We Were After the Atomic Bomb

Rooz Online

Mohsen Refighdoost, the minister of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in Mir-Hossein Mousavi’s administration revealed that during the eight year Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s the Islamic republic was pursuing obtaining nuclear weapons which was ultimately rejected by then leader ayatollah Khomeini.

In a recent speech, Refighdoost said, “At that time we were pursuing ways to acquire nuclear weapons. We went to ayatollah Khomeini and asked his opinion about it and he said do not pursue it. We stopped our efforts.”

Referring to the current interim agreement reached between Iran and 6 world powers knows as P5+1 in Geneva last November, Refighdoost said, “Whatever the results of these talks, they are in Iran’s interest, even if the sanctions are not reduced. What we really gave up we did not need. The imam said we do not want the nuclear bomb; it is haram (religiously forbidden). During the war Iraq used chemical weapons but the imam did not allow us to build chemical weapons. We went ahead and built them but they stopped us. So no matter how we advance in these talks, they are to our benefit.”

Since the beginning of the Islamic republic’s nuclear crisis about a decade ago, Western countries have continuously asserted that Iran has been working to acquire the technology to build nuclear weapons, something that the Islamic republic has repeatedly denied. This is the first time that a former senior official of the Islamic republic expressly has said that a part of the Islamic republic in the Revolutionary Guards was pursuing nuclear weapons and abandoned the effort only after ayatollah Khomeini opposed it.

Prior to this in 2006, Hashemi Rafsanjani had published a letter written by Mohsen Rezai, the then-commander of the Revolutionary Guards during the war in which he had written that to continue the war they needed nuclear weapons. “We shall not have any victories for another five years. It is possible that if in the next five years we acquire the weapons with the ability to destroy or to reciprocate, and if after 1992 we have 350 infantry brigades, 2,500 tanks, 3,000 artillery guns, 300 military aircraft, 300 helicopters, the ability to produce a significant amount of laser and nuclear weapons, which will be necessary at that time, we can then say that God willing we may have offensive operations,” he had written.

Reza later claimed that he had written that letter to Rafsanjani and not to ayatollah Khomeini. “Mr. Rafsanjani has said that the letter was addressed to the imam, while the recipient of that letter is not the imam. In no letter did I ask the imam for resources. The letter that they took to the imam was addressed to Mr. Hashemi,” he said.

Despite this, Masoud Roghani Zanjani had told Bahman Ahmadi Amooyi – an imprisoned journalist – which has been published in the book The Political Economy of the Islamic Republic (Eghtesade Siasie Jomhurie Eslami), “Mr. Mohsen Rezai has also opined that from a military perspective we cannot continue the war. The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff had the same view. I remember Mr. Rezai had said that we need the nuclear bomb to continue the war. In fact we on our own and the military men through their own process had come to the same conclusion that it was useless to continue the war.”

Recently, seyed Mahmoud Nabavian, a member of the Jebhe Paydari (the hardline Steadfast Front that supported Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) in the Majlis publicly said, “The US has said that at no time in the past had it provided for Israel’s security like it does now. If a country possesses 270 kilos of 20 percent enriched uranium and 10 tons of 5 percent enriched uranium with 20,000 centrifuges, it would be advancing and could produce a nuclear bomb in two weeks. We are not after the nuclear bomb but need it to put Israel in its place.”

Officials of the Islamic republic have until now been repeatedly saying that they are not pursuing nuclear weapons. They refer to ayatollah Khamenei’s fatwa which has banned acquiring nuclear weapons. But during a Friday prayer sermon in 2004 ayatollah Khamenei said, “Nuclear weapons per se, their production, stockpiling and their use each has its own problems. We have announced our religious view on this.”

Hassan Rouhani later followed up Khamenei’s remarks.

On other later occasions, without mentioning the production and stockpiling of nuclear weapons, ayatollah Khamenei had merely said, “We view the use of these weapons (nuclear, chemical and biological) to be haram and view it everybody’s responsibility to rid mankind of this major curse.”