Iran's Gray Area on Nuclear Arms

"In the time of the prophet, we didn't have nuclear bombs, so there's not a verse about it in the Koran," said Mohsen Kadivar, who like Gharavian is a middle-ranking cleric. "But we have some verses which say we can't kill anyone who hasn't committed a crime. It's very, very clear."

The faith does accept the concept of retaliation, however, so long as it stops short of injuring innocents. Kadivar said that proviso appears to proscribe actual use of weapons of mass destruction, as would scriptures warning against damaging the environment.

But none of that necessarily bars a government from stockpiling such weapons, the clerics say.

"From all I can see, it's not forbidden, but it's hard to say it's allowed. In jurisprudence these terms are different," Kadivar said. "If your enemies have these bombs, it's not forbidden to have them.

"Don't forget that Israel has these bombs," he added, raising a finger. "It's outside the Non-Proliferation Treaty."

Iranian scholars who argue against nuclear weapons point out that these questions are hardly abstract in Iran. The newly minted government faced severe, real-life tests after Saddam Hussein's troops invaded Iran in 1980. The Iraqi forces used chemical weapons on the battlefield; two decades later, badly wounded survivors still populate hospital wards in Iran.

When Iraq also launched rocket attacks on Tehran and other metropolitan areas, pressure for Tehran to retaliate was intense.

"In the eight-year war with Iraq, this was a very hot debate among all the Islamic teachers, because Iranian cities were being bombarded," said Kazem Mosavi Bojnoordi, who sat on the defense committee of Iran's parliament during part of the war. "The conclusion was that it's not allowed. Never during those eight years do we have one example of Iran bombarding cities."

Bojnoordi, now chief editor of Iran's Center for the Great Islamic Encyclopedia, recalled that after the first salvos from Iraq, a senior Iranian commander declared, "Now we will flatten Baghdad." The comment brought an immediate rebuke from Khomeini, whose fatwa closed the matter for the balance of the war.

"According to Islamic teachings, there's the principle that the goals never justify the means," said Bojnoordi, whose father was a grand ayatollah. "It has not been supported in Islam that you can do whatever you want to defend yourself. You are not allowed to gather weapons that are not allowed by Islam, even against your enemies.''

Senior Iranian officials insist their goal is only electrical power, saving their substantial petroleum deposits to export. Leaders also emphasize the role of pride and technological achievement, which inside Iran conveys the impression of economic development that has largely eluded a population that has grown poorer since the 1979 revolution.

"I believe that by getting high tech we will be getting development," Bojnoordi said. "If we improve the standard of living, that will unite the people, and that will bring security."

Said Kadivar: "I hope that science in my country is so progressive! I hope it's true. Every Iranian wants to have this energy. Every party. The difficulty is we don't have a democratic regime. So we should try to democratize."

If Iran is indeed working to produce nuclear weapons, experts say the program would surely be entrusted to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Formed in 1979 by clerics who did not trust Iran's existing army, the Revolutionary Guards have grown into a major force in Iran's economy and political offices. Their insignia, one analyst noted, includes a passage from the Koran that reads, "Prepare any strength you can muster against them, and any cavalry with which you can overawe God's enemy and your own enemy as well, plus others besides them whom you do not know."