“Happy Passover!”
False alarm… He's just a ‘confused' MP
After some digging around, we learned that the person who posted that tweet (above) about conducting a nuclear test is a member of Iran's parliament. It appears he misquoted/misinterpreted a statement by an official Iranian spokesperson that Iran could achieve nuclear ‘breakout' in a week, with actual ‘testing' of a weapon.
Political polarization at its max
There was some colorful language used by some people to describe the individual concerned, despite never having heard of him before. Perhaps a bit of sample bias is going on there.
In general, the top of the government in Iran is not exactly the cream of the crop—sounds rather familiar. Except, one side is slightly more self-aware of their shortcomings and proceeds with greater caution.
A sensitive subject… for good reasons
Iran's nuclear posture has so far been to achieve a threshold that makes a potential nuclear weapon a near reality while at the same time maintaining plausible deniability. The nuclear arms proliferation community is hypersensitive over Iran's nuclear program for the following reasons:
1) Actions by others that lead to Iran shifting its official policy or moving covertly.
2) In the wake of the Iraq WMD intelligence failures, nuclear arms experts are keen to avoid making loose public statements that may encourage D.C. Neocons to repeat the same mistakes.
Nuclear scientist negotiators usually have a lot of common ground with their counterparts to work from. It’s their superiors who complicate matters and sabotage personal relationships and trust fostered over many years.
It's a sin
For now, the Grand Ayatollah has elaborated on his nation's formal stance towards nuclear weapons by describing them as ‘a sin'. A careful unambiguous choice of words which makes Iran's nuclear posture crystal clear for people from all cultures and backgrounds around the world. Because nobody ever commits a sin.
