More Iranians Call for Nuclear Weapons After War With U.S.

From pulpits at Friday Prayers to street rallies, Iranian clerics and officials are increasingly urging the country’s leaders to reverse their longtime pledge not to pursue nuclear weapons.

This demand, once seen as a fringe position held by hard-liners, is moving into mainstream public debate, and the shift could have dramatic consequences for Iran, whose government has for decades argued that its nuclear program was solely for peaceful purposes.

“We must be equipped with nuclear weapons — so that we can fight the criminal America with strength, God willing,” Ali Sepahvand, the Friday prayer leader in Iran’s western city of Kuhdasht, said last week, according to a widely distributed video.

As his voice echoed through a prayer hall, covered in photographs of commanders killed in the war with the United States and Israel this past year, the congregants chanted: “Nuclear deterrence is our inalienable right!”

The growing calls for Iran to pursue nuclear weapons come as the country’s leaders engage in diplomatic efforts to stave off renewed war with the United States and Israel, an outcome widely considered likely after the American midterm elections on Tuesday.

For decades, Iran’s officials have publicly endorsed the fatwa, or religious edict, from its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, which forbade the development and use of nuclear weapons. Issued in his capacity as the head of Iran’s theocratic state, his decree barred Iranian institutions, including the military and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, from pursuing a nuclear bomb.