Lawmaker urges Tehran to build nukes, claiming it has nothing to lose

An influential Iranian lawmaker has proposed that Tehran respond to Thursday's IAEA Board of Governors' censure resolution by escalating uranium enrichment levels and initiating nuclear weapon production.

"Under current circumstances, Iran should first move toward increasing uranium enrichment, potentially raising the enrichment level to 70% or 80%. In the second phase, Iran should pursue nuclear weapon production,” Ahmad Bakhshayesh Ardestani, a member of the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission of Iran’s Parliament told Didban news website in Tehran.

The Islamic Republic is stockpiling 60-percent enriched uranium, which can be quickly refined to 90%, the level required for nuclear weapons production. While estimates suggest Iran could achieve this enrichment threshold within weeks, building an operational bomb involves additional processes, expertise, and technology. The extent of Iran's progress in developing a nuclear warhead remains unclear.

Ardestani argued that Tehran has little to lose by pursuing nuclear weapons, since it is already under US sanctions. “Currently, we are already deeply entrenched in the boiling pot of sanctions, and the West cannot impose additional sanctions on us beyond recycling existing measures, which primarily have psychological impacts but bring no real change."

While formal US sanctions target Iran’s oil exports and international banking, the incoming Trump administration could significantly ramp up enforcement—a step the outgoing Biden administration avoided in hopes of negotiating over Iran's nuclear program.

Currently, Iran ships over one million barrels of crude oil to small Chinese refineries, bypassing US-imposed third-party sanctions. Despite steep discounts, these exports provide Tehran with critical funds to address its pressing needs. If the Trump administration succeeds in curbing these shipments, Iran’s already fragile economy could face severe consequences.

The Iranian lawmaker emphasized the Islamic Republic’s need for establishing deterrence against Israeli or other military attacks and dismissed the risk of an effective Western response. "If we produce a nuclear bomb, the resulting tension will last no more than six months. Western countries will object to why we developed nuclear weapons, and we can respond by pointing out that they have sanctioned us enough already and have no new sanctions left to impose.”

Ardestani downplayed the likelihood of a Western military response if Iran were to develop nuclear weapons, claiming that the country already possesses sufficient deterrence to prevent such an attack. “Claims about Western military threats against Iran seem unlikely to materialize. Iran already enjoys a high level of military deterrence, making it improbable for Western countries to wage war against us."

However, this stance appears to contradict his own assertion that Tehran requires nuclear weapons to strengthen its deterrence against potential military strikes.

Earlier, Ali Larijani, a senior advisor to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, suggested that the United States should compensate Iran for damages as a condition for Tehran to abandon nuclear weapons development.

Since March 2024, ambiguous statements from Islamic Republic officials regarding moving toward nuclear weapons development have increased. In May, Kamal Kharrazi, Khamenei's international affairs advisor and head of his Strategic Council on Foreign Relations, warned about the Islamic Republic's potential shift toward building nuclear weapons.

In October, 39 members of Iran’s parliament sent a letter to the Supreme National Security Council, calling for a change in the Islamic Republic’s defense doctrine to include nuclear weapons development.

In contrast to these statements, officials from Masoud Pezeshkian’s administration, including Pezeshkian himself, have positioned themselves as proponents of diplomacy, advocating for de-escalation and citing the Supreme Leader’s fatwa against nuclear weapons as justification for their stance.

Larijani's new demand for compensation and Ardestani’s threat to build nuclear weapons come as Tehran's regional influence faces significant setbacks, with Hamas’s military infrastructure largely destroyed, Hezbollah under relentless Israeli attacks in Lebanon, and key militant leaders, including Hamas’s Ismail Haniyeh and Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah, killed.