Does Iran Already Have a Nuke? + Recent Headlines

Tuesday Digest (05.28.24)

Iran may already have a nuclear weapon

At the funeral for Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said something that got the world’s attention. He promised that the world would soon see the “disappearance of Israel,” and Israel would be replaced with Palestine, “from the river to the sea,” as the common saying goes.

That’s pretty standard stuff for Khamenei. But it was combined with statements earlier in the week from an Iranian parliament member who hinted that Iran wasn’t just pursuing a nuclear weapon, but already has one:

“In my opinion, we have achieved nuclear weapons, but we do not announce it. It means our policy is to possess nuclear bombs, but our declared policy is currently within the framework of the [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action],” Ahmad Bakhshayesh Ardestani told the Iran-based outlet Rouydad 24 on Friday, according to an article published by the independent news organization Iran International in London.

He explained that Iran’s enemies are the United States and Israel, both of which have nuclear weapons. And so therefore Iran needed to have similar capabilities:

The Iranian parliament member noted, “In a climate where Russia has attacked Ukraine and Israel has attacked Gaza, and Iran is a staunch supporter of the Resistance Front, it is natural for the containment system to require that Iran possess nuclear bombs. However, whether Iran declares it is another matter.”

American watchdog organizations said that, while Ardestani’s comments were interesting, it should be noted that he is “not in the inner core of the regime’s nuclear decision-making circle.”

At the same time he was saying Iran had a bomb but just wasn’t talking about it, former Iranian foreign minister, Kamal Kharazi, was telling Al-Jazeera that Iran was on the verge of changing its nuclear doctrine if it faced existential threats like attacks on its nuclear facilities.