ABSTRACT
Iran’s nuclear programme became a central international security concern in 2002 upon revelations about the nature, extent and diversity of the country’s secret activities in the nuclear field. The shock for many was Iran’s apparent considerable successes in mastering the atom, and also its having done so in relative isolation and with the official declaration that Iran’s programme was entirely peaceful. Tehran’s standard position has been that the development or deployment of nuclear weapons is against Islam and its values and therefore against the established principles of the revolutionary Islamic state. Iran did not need nuclear weapons to defend itself against predators, as its leaders saw it. Nor would the country need such weapons for projecting prestige or power, its leaders confidently declared at every public gathering after these revelations.
