(Analyst's note:  Troubling.)

Ayatollah Masbah Yazdi, the spiritual teacher of Iran’s dictator Mahmoud Ahmedinajad, says that the acquisition of nuclear weapons is a religious obligation. So reports the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (ITIC), headquartered in Ramat HaSharon.

Yazdi, considered one of the leading religious thinkers in Iran, authored a book in which he wrote that attaining the ability to independently produce “special combat means of a specific type” is not only a military obligation for Iran, but also a religious one.

Just ten days ago, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the opposite. Speaking to army commanders at the launch of a new Iranian naval destroyer, Khamenei said, “Our religious beliefs are against the use of [nuclear] weapons. We in no way believe in an atomic weapon and do not seek one."

Yazdi wrote that the country’s leaders need not fear the financial costs of producing atomic weapons, as these would be more than compensated for by the “Divine and Messianic aid” that would result.

ITIC acknowledges that the prevalent approach in official Iran is as Khamenei said, namely, that Islam forbids the development of nuclear weapons. However, no official ruling to this effect is known, nor “is it reasonable to assume that this would prevent the regime from developing” such weapons, ITIC says.

“We must manufacture, here at home, the most advanced weapons,” Yazdi wrote, “even if it doesn’t please our enemies.  There is no reason that they should have the right to manufacture [such] weapons, while other countries are denied this right.”

“We must not break in the face of temporary difficulties,” Yazdi further writes, “and the Muslims must be patient and not be deterred by a material and economic lack - for if so, this is liable to lead to a separation from the religion.”