Iran will change its nuclear doctrine if sites are attacked, an official says

Iran will change its nuclear doctrine if Israel threatens its nuclear facilities or their existence, an adviser to the country’s ruler said on Thursday, a second similar threat in less than a month.

“If they dare to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, our level of deterrence will change. So far we have experienced deterrence at a conventional level. If they intend to attack Iran’s nuclear capabilities, this could of course lead to a change in Iranian nuclear doctrine.” said Kamal Charrazi.

He added that Iran has so far refrained from developing nuclear weapons: “But if Iran’s existence is threatened, we will be forced to change our nuclear doctrine.” Recently, military officials also stated that it is possible and conceivable if Israel intends to “To attack nuclear facilities, to reconsider Iran’s nuclear doctrine and policy, and to deviate from previous statements.”
Ali-Akbar Salehi, who served as foreign minister more than a decade ago and is still a key foreign policy voice in the Iranian government, also said last month that Iran had everything it needed to build a nuclear bomb as tensions with Israel increased increased Gaza war.

In a television interview in April, Salehi, was asked whether Iran had acquired the ability to develop a nuclear bomb. Avoiding a direct answer, he stated: “We have (exceeded) all the frontiers of nuclear science and technology.”

Israel is believed to have carried out two spectacular sabotage operations against Iran’s major nuclear facility at Natanz in the center of the country in 2020 and 2021.

Tehran has always insisted that its nuclear program is peaceful and that it does not seek to develop nuclear weapons. However, its actions since late 2020 suggest that the nuclear threat is escalating through the enrichment of a significant amount of uranium to 60 percent purity, which has no civilian use.

Kharrazi’s new comments are clearly aimed at deterring any Israeli plans to attack its nuclear facilities. Although he also threatened to change doctrine if Iran’s existence was threatened, any Israeli attack will most likely be aimed at valuable strategic targets rather than the obliteration of Iran. It is possible that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s adviser was referring to possible Israeli threats against the regime and its leaders and not to Iran’s existence as a country.

Iran is considered the Islamist Hamas’s main military backer and is suspected of helping to plan the October 7 attack on Israeli civilians that killed more than a thousand people. Since then, Tehran has tirelessly supported Hamas and encouraged its Houthi military proxies to attack merchant ships in the Red Sea to force Israel to back down.

The tensions led to direct confrontation when Iran fired more than 300 drones and missiles at Israel on April 13, most of which were shot down by Israeli air defenses as well as the US, British and Jordanian air forces. Charrazi expressed his pride on Thursday, saying that the myth of Israeli deterrence was shattered on both October 7 and April.

On April 18th A senior IRGC commander had also warned that Tehran could change its nuclear policy if Israel continued to threaten to attack Iran’s nuclear sites, implicitly implying that it would not cooperate with world organizations or build a nuclear bomb.

“If the false Zionist regime wants to use the threat of attacks on nuclear facilities to put pressure on Iran, it is possible and conceivable that the Islamic Republic will revise its nuclear doctrine and policy and deviate from its stated thinking in the past,” said Ahmad Haghtalab, who oversees the security of Iran’s nuclear sites.