Edging closer to an open admission that this is what their nuclear program is all about. “Iran cleric wants ‘special weapons’ to deter enemy,” by Ali Akbar Dareini for AP, June 14:
TEHRAN, Iran — The hardline spiritual mentor of Iran’s president has made a rare public call for producing the “special weapons” that are a monopoly of a few nations — a veiled reference to nuclear arms.
The Associated Press on Monday obtained a copy of a book written by Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah Yazdi in which he wrote Iran should not deprive itself of the right to produce these “special weapons.” […]
“The most advanced weapons must be produced inside our country even if our enemies don’t like it. There is no reason that they have the right to produce a special type of weapons, while other countries are deprived of it,” Yazdi said.
Yazdi is a member of the Assembly of Experts, a conservative body of 86 senior clerics that monitors Iran’s supreme leader and chooses his successor. He also heads the Imam Khomeini Educational and Research Institute, an Islamic think tank, in the holy city of Qom, 80 miles (130 kilometers) south of the capital.
In his book, Yazdi said Iran must acquire the necessary deterrent weapons in order to be able to stand up to its enemies.
“Under Islamic teachings, all common tools and materialistic instruments must be employed against the enemy and prevent enemy’s military superiority,” he said.
He also said Muslims must not allow a few powers to monopolize certain weapons in their arsenal.
“From Islam’s point of view, Muslims must make efforts to benefit from the most sophisticated military equipment and get specific weapons out of the monopoly of powerful countries,” he said….