If Iran became a nuclear power, would it risk its own regime survival to strike at Israel? Such questions remain at the heart of the current debate. Those who argue either President Obama should try diplomacy again or that containment can work argue that Iran would not launch their weapons in a first strike against Israel, never mind what Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said during his term as president.

A recent article in the Iranian press written by Ali Reza Forqani, an ally of the Supreme Leader, however, should re-inject concern about what Iran’s true intentions are. Entitled, “The Fiqh [Islamic Jurisprudence]-Based Reasons for the Need for Israel’s Annihilation,” the Open Source Center recently provided a full translation. The article begins by recalling Ayatollah Khomeini’s views:

The first Qibla of Muslims has today fallen into the hands of Israel, this cancerous tumor in the Middle East. Today, Israel is using all satanic means cause divisions. Every Muslim has the obligation to equip himself against Israel. I have been warning about the dangers of international Zionism for about 20 years and now do not consider that danger for all the liberation movements in the world and for Iran’s recent Islamic revolution to be any less than what it was in the past. I have already warned that the usurping government of Israel, with the designs and ideas that it has for Islam and Muslim countries, presents a great danger and the fear is that should the Muslims grant them the opportunity time would be lost and then it no longer would be possible to stop them. Since the very foundation of Islam is facing a potential danger, it is necessary for all the Muslims in general and the Islamic governments in particular to act to remove this corrupting material by any means possible. All our troubles are due to Israel!

The article continues to cite two Quranic verses to justify an Iranian military strike on Israel:

“And fight in the way of Allah with those who fight against you, and do not exceed the limits, surely Allah does not favor those who exceed the limits” [Qur. 2:190]. “And kill them wherever you find them, and drive them out from whence they drove you out, and persecution is severer than slaughter; and do not fight with them at the sacred Mosque until they fight with you in it, but if they do fight you, then slay them for such is the recompense of the unbelievers” [Qur. 2:191].

And then it embarks on a discourse about jihad. While U.S. diplomats and academics preach that jihad is misunderstood and is not violent, no one told the Islamic Republic that. “The philosophy behind primary jihad is to fight those who fight against the dissemination of Islam and the goal of this jihad is to liberate the people from mental and social captivity and slavery and to lead them to Islam,” Forqani explains. He cites Imam Ali: “I said fight them before they fight against you. I swear to God, no people were attacked in their own house unless they became meek first,” and concludes, “Iran’s military attack on Israel would fit the definition of defensive jihad and as such would not be an example of primary jihad. However, even if we consider such attack as primary jihad… it still would be permissible to wage such jihad with the permission and order of a competent vali- ye faqih (Guardian Jurist) in the age of absence of infallible Imam.” He elaborates:

Defensive jihad is a religiously mandated obligation and all Muslims must participate in it. Addressing this subject, the late Imam Khomeini (may peace be upon him) indicated in his collection of fatwas…that ‘if the enemy attacks the lands of Muslims, it is mandatory for all Muslims to defend their lands by any means possible and not to refrain from giving their lives or assets in the process and they need not obtain permission from the religious ruler in this affair…’ Now, considering the aggression that the fabricated government of Israel has committed against the land of Palestine as a part of Islamic lands and the land that houses the first Qiblah of Muslims, all Muslims are obligated to defend the Muslim people of Palestine and defend this sacred part of Islamic lands by any means possible and to do so they need not obtain permission from the religious ruler either.