Khamenei’s adviser says Iran will have “no choice” if nuclear facilities are targeted by Israel.
Iran could be pressured into building a nuclear weapon if Israel threatens its existence, an adviser to the country’s supreme leader has warned.
“We have no decision to build a nuclear bomb, but if Iran’s existence is threatened, we have no choice but to change our military doctrine,” Kamal Kharrazi, an adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on Thursday.
“In the event of an attack by the Zionist regime on our nuclear facilities, our deterrence will change,” the Iranian Student News Network reported.
The comments have raised questions about what Iran has long considered a peaceful nuclear program.
Khamenei, who has the final say on the matter, banned the development of nuclear weapons in a fatwa, a religious decree, in the early 2000s, saying it was “haram,” or forbidden in Islam.
But in 2021, Iran’s then-intelligence minister said Western pressure could push the Islamic Republic to pursue nuclear weapons.
Iran enriches uranium to a purity of up to 60 percent, while weapons-grade uranium is enriched to about 90 percent. If the current existing nuclear material were enriched even further, it would be enough for two nuclear weapons, according to an official benchmark from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Escalating threat
The shadow war between Iran and Israel erupted into open confrontation in April after a suspected Israeli attack on the Iranian embassy compound in the Syrian capital Damascus killed seven members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), including two generals , who led the corps’ elite Quds Force in Syria and Lebanon.
Iran responded by launching around 300 missiles and drones against Israel.
Since 2017, Israel has carried out regular strikes in Syria against targets linked to Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah group, increasing the frequency and intensity of attacks on the so-called “Axis of Resistance” since the start of its war on Gaza last October.
Syrian air defense missiles on Thursday shot down Israeli missiles fired from the Golan Heights in northern Israel toward the outskirts of Damascus, targeting a building in the countryside, according to Syria’s state news agency SANA.
The attack at around 3:20 a.m. (00:20 GMT) caused “some material losses,” the report said.