Former Iran President Indirectly Admits Country Sought Nuclear Weapons

Former Iranian Presdent Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani indirectly admitted that his country started a nuclear weapons program during the Iran-Iraq War, according to an interview he gave to Iranian media in recent days.

“As I have said, when we started the [nuclear] work, we were at war, and we wanted to have such an option for the day our enemies wanted to use nuclear weapons. This was [our] state of mind, but things never become serious,” Rafsanjani, the head of Iran’s Expediency Council and the political rival of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said in an interview to the Iranians’ Nuclear Hope website, according to a report by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

“However, we took seriously the nonmilitary uses [of the nuclear project], and so we invested money and did a great deal of work. We worked in various areas and also taught a great deal. We dispatched students and invited scientists and many other things of this sort.”

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Ali Alfoneh, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies Washington- based think tank, said the Iranian government’s “long-term strategic objective remains unchanged: developing a nuclear bomb.”

Alfoneh told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday, “Ayatollah Rafsanjani supports President Hassan Rouhani’s attempt at reaching a negotiated solution to the crisis over Iran’s nuclear program. However, both gentlemen consider the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action a tactical maneuver in the face of the sanctions regime.

“Rafsanjani believes that goal will be reached sooner or later,” asserted Alfoneh, adding, “His revelations are delivered at a time when they no longer risk disturbing the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action], which is a done deal, and secure him the prestige of being the father of the Iranian bomb.”

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