Many Western commentators have described Khamenei’s approach to nuclear weapons as if he was just an old-fashioned cleric and out of touch. We are looking here to put Khamenei’s position into a proper perspective. It is not to argue for or against Khamenei’s position but to suggest that the self congratulatory positIon of Western commentators is misplaced.
Let us start with the Manhattan Project. At the time many scientists were persuaded to work on the project on the grounds that there was a race with Hitler. This was a lie and several scientists who learnt it was a lie resigned from the project. They too considered nuclear weapons haram.
Daniel Ellsberg documented the immense efforts to which US authorities went to conceal the truth from the scientists. Take the important case of Leo Szilard. On December,2 1942 he and Enrico Fermi affected the first controlled nuclear chain reaction. Szilard later wrote: ‘I shook hands with Fermi and I said I thought this day would go down as a black day in the history of mankind’. Szilard, nevertheless, continued working on it. As Daniel Ellsberg put it;
‘Yet despite this extreme, and fully justified, foreboding, Szilard was playing a critical role in bringing this ominous explosive power into the world. How could he? The answer is that he believed , even before others, that they were racing Hitler to the attainment of this power’.(Note 1)
‘In reality the race was one-sided. …. In June 1942 … Hitler had decided against a bomb effort, ‘
That the myth of a race against Hitler was important, sometimes decisive in persuading many of the world’s top scientists to join the Manhattan Project is shown in the case of Joseph Rotblat, who, once he learned from a British colleague that there was no German program, promptly resigned from the Manhattan Project.
Among the reasons for Hitler not engaging in the race for atom bombs, as reported by his close advisers, were his fear of turning the world into an uninhabitable globe. It should be noted that Hitler foresaw the possible destruction of the planet by nuclear weapons. Speer wrote that he was “plainly not delighted that the earth under his rule might be transformed into a glowing star”. (Note 2) Speer further observed that Hitler would joke about the various scientists “in their unworldly urge to lay bare all the secrets under heaven, might some day set the globe on fire”.
Hitler’s fear was shared by some scientists: ‘The English author and Third Reich specialist, Geoffrey Michael Brooks, writes that Hitler had a “deeply entrenched” reservation that “the atomic explosion might proceed to ignite the hydrogen in the atmosphere”. Hydrogen is the most abundant chemical substance in the universe, comprising three quarters of all matter. These concerns also disturbed American scientists developing the atomic bomb.’
Enrico Fermi ‘wondered aloud whether the test bomb he was about to ignite might trigger the heavens, destroying every living thing on earth. Nobody really knew…”
These are serious issues and taken seriously by important people. The myth of the race against Hitler has put the true issues under the carpet and beyond discussion for many in the West.
Iran’s clerics under Ali Khamenei forbade nuclear weapons under Islamic rules;
‘The foundational Qur’anic injunction, verse 2:190, both permits fighting and limits it: “Fight in the way of God those who fight you, but do not transgress. Indeed, God does not love transgressors.” War is accepted as a political reality but is not treated as morally autonomous.” (Note 3)
It is hard to read commentary about Khamenei’s fatwa against nuclear weapons from Western commentators without hearing the barely concealed laughter and ridicule as if the religious objections were absurd. In any case, the fatwa accepts that if the existence of Iran was at stake, then nuclear weapons would be justified. Given the objection to nuclear weapons by many Western scientists and even of Hitler himself, where he did not wish to risk buring the globe, and would prefer to loose the war than adopt nuclear weapons, Khamenei was not alone. On the other hand, the US was willing, without discussion, to risk burying the globe rather than risk losing the war. In reality, the nuclear weapons did not end the war. The area bombing by the US Air Force killed many more people per event than the atomic bomb. This atomic bomb killed only civilians. It was the entry of the Soviet Union into the war that precipitated the Japanese surrender. The scale of lies about the nuclear weapons policy by the US is only matched by the collaboration in the academy and media in maintaining these lies.