as far as issuing a fatwa, or legal ruling under Islamic law, banning them.

But his death at the hands of the United States and Israel last month could clear a path for the regime’s hardest-line factions to rethink the ruling. The public discourse in Iran is already heading that way.

“The nuclear fatwa is dead,” Trita Parsi of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft told CNN. “Elite opinion as well as public opinion has shifted dramatically on this, which shouldn’t be surprising since Iran has been bombed twice in the midst of negotiations by two nuclear-equipped states.”

For years, the former supreme leader resisted internal pressure to authorize the building of a nuclear weapon, particularly after US President Donald Trump withdrew from the nuclear pact negotiated between Iran and the Obama administration in 2018.

Faced with escalating American and Israeli hostility, Khamenei instead adhered to his doctrine of what experts call “strategic patience.” He allowed Iran to steadily advance its uranium enrichment program, bringing the material ever closer to weapons-grade levels without crossing the threshold into actual bomb development.

Mojtaba’s nuclear position unclear

The calls to pursue a nuclear bomb grew louder with Israel’s unprecedented military operation against Iran last year which killed several of the country’s military and nuclear leaders. The calls increased again with Trump’s order to strike three of Iran’s most important nuclear sites.

Even before those strikes, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) had warned that Tehran was prepared to shift its nuclear posture.

“A reversal of Iran’s nuclear doctrine and policies, including a shift away from previous considerations, is likely and conceivable,” said Ahmad Haqtalab, the IRGC commander responsible for protecting Iran’s nuclear facilities, in 2024.

Iran hasn’t yet publicly reversed its doctrine. However, it possesses more than 400 kilograms of highly enriched uranium. That would be enough to produce several nuclear weapons if Khamenei’s son and Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba, reverses his father’s fatwa. Uranium is a key fuel for nuclear power plants that can be used to create a bomb if enriched to high levels.

Mojtaba remains in hiding, fueling speculation about his physical condition and decision-making ability as the IRGC tightens its grip on the country.

Asked if Iran’s nuclear policy would change under the new leadership, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told Al Jazeera this month that he wasn’t sure of the new leader’s “jurisprudential or political stance” on nuclear weapons.

“My understanding is that it should not differ greatly from our previous policies, but we must wait until we become aware of his views,” he added.

Iran’s reasons for self-restraint are gone, expert says

Mojtaba’s first purported address as leader was a statement read by a news anchor on state TV. In it, he vowed to avenge his father’s death and others killed in the war, but he made no mention of the nuclear program, 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 reversal of the nuclear policy. This pressure is mounting as the IRGC consolidates power and reappoints hardline retired commanders to lead a younger, more vengeful generation of fighters.

“We have entered a new phase,” Nasser Torabi, a hardline commentator, told state television in a segment aired this month. “After this war, Iran will be recognized as a global superpower… We must take measures to produce or possess nuclear weapons.”

It would seem that Iran’s hardliners and the IRGC now feel there is an opening to change the long-standing nuclear doctrine, said Sina Azodi, author of “Iran and the Bomb: The United States, Iran and the Nuclear Question.”

“One of the reasons they exercised nuclear forbearance was the fear attacks by Israel and the US,” Azodi said. “But at this point where they attacked anyways all bets are off for them.”

“This war has fundamentally changed everything since the country is absorbing lots of punishment,” he added.

Could war lead to more nukes around the world?

Building a nuclear weapon hinges on a reversal of the fatwa, access to highly enriched uranium, and the capability to build a functioning bomb.

Presuming the Iranian regime has access to its highly enriched uranium stockpile, it could opt to build a crude nuclear device rather than a sophisticated, missile-deliverable weapon, Azodi said.

This simpler and less complex design could still produce a genuine nuclear explosion, comparable in destructive power to early weapons. But it would be less efficient and far less militarily useful for delivery by missiles.

Its primary value would instead be political: to demonstrate nuclear capability and provide a measure of deterrence, experts say.

But whether it’s the potential creation of a crude device, known colloquially as a “dirty bomb,” or building a more sophisticated nuclear bomb, deterrence isn’t guaranteed.

“Iran cannot use its nuclear forces to threaten the US. Its missiles cannot reach the US, and even if it could, with 50 nuclear warheads you cannot deter a country that has 5,000 nuclear weapons,” Azodi said.

He points out that Iran’s deterrence policy over the decades has largely focused on Iraq, Israel and more recently Saudi Arabia. And, if Iran were to push forward with its own weapon, he says Riyadh would likely be the next regional candidate to go for a bomb.

The de-facto Saudi leader even spelled it out eight years ago.

Back in 2018, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was clear, saying “Without a doubt, if Iran developed a nuclear bomb, we would follow suit as soon as possible.”

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