alt Hacker NewsThey had a religious ruling on the range, and they also had a religious ruling on "not creating an atomic bomb."
The question of whether the world can assume its security on some religious rulings of some Ayatollas is still standing, as these rulings can apparently be changed or bypassed.
Replies
cardanome • today at 5:24 PM
Maybe don't murder the religious leader that made the rulings.
Can anyone blame them for considering developing nuclear weapons for real now? I can't.
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throwaway27448 • today at 5:24 PM
> The question of whether the world can assume its security on some religious rulings of some Ayatollas
I don't think much of the world has processed that Iran's ostensible lack of nuclear weapons is purely a matter of will and not capability.
This "religious ruling" stuff is less interesting than it sounds. To begin with, while the Islamic Republic of Iran is a totalitarian state, the Twelver Shia hierarchy isn't unified. The supposed ban on nuclear weapons was Khamenei's, and binding only on his followers. But there are several other marja (marjas? marji?), with significant followings even in the security state & IRGC (al-Sistani being a good example).
More importantly, it's pretty clear that the geopolitical rulings are, well, geopolitical in nature. Iran is a nuclear threshold state; its strategy is to come as close to the breakout line as it can and extract concessions for not crossing it. The supposed nuclear fatwa is just public relations strategy. At the point Iran decided the cost/benefit/risk/reward of crossing the threshold made sense, it would be updated.