Nejad's Ayatollah Mentor Preaches For Nuclear Bomb Production

In a thinly veiled statement the hard-line spiritual mentor of Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has made a rare public call for producing a nuclear weapon.
Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah Yazdi wrote the following in his book “The Islamic Revolution — Surges in Political Changes in History’’:

The most advanced weapons must be produced inside our country even if our enemies don’t like it. There is no reason that they have the right to produce a special type of weapons, while other countries are deprived of it.
(...) Under Islamic teachings, all common tools and materialistic instruments must be employed against the enemy and prevent [the] enemy’s military superiority.

Yazdi’s hard-line views, including devotion to the Mahdi, a messiah-like figure to reappear ahead of judgment day, have had a strong impact on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who shows him more respect than any other senior cleric.

Yazdi's book was written in 2005 and then reprinted last year, but would have only had a very limited circulation among senior clerics and would not have been public knowledge.