Iran’s top security official has suggested Tehran could reconsider its longstanding rejection of nuclear weapons, arguing that US attacks on Iran have strengthened the case for acquiring an atomic bomb as a deterrent. Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said Washington had demonstrated that adherence to the global nuclear non-proliferation system offered countries little protection from military attack. “The whole world is saying, ‘Wait a minute. So the NPT has no effect?’” Rezaei said in an interview broadcast by Iranian state television. “When America is waging such a war, people naturally ask: Why shouldn’t we pursue nuclear weapons ourselves?”
Rezaei, a former commander-in-chief of the Revolutionary Guards, stopped short of saying Iran had decided to build a nuclear weapon. But his remarks were unusually explicit for one of the Islamic Republic’s most senior security officials. Iran has long maintained that its nuclear program is peaceful and has rejected the development and use of atomic weapons. Rezaei argued that Iran had subjected itself to extensive international monitoring, joined the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and ultimately accepted the 2015 nuclear agreement, known as the JCPOA. “The level of safeguards and inspections carried out in Iran over the past two decades has been unprecedented anywhere else in the world,” he said. Yet Iran and its nuclear facilities were ultimately attacked, Rezaei said, arguing that this had changed the calculation around nuclear deterrence.
“Why shouldn’t we develop a nuclear weapon so that nobody can attack us?” he said, describing the question he said countries were now asking.
US President Donald Trump’s war on Iran has made nuclear weapons more attractive worldwide by demonstrating that neither the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty nor membership in the International Atomic Energy Agency offers protection, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security… pic.twitter.com/RNSSxOulAI— Iran International English (@IranIntl_En) August 23, 2026
The comments come at an especially volatile moment in the US-Iran confrontation, with diplomacy following the war and subsequent ceasefire largely stalled and Washington shifting its focus towards intensified economic pressure. Trump has announced what he described as a sweeping new economic campaign against Iran, while Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Washington would impose the “toughest sanctions in history. ”US officials have presented the pressure campaign as a way of forcing Tehran towards an agreement while reducing the need for another large-scale military offensive. Iranian officials have rejected the threats, while maintaining that Tehran remains open to diplomacy. (Read More)
