The Weekly Standard

The Weekly Standard

Iranian Official Admits Nuclear Program Is Not Peaceful

Remember when the Iranians left blueprints for a nuclear warhead lying around, and then told the IAEA inspectors that the regime "received them inadvertently while purchasing its nuclear equipment on the black market decades ago"? Well, accidents will happen:

Iran's envoy to the UN atomic watchdog caused a buzz among journalists on Wednesday when he apparently misspoke and said his country had the right to a nuclear weapon.

After saying as usual that Iran was only pursuing nuclear energy for civilian purposes, Ali Asghar Soltanieh strayed alarmingly from the Islamic republic's usual line.

"The whole Iranian nation are united... on (the) inalienable right of (having a) nuclear weapon," the envoy to the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency said.

But don't worry, everything you think you know about Iran is wrong according to Fareed Zakaria, who assures us the Iranians understand that "following a civilian nuclear strategy has big benefits," and the country's "Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued a fatwa in 2004 describing the use of nuclear weapons as immoral," and later said that producing nuclear weapons is "forbidden under Islam." So relax, just because they have highly-enriched uranium, blueprints for a nuclear warhead, and an envoy declaring to international inspectors that the regime has an "inalienable right" to build a nuclear weapon, that doesn't mean anything.