CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

No Rationale for Presidential War on Iran

Image by Javad Esmaeili.

The president says Iran must not be allowed to possess nuclear weapons. In his February 24 speech to Congress, he said of Iran’s leaders, “They want to make a deal, but we haven’t heard those secret words: ‘We will never have a nuclear weapon.’”

This is untrue, as we have heard “those (not-at-all) secret words” many times.

For decades, Iran has declared that nuclear weapons production would violate principles of the Quran, the government’s holy book, that it is not pursuing a nuclear arsenal, and that its uranium enrichment is strictly for civilian uses. The enrichment of uranium for civil nuclear reactor fuel is permitted by the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Iran is a party to this treaty, while the openly genocidal government of Israel, which possesses an arsenal of several hundred nuclear weapons, is not.

Speaking in Tehran on January 21, 2025, Ahmadreza Pourkhaghan, the head of Iran’s Armed Forces Judiciary, said, “The late Imam Khomeini did not allow the use........

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