▲ Tehran, Iran
Calls are growing among Iran's hardliners to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and pursue nuclear armament, the Financial Times reported on the 19th (local time).
Iran officially maintains that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, and a strong basis for this stance has been the fatwa, or religious decree, issued by former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
In 2003, Ayatollah Khamenei officially issued a fatwa banning the development, possession, and use of nuclear weapons by Iran under Islamic law.
The Financial Times explained that Ayatollah Khamenei's death in February during U.S. and Israeli airstrikes has provided an opportunity for this fatwa to be broken.
The strikes, launched with the intent to prevent Iran's nuclear development, have instead lent weight to arguments for nuclear armament, according to the report.
In fact, Davoud Modarresian, an Iranian hardliner political activist, recently argued that through military clashes, acquiring nuclear weapons has become not merely an ambition, but an essential element of survival more important than bread, adding that religious decisions can also be revised to fit changing circumstances.
Hassan Ghashghavi, a spokesperson for the Iranian parliament's National Security Committee, also chimed in last month, stating that a new supreme leader could make a new decision (fatwa) on the nuclear issue, and that "Iran must build a complete deterrent to break the cycle of repeated negotiations and wars."
The newspaper reported that within Iran, arguments citing North Korea as an example are spreading, claiming that nuclear weapons are the only deterrent to prevent foreign powers from pushing for regime change or intervention.
An Iranian regime official said that following the death of Ayatollah Khamenei, the perception of the necessity of nuclear weapons within the regime has "soared from near 0% to over 50%."
This hardline trend is analyzed to stem from the existential sense of crisis reaching its peak within the regime as U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to send Iran back to the "Stone Age" and the standoff surrounding the Strait of Hormuz prolonged.
This means that suspicion and anxiety within Iran that the United States could drop tactical nuclear weapons have grown.
On the other hand, the reformist faction is wary of the diplomatic isolation and security risks that the hardliners' push for nuclear armament would bring, arguing that defending the state and the regime itself takes priority over uranium enrichment.
Experts point out that it remains uncertain whether the Iranian regime will immediately proceed with nuclear armament.
Ali Vaez, an Iran expert at the think tank Crisis Group, analyzed, "It is true that due to Khamenei's death, discussions on nuclear armament are no longer taboo," while adding, "Rather than immediately and aggressively building a nuclear bomb, Iranian authorities are likely to try to preserve their nuclear infrastructure as a negotiating card to extract economic and security appeasement."
The United States and Western countries are closely monitoring the whereabouts of the stockpile of 60% enriched uranium (approximately 440 kg) buried beneath the rubble of Iran's major nuclear facilities, such as Natanz and Fordow, which were bombed in June of last year.
This is an amount that could produce about 10 nuclear weapons if subjected to further enrichment.
Given that Iran has blocked key inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) since the war in June of last year, observations are also emerging that it could utilize the NPT withdrawal card as a last-ditch diplomatic tool to pressure the United States.
(Photo: AP, Yonhap News)
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