Ayatollah: Iran Already an Atomic Power

In today’s Friday prayer sermon, Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, a senior ayatollah and a member of the Islamic regime’s Assembly of Experts, criticized the European Union for their decision to impose oil sanctions on Iran and stated that in effect, “the EU has sanctioned itself from our oil and that it will harm their economy much more than Iran’s.”

He then focused on the recent State of the Union address by President Obama and his statement about Iran facing alienation and strong sanctions and saying that the U.S. will not allow Iran to get the nuclear bomb. Khatami responded by saying that so far four regimes — servants of America — have been toppled in the region and “Obama needs to bug off, and despite his rhetoric, Iran is already an atomic power.”

Khatami stated that what the Islamic regime in Iran is facing now is similar to what Prophet Mohammad was facing in his time, but through faith in Allah, Islam will be victorious.

Seyyed Emad Hosseini, spokesman for the Majlis (parliament) Energy Commission also said on Friday that the Islamic regime has the world’s third biggest oil reserve and cannot be eliminated from global energy equation. He added that oil sanctions imposed by European countries will only harm the European Union countries and that Iran is prepared to bring the European Union to its knees by stopping Iran’s oil exports to them as early as next week.

Iranian lawmakers are set to debate a “double-urgency” bill on Sunday to decide whether to ban oil exports to the European Union countries.

General Naghhdi, the chief commander of the Basij, the regime’s militia army, stated on Thursday that after Iranian officials received the letter from Obama begging for negotiations, they decided to show some leniency and allow the U.S. Navy ships to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.

Days ago it was reported that USS Abraham Lincoln, a nuclear-powered carrier, passed through the Strait of Hormuz and entered the Gulf without incident.

As reported on January 23^rd, President Obama sent a message to the Iranian leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, stating his concern about the threats to close the Strait of Hormuz and his desire for negotiations because he does not want to take any action against the regime.

Reza Kahlili is a pseudonym for a former CIA operative in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and the author of the award winning book, A Time to Betray. He is a senior Fellow with EMPact America and teaches at the U.S. Department of Defense’s Joint Counterintelligence Training Academy (JCITA).