Remember that supposed Iranian anti-nuke fatwa? Watch history change before your eyes. ~ EoZ

Tuesday, April 26, 2022

Remember that supposed Iranian anti-nuke fatwa? Watch history change before your eyes.

From AP, January 15, 2013:

A religious decree issued by Iran's supreme leader banning nuclear weapons is binding for the Iranian government, the Foreign Ministry said Tuesday, suggesting that the edict should end the debate over whether Tehran is pursuing atomic arms.

Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said the West must understand the significance of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's edict for Iran: "There is nothing higher than the exalted supreme leader's fatwa to define the framework for our activities in the nuclear field."

"When the highest jurisprudent and authority in the country's leadership issues a fatwa, this will be binding for all of us to follow," he added.

US leaders have referred multiple times to a supposed fatwa issued by Iran's Supreme Leader against the production and use of nuclear weapons.

President Obama said in a speech to the UN nine months later, "the Supreme Leader has issued a fatwa against the development of nuclear weapons, and President Rouhani has just recently reiterated that the Islamic Republic will never develop a nuclear weapon."

In 2015, Secretary of State John Kerry referred to this supposed fatwa, emphasizing that the US gives it "great respect:"

As you all know, Iran says it doesn’t want a nuclear weapon, and that is a very welcome statement that the Supreme Leader has, in fact, incorporated into a fatwa. And we have great respect – great respect – for the religious importance of a fatwa.

Hilary Clinton had also referred to it when she was Secretary of State.

Israeli intelligence has already proven that Iran has been developing nuclear weapons well after this fictional fatwa was issued. But it appears that the world that is anxious to get any deal with Iran doesn't like to be reminded of Israeli intel, judging it as somehow tainted and not objective because Israel would be the main target of any Iranian nukes.

But now we have someone who is a bit harder to dismiss, former Iranian MP Ali Motahari, confirming that Iran always intended to build a nuclear bomb:

Despite Iran's insistence that its nuclear activity is for peaceful purposes only, former Iranian MP Ali Motahari revealed on Sunday that Iran "from the very beginning" aimed to make a nuclear bomb, in an interview with the Iran Student Correspondents Association.

"From the very beginning, when we entered the nuclear activity, our goal was to build a bomb and strengthen the deterrent forces, but we could not maintain the secrecy of this issue, and the secret reports were revealed by a group of hypocrites," he said.

But when asked about the fatwa, Motahari engages in some revisionist history:

The former MP stressed, however, that Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is now of the opinion that producing nuclear weapons is forbidden. The ISCA interviewer also referenced an earlier comment by Motahari that Tehran can still make a nuclear bomb, despite Khamenei's fatwa (Islamic religious decree) against such weapons, because the fatwa only forbids the use of a bomb, not the creation of one.

Really? Because nearly every reference to this fatwa specifically includes the production of nuclear weapons. This is from an archived version of Iran's nuclear energy website:

Ayatollah Khomeini’s successor as Iran’s Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has also pronounced a fatwa forbidding the production, stockpiling and use of weapons of mass destruction, and specifically nuclear arms. He first issued the fatwa in October 2003 but has reiterated it several times ever since in an effort to underline the high significance of the issue.

On November 5th 2004, in a Friday prayers sermon, Ayatollah Khamenei is quoted as having said: “No sir, we are not seeking to have nuclear weapons,” and added that to “manufacture, possess or use them, that all poses a problem. I have expressed my religious convictions about this, and everyone knows it.”

Similarly, the Iranian government told the IAEA in a 2005 meeting:

The Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has issued the Fatwa that the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons are forbidden under Islam and that the Islamic Republic of Iran shall never acquire these weapons.

Apologists for Iran have generally been ignoring the fatwa in recent years as new evidence came to light showing that their "respect" for Khamenei's fatwa was quite misplaced. But expect them, when pressed, to start to pretend that the fatwa was only against the use of nuclear weapons, not their production.

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