The Islamic Republic has vowed that it “has no alternative but to build a nuclear bomb” in a chilling statement of intent on the regime’s state media.
The pledge comes along with threats against US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and repeated calls for revenge after the damage inflicted on the regime in the war earlier this year.
There is growing uncertainty over the future of negotiations between America and Iran, with particular questions about attempts to deal with the nuclear programme.
President Donald Trump said fresh talks between Washington and Tehran were expected to take place in Doha on Tuesday, although Iranian officials have sent mixed signals over whether negotiations will go ahead.
Fars News Agency – affiliated to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) – said in an extensive analysis piece that the Islamic Republic now has "no alternative but to build a nuclear bomb”.
The statement follows days of infighting within the Iranian establishment over negotiations with the US.
Repeating the regime's narrative that Tehran emerged victorious from the recent conflict, Fars argued that Iran must achieve "nuclear deterrence" to remove any future military option for the "occupation of Iran."
According to the analysis, acquiring nuclear weapons would ensure the Islamic Republic's long-term survival and make any future military confrontation "controllable" through nuclear deterrence.
Hours after publication, Fars attempted to distance itself from the piece, saying it had not been written by its editorial staff but had appeared in the agency's "Fars Interactive" section. The explanation has been met with scepticism. In Iran's tightly controlled media environment, state-affiliated outlets have frequently used reader submissions to circulate politically sensitive or hardline positions while maintaining plausible deniability.
Several other state-controlled media outlets have intensified calls for retaliation against Israel and the US.
The front page of the Tehran municipality-owned newspaper Hamshahri featured a close-up photograph of Donald Trump overlaid with the crosshairs of a rifle scope beneath the headline: "Revenge Is Certain."
The accompanying article called for retaliation following the recent conflict.
The newspaper was previously managed by Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran's parliament speaker, chief negotiator and former IRGC commander, during his tenure as mayor of Tehran.
Kayhan, whose editor-in-chief, Hossein Shariatmadari, serves as the Supreme Leader's representative at the newspaper, called for Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu to be handed over to the Islamic Republic before any future negotiations so they could stand trial in Iranian courts.
It also argued that efforts to avenge what it described as "the killer of Ali Khamenei" should be carried out "on American soil".
In the run-up to the funeral of Islamic Regime supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, scheduled to take place next week across several Iranian cities, state television has repeatedly broadcast calls for revenge.
On IRINN, the state news channel, a series of interviews with members of the public and commentators argued that negotiations with the US should be suspended until Netanyahu had been killed in retaliation for the deaths of Khamenei and the leaders of Hezbollah and Hamas.
The increasingly aggressive messaging across Iran's state-controlled media reflects mounting pressure from hardline factions opposed to renewed diplomacy with Washington.
By coupling calls for nuclear weapons with public demands for revenge against Western and Israeli leaders, these outlets appear to be attempting to raise the political cost of any future negotiations and reinforce the narrative that confrontation, rather than compromise, remains the Islamic Republic's preferred course.
To get more news, click here to sign up for our free daily newsletter.