Iran’s Hardliners Call For Nuclear Weapons – Iran’s hardliners are done with the lies that its nuclear program was for “peaceful” purposes and only to generate power. According to the Financial Times, a growing faction inside the regime now argues openly that the time for nuclear weapons has come.
That isn’t a fringe idea whispered in a Qom seminary anymore. Men with titles are saying it on the record.
F-22 Raptor Stealth Fighter Flying. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
The latest is Ahmad Naderi, a member of the presiding committee of Iran’s parliament. Over the weekend, he called for Tehran to build a bomb and to rethink its entire nuclear policy, arguing that Iran is now under attack and its strategic options have to change with it.
He went further. Naderi said he expects Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei to issue a new fatwa on nuclear weapons, one that breaks with his late father’s ban. He also claimed he has spent more than a decade pushing for Iran to conduct an actual nuclear test.
A test. Not a threshold capability.
The Fatwa Died With The Elder Khamenei
For two decades, Tehran’s standard answer to every question about the bomb was Ali Khamenei’s fatwa. It was a religious opinion from the early 2000s, and Reuters noted it was never even issued in written form. And it should be noted that Iran was enriching uranium at 60 percent, far above nuclear power necessities under Khamenei.
Khamenei was killed in the U.S.-Israeli strikes that opened the war on February 28. His son and successor has never publicly reaffirmed or rejected the ban, as Ynet reported.
However, U.S. intelligence has a view.
Per officials cited by The New York Times, American agencies assess that Mojtaba is more open than his father to pursuing an advanced nuclear capability.
Some of that intelligence predates the war, which only makes it more concerning.
The fatwa was always more diplomatic cover than religious conviction. Say what you want about whether the former supreme leader meant it. That’s beside the point now. The thin veneer of deniability is gone, if it ever existed.
This Didn’t Start This Week
The FT report is the latest marker on a road Iran has been walking since spring. Back in March, Reuters reported that the bomb debate inside Iran was getting louder, more public and more insistent, with the IRGC now dominant.
Mohammad Javad Larijani was urging Iran to suspend its NPT membership on state media. The IRGC-linked Tasnim News Agency ran a piece calling for withdrawal from the treaty as soon as possible.
Capt. Kristin “Beo” Wolfe, F-35A Lightning II Demonstration Team pilot and commander, banks hard left making vapor trails over and behind the wings during a practice demonstration at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, Mar. 23, 2021. The demonstration team is part of Air Combat Command and is assigned to the 388th Fighter Wing at Hill AFB. Capt. Wolfe grew up a military child as the daughter of retired Col. Jon Wolfe and has flown the T-6 Texan II, T-38 Talon, F-22 Raptor and now the F-35A Lightning II. (U.S. Air Force photo by Alex R. Lloyd)
The men who used to push back are dead. One senior Iranian source told Reuters that with Khamenei and security chief Ali Larijani both killed, countering the hawks was getting harder. Sina Azodi, author of a book on Iran and the bomb, told CNN the hardliners and the IRGC see an opening to change the doctrine.
Seven months later, they’re still pushing through it.
The Material Is Still Sitting There
Here’s where the rhetoric meets the math. The IAEA estimates Iran had 440.9 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent when Israel struck in June 2025. By the agency’s yardstick, that’s enough for 10 weapons if enriched further.
IAEA chief Rafael Grossi has said roughly 200 kilograms of it likely sits in tunnels at Isfahan. Iran hasn’t told the IAEA where its stockpile is or let inspectors back into the bombed sites.
The hard part is already done. The Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation calculated that taking Iran’s 60 percent stock to 90 percent weapons-grade requires about 564 SWU of separative work. That’s roughly 1 percent of the 55,330 SWU Tehran already sank into producing it. Converting the gas into metal weapon components could take one to three weeks.
However, enrichment needs working centrifuges. All three known operating enrichment plants, two at Natanz and one at Fordow, were destroyed or badly damaged last June. That’s why Washington is eyeing Pickaxe Mountain, the deep underground facility near Natanz.
Trump Is Looking at Pickaxe Mountain
On Thursday, President Trump told Newsmax that the U.S. is looking at Pickaxe Mountain and “may have to go there.” This followed a CNN report that planners were considering the GBU-43/B, the Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb, for future strikes.
It would be surprising if the MOAB is the tool for Pickaxe. It’s a roughly 21,600-pound air-burst weapon designed to wreck everything on the surface across a wide area. It isn’t a penetrator.
A site buried that deep is a job for the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator, the same weapon used against Fordow. You don’t dig a mountain out with a blast that stays on top of it.
Pezeshkian Says No Weapons Are Being Sought, Nobody’s Listening
On Friday, President Masoud Pezeshkian once again denied that Tehran seeks nuclear weapons and said Iran is ready for dialogue. Meanwhile, the rial is trading at around 2.64 million per dollar.
Iran’s president has no control over the IRGC, and he certainly doesn’t control the nuclear program. When a member of parliament’s leadership says the bomb is coming and the supreme leader stays silent, that silence is an answer in itself.
The hardliners have said the quiet part out loud. Now we will find out whether they’ll do the loud part quietly.
About the Author: Steve Balestrieri
Steve Balestrieri is a National Security Columnist. He served as a US Army Special Forces NCO and Warrant Officer. In addition to writing on defense, he covers the NFL for PatsFans.com and is a member of the Pro Football Writers of America (PFWA). His work was regularly featured in many military publications.
