Iran rejects the use of nuclear weapons because they are “haram” and therefore forbidden by peaceful Islam which despises all such “western decadence,” Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said Wednesday.
Radio Farda quoted him as telling a group of academics and high-level scientists of Iran’s rejection of weapons of mass destruction, seeking to ease fears the country’s scientists could secretly be researching nuclear weapons. He said:
In the case of the key and very beneficial nuclear science … when it was paired with a thirst for more power, it resulted in the creation of the nuclear weapon and turned into a major threat to the world and humanity. Although we have always had the ability to tread this path, we declared it haram [forbidden by religion] according to the verdict of the beloved Islam, and therefore there is no reason for us to expend our resources on developing and stockpiling a weapon that is absolutely prohibited [by Islam] to use.
Iran vehemently denies having ever sought an atomic bomb and says its nuclear program is for peaceful energy production and medical purposes only.
In May last year, President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from an Obama-negotiated 2015 deal that gave Iran relief from sanctions in return for curbs on its nuclear program.
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the product of protracted negotiations led by then-Secretary of State John Kerry, was widely viewed as the Obama administration’s signature foreign policy achievement.
Withdrawal from the same was a Donald Trump campaign promise.
And we’re out. Another promise fulfilled ✔️
“When I make promises I keep them” @realDonaldTrump
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) May 8, 2018
Khamenei said last week that Tehran will continue abandoning commitments to the deal as long as the U.S. keeps hitting Iran with sanctions.
Khamenei also told the crowd of academics they should focus on their religion and nationality while rejecting any notion of copying the U.S. in any manner.
“We want science but we don’t want our universities to be a reproduction of some U.S. university,” Khamenei said.
He hailed Iranian achievements in medical science, engineering, nanotechnology and peaceful nuclear energy.
“We live in a different situation than others,” Khamenei said. “We need to think Iranian, act Iranian and live Iranian and this trend can be accelerated by adopting the Islamic-Iranian Blueprint for Progress.”
He explained: “The path we are taking is neither one of socialism, nor of liberal democracy. We have suggested a third path to save nations from the decadent Western culture.”
Although Khamenei works hard to build the case for a peace-loving Iran that would never embrace nuclear weapons, his words directly contradict what he said previously.
As Breitbart News reported, there is a letter from Khameini that calls for the development of nuclear weapons. Regardless of what Khamenei says, in Iran, it is still Khameini’s order that is deemed supreme.
The letter was written by Khameini in 1988 and released by former President Hashemi Rafsanjani 18 years later, in September of 2006.
The missive is at direct odds with Tehran and the Obama administration’s statements Iran is not seeking a nuclear bomb because it goes against Islam.
In his ’88 letter, Khameini called for the Islamic Republic to have “the ability to make a substantial number of laser and atomic weapons which will be the necessity of the war at that time.” A link to the translation of the original letter was published by the Council on Foreign Relations.
In closing his letter, Khameini wrote, “Be aware of God and whatever happens, it is His decision. Peace be upon pious people. Ruhollah Al-Musavi al-Khomeyni.”
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