Iranian leaders debate dropping ban on nuclear weapons

Two consecutive wars with the United States and Israel have fundamentally altered the political calculus in Tehran regarding nuclear armament. The number of Iranian officials and clerics pushing for a reversal of the country's no-bomb stance has grown rapidly since the 12-day conflict of 2025 and the subsequent war in 2026.

For decades, the Iranian government publicly upheld a fatwa issued by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that forbade the development and use of nuclear weapons. This doctrine relied on ambiguity, a strategy regional analysts said Khamenei intended to deter attacks without the cost of building an actual device. US and Israeli intelligence agencies have since reported signs that Iran is enriching uranium to levels approaching those required for a nuclear weapon.

Mohammad Ali Shabani, an Iran analyst who edits the independent news site Amwaj.media, noted the shift in public sentiment. “He created this neither in nor out situation, where they paid for a bomb they didn’t have,” Shabani said. He added, “Now, there is this sense that unless you have this ultimate weapon, you could end up at the mercy of not just the US, but Israel, at any point.”

The debate has moved into formal government channels. On Saturday, Mohsen Rezaei, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, stated that leaders were actively discussing the nuclear issue. “No new decision has been made yet,” Rezaei said. “Of course, the debate now is whether we want to keep the same doctrine we had before the war, if war breaks out again.” Mohammad Ghaderi, a foreign affairs expert in Tehran, indicated that withdrawal from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), once a minority view, has become a majority position among politicians.

Religious leaders are increasingly supporting the shift, effectively dissolving the traditional taboo against nuclear weapons. Shabani observed, “The taboo is gone. A religious foundation for the shift is here. The question is whether a strategic or political shift will follow.”

Not all leaders agree with the hardline turn. President Masoud Pezeshkian and former president Hassan Rouhani continue to back a peaceful nuclear doctrine. Kourosh Ahmadi, a former diplomat, warned in the reformist newspaper Shargh that pro-nuclear rhetoric makes it harder to prevent future conflicts. He noted that the risk of being attacked while building a bomb increases as rhetoric becomes more aggressive.

Sina Toossi, an Iran expert at the Washington-based Center for International Policy, pointed out the difficulty facing restraint advocates. “The central problem for advocates of restraint is explaining what Iran gained from remaining below the nuclear threshold,” Toossi said. He added that a new round of US strikes “could strengthen the very arguments for the nuclear weapons that Washington says it wants to prevent.”