A senior Iranian regime lawmaker has openly called for a gradual reversal of the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s professed ban on nuclear weapons, intensifying a pattern of threats aimed at pressuring the international community to retreat from a firm stance on Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.
In a speech before parliament on May 13, Abdolhossein Rouhalamini argued that if Western sanctions and pressure persist, the regime should move toward lifting Khamenei’s religious fatwa that ostensibly forbids nuclear arms.
“If threats and sanctions are not lifted,” Rouhalamini declared, “we should gradually request a reconsideration of the Supreme Leader’s fatwa on nuclear weapons.” He framed this as a strategic response to what he described as U.S. provocations and efforts to destabilize Iran internally.
However, the fatwa itself has long been dismissed by non-proliferation experts and Iranian opposition groups as a tactical ploy to deflect scrutiny, not a genuine barrier to weaponization. Since 1991, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) has exposed dozens of covert nuclear sites tied to the regime’s clandestine weapons program.
For over three decades, the ruling clerics in #Tehran, who continue to harbor ambitions of inaugurating a regional Islamic Caliphate to this day, have been desperately trying to join the #nuclear club.https://t.co/EiJenArCtm
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) April 18, 2023
Rouhalamini’s remarks align with a broader strategy of nuclear extortion. By publicly floating the idea of abandoning the fatwa, regime officials seek to create diplomatic panic, divide international consensus, and extract concessions from Western powers. This is a familiar playbook: Tehran escalates threats whenever international pressure mounts, using the specter of weaponization to stall negotiations and weaken enforcement of sanctions.
As Tehran faces mounting domestic unrest, economic collapse, and growing isolation, officials are increasingly turning to nuclear blackmail as their last strategic leverage. Rouhalamini’s speech follows a series of similar statements by regime officials in recent months—part of a coordinated effort to threaten a nuclear breakout and intimidate the international community into retreating from a firm and unified policy.