Iran does not intend to build a nuclear bomb, unless it is confronted with an external threat, according to Muhammad Sahimi, the National Iranian Oil Company chair in petroleum engineering and a professor at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
“Iran wants to put itself in a position such that if an international crisis arises and there is an external threat to the national security of Iran, Iran can be in a position to make a nuclear weapon in an emergency as a deterrent against a foreign threat,” said Sahimi, who has written extensively on Iran’s nuclear program.
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”Otherwise, Iran has no intention whatsoever of making a nuclear weapon, because Iranian leaders are fully aware that if they cross the line and somehow they make nuclear weapon, that will start a very bad nuclear arms race in the Middle East, which will ultimately will not be in Iran's benefit or in any body's benefit in that region," Sahimi said, who is a member of the Union of Concerned Scientists.
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