Is Iran pretending to have nukes?

Iran’s former ayatollah declared the development and use of weapons of mass destruction forbidden on moral and religious grounds. We should take this decree seriously because that would open the way to an alternative explanation of Iranian behaviour.

It’s possible that Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, pictured, has followed the same stupid strategy as Saddam Hussein did in Iraq, and is approaching the same ugly consequences, writes Gwynne Dyer. Photograph courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Opinion

BY GWYNNE DYER

February 4, 2026

LONDON, U.K.—The Iranian regime is brutal, fanatical, and corrupt. It has just committed the mass murder of its own citizens in city streets and in their own homes. But the story we are told about Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons is very misleading.

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