Der Spiegel kills.
In 1979, the Shah is driven out of office in the Islamic Revolution, and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini triumphantly assumes power in Iran. The purity of Shiite faith is at the center of his theocracy, while the purity of uranium is seen as irrelevant. Khomeini dismisses the nuclear program as a "suspicious Western innovation" that has no business in his Islamic Republic. Besides, weapons of mass destruction are haram, or forbidden, according to the teachings of Allah. Khomeini's position is astonishing.
By this time, Israel is already a nuclear power, after having built a secret nuclear reactor in the Negev Desert and functioning nuclear weapons. In 1969, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir presumably confessed to US President Richard Nixon about the existence of the bombs. In the fall of 1980, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein feels emboldened by the US government to attack his Iranian neighbors. The war will rage for eight years, claiming half a million lives. Bushehr is one of the bombing targets, and Iran's nuclear reactor there, still unfinished, is largely destroyed.
In a dramatic letter to the revolutionary leader, Mohsen Rezai, the commander of the Revolutionary Guard (and a critic of Ahmadinejad today), requests his permission for the development of nuclear weapons. He argues that this is the only way Iran can defend itself and deter its enemies. Prime Minister Hossein Mousavi (the leader of the popular resistance movement today) writes a personal appeal to support Rezai's argument in favor of the bomb.
In 1979, the Shah is driven out of office in the Islamic Revolution, and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini triumphantly assumes power in Iran. The purity of Shiite faith is at the center of his theocracy, while the purity of uranium is seen as irrelevant. Khomeini dismisses the nuclear program as a "suspicious Western innovation" that has no business in his Islamic Republic. Besides, weapons of mass destruction are haram, or forbidden, according to the teachings of Allah. Khomeini's position is astonishing.
By this time, Israel is already a nuclear power, after having built a secret nuclear reactor in the Negev Desert and functioning nuclear weapons. In 1969, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir presumably confessed to US President Richard Nixon about the existence of the bombs. In the fall of 1980, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein feels emboldened by the US government to attack his Iranian neighbors. The war will rage for eight years, claiming half a million lives. Bushehr is one of the bombing targets, and Iran's nuclear reactor there, still unfinished, is largely destroyed.
In a dramatic letter to the revolutionary leader, Mohsen Rezai, the commander of the Revolutionary Guard (and a critic of Ahmadinejad today), requests his permission for the development of nuclear weapons. He argues that this is the only way Iran can defend itself and deter its enemies. Prime Minister Hossein Mousavi (the leader of the popular resistance movement today) writes a personal appeal to support Rezai's argument in favor of the bomb.
