Iran is now telling the world that in order to confront aggression from America and Israel, it must have nuclear weapons.

Official Iranian media outlets published a commentary Sunday titled “The necessity for the Islamic world to have the atomic bomb,” laying the groundwork for Iran’s refusal to accept limits on its illicit nuclear program.

The essay’s author, Alireza Forghani, is the former governor of southern Iran’s Kish Province and an analyst and a strategy specialist in the camp of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“The fatwa from Imam Khomeini [the founder of Iran's Islamic revolution] said ‘all Islamic countries have Islamic blood,’” Forghani wrote. “Therefore the Islamic world should rise up and shout that a nuclear bomb is our right, and disrupt the dreams of America and Israel.”

“Having a nuclear bomb is our right,” he argued. “Israel would have been destroyed completely 30 years ago” but has survived because it has nuclear weapons. (RELATED: Complete coverage of developments in Iran)

In February, Forghani laid out the legal case for the annihilation of Israel and all Jewish people. That treatise, which ran in all the Iranian regime’s media outlets, openly called for a pre-emptive strike on Israel.

Among the state-run media carrying Forghani’s new piece — which argues that Iran should have an atomic bomb – is the major outlet Fars News Agency, which is run by the Revolutionary Guards and thus represents the views of the Islamic regime.

“The Islamic republic, after the victory of the 1979 revolution, faced a hard reality of its enemies trying to overthrow the only true Islamic republic in the world,” he wrote. “The enemies of the Islamic republic of Iran, headed by America with cooperation by its European allies and some in Asia — [and] using the tools such as the United Nations, other international organizations and NATO — have continuously pursued their goal of overthrowing the … government.”

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America is the main enemy of Iran, Forghani argued, and is the only country that has used the atomic bomb and brags about its nuclear arsenal, creating fear in nations that might want to challenge it.

“Why is it that only those carrying water for America must have the bomb? Why is it that Pakistan can be the only Islamic country to have the bomb? Until when should the Islamic world remain afraid and obey America?” Forghani demanded to know.

Syrian and Lebanese Muslims have to constantly worry that if their governments do not cooperate with America or Israel, “NATO’s bastard soldiers will attack them,” he added.

“The Islamic republic is one country that is surely threatened by America. We have experienced their failed attacks before, and there is no doubt that it will attack Iran, which it calls the center of all evil,” Forghani wrote. “We might be able to confront America with asymmetrical warfare, but how far will that take Iran? There is no guarantee that if things heat up America will not use its nuclear arsenal against Iran just as it has done before [in Japan].”

Forghani recalled the Cold War’s “Mutual Assured Destruction” policy that kept the United States from bombing the Soviet Union. If Iran had nuclear weapons now, he reasoned, America could not do to Iran what it has done to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Negotiations between Iran and six world powers have so far failed. Iran refuses to suspend nuclear enrichment and won’t allow inspection of suspected sites, even as it insists that the only solution to the dilemma is for the West to accept a nuclear Iran. The Islamic regime continues, meanwhile, to warn that any foreign aggression will result in a devastating counterattack.

In a clear indication that Iran might either have a bomb or be close to developing it, Forghani wrote, “Imam Khamenei has stated that with whatever arms they attack us, we will respond similarly. The need for having the atomic bomb in order to respond to any aggression is now.”

Officials in the Islamic regime, including its supreme leader and military commanders, have promised the “full annihilation of Israel” and the demise of America. “We’re still on a hillside,” Khamenei said in a recent speech. “When the Iranian nation reaches the peak, all enmities [and] evils will end.”

In a separate blog article, Forghani quoted the Quran, An-Nisa 74: “Let those fight in the cause of Allah who sell the life of this world for the hereafter. To him who fights in the cause of Allah — whether he is slain or gets victory — soon shall we give him a reward of great value.”

Reza Kahlili is a pseudonym for a former CIA operative in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and the author of the award-winning book “A Time to Betray.” He is a senior Fellow with EMPact America, a member of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security and teaches at the U.S. Department of Defense’s Joint Counterintelligence Training Academy (JCITA).

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