A sailor prepares a Navy MH-60R Sea Hawk to take off from the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln in U.S. 5th Fleet area of responsibility, Saturday, June 27, 2026. (U.S. Navy photo)

Some Iranian officials are doubling down on their demands that they have a right to have and use nuclear weapons, according to a new report, despite the impact of the military strikes President Donald Trump has used to undermine that nation’s military and ability to develop those weapons.

A recent Real Clear Wire commentary pointed out the uphill climb posed by any effort to separate the rogue Islamists running Iran from their insistence on catastrophically destructive weapons to use against Israel and the United States.

“Iran’s nuclear program is not a technical problem that can be solved by bombing centrifuges or stockpiles. It is a political-military program driven by a regime whose founding ideology, constitution, and operational doctrine treat the acquisition of nuclear weapons as a means to destroy Israel and, ultimately, confront the United States. The will, the intent, and the institutional machinery that produce that pursuit reside in the Supreme Leader’s office, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, and the network of clerics and commanders who have spent four decades pursuing the bomb while denying it. As long as that leadership remains, the program can be reconstituted. History has proven this repeatedly,” that analysis explained.

Now a report from the Middle East Media Research Institute confirms that multiple Iranian officials, “most of them affiliated with the messianic-apocalyptic school of thought that has come to power since the assassination of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei,” are calling for Iran’s nuclear doctrine to “change” and “for the building of a nuclear bomb.”

The wave of advocacy for extreme violence follows the recent post, and subsequent removal, of an article on the Iranian website FARS that stated the Iranian regime had “no choice but to build an atomic bomb.”

After that posting was removed, FARS claimed it did not reflect the agency’s view and it was published by “a private user of the platform” to deliver a “private expression.”

The newest report reveals “a number of Iranian officials” have demanded that Iran can use a tactical nuclear weapon against targets in Israel, and that wouldn’t be “considered to be using a nuclear bomb.”

A top Iranian nuclear scientist, Fereydoon Abbasi, announced just weeks ago that his nation could bulid a small nuclear bomb that could destroy a whole military base.

Before his death, Khamenei had claimed that Iran didn’t really aspire to have nuclear weapons.

But the FARS report suggested a reversal.

“In the transition to the new order, Iran has no choice but to achieve nuclear deterrence, in order to eliminate the military options of invading and dividing Iran,” it said. “To obtain the peace Iran requires, it must achieve nuclear deterrence, so as to assure the rest of the issues [with the U.S. and world] can be resolved through negotiations.”

It said only with nuclear weapons can Iran negotiate “from the proper standpoint.”

It noted, “Nuclear deterrence means that it will be possible to arrive at a balance of power vis-à-vis America and Israel, which have atomic bombs. Not only will there not be war, but the scope of the conflict will be controllable.”

Further, MEMRI reported, Iranian has a policy of “nuclear ambiguity” and claims that it could assemble a nuclear bomb within a few hours.

Recent statements demanding nuclear weapons included one from Ahmad Bakhshayesh Ardestani, a member of the Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Committee.

He said, “I think the time has come for Iran to build a nuclear bomb, because it has paid enough for this. Therefore, it must build it now.”

He said a global “consensus” against the move it irrelevant.

“Is there not a global consensus against Iran today? The leaders of the Western world and America are waging daily war against us. [America] has deployed 60,000 troops, ships, frigates, and warships in the Sea of Oman and the Indian Ocean. This consensus still exists. So you [i.e. they will] cry and yell [only] once.”

A spokesman for the Iranian armed forces, Gen. Abolfazi Shekarchi, insisted, “Today, the doctrine of the Islamic Republic is that if someone attacks us, we will not only defend ourselves, we will certainly retaliate with a decisive attack. We have prove (sic) this during this third imposed war. Today, all American bases are within our range. There is no safe place for them in the region. We have deprived them of their security. Today, the U.S military has been destroyed around the world. Thousands of American soldiers and officers have fallen into depression. They have developed mental disorders.”