The fatwa banning nuclear weapons under Islam, issued by the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is no longer legally valid in Shia jurisprudence - because Shias do not follow dead ayatollahs, political scientist Vali Nasr has told Bloomberg. The religious barrier that kept Iran from building a bomb has vanished, and the strategic incentives now overwhelmingly push in the opposite direction.

Tehran has already concluded that its 20-year strategy of maintaining a transparent civilian nuclear program monitored by the IAEA was a mistake, "Hvylya" reports, citing Nasr's interview on the Mishal Husain Show. "They should have followed the India-Pakistan model," Nasr said. "They should have never discussed the program - they should have gone for a bomb rather than a program."

The lesson Iran has drawn is devastating for nonproliferation: every attempt to negotiate with the West for a civilian nuclear program only invited sanctions and war. Nasr said it is now up to Mojtaba Khamenei and clerics in Qom to decide whether to renew the fatwa or not, but "national security imperatives now suggest that Iran will go towards nuclear weapons."

The consequences extend far beyond Iran. Nasr cited a prominent Pakistani scholar who recently expressed gratitude - for the first time in his life - that Pakistan chose to build nuclear weapons. Other countries watching Iran's experience are reaching similar conclusions. "A lot of countries now have looked at this and said that if they want to go down that path, they should do it quickly and secretly," Nasr warned.

The most likely outcome, in Nasr's assessment, is that Iran's nuclear program shifts from a civilian framework toward something "much more of a military program and a secret program." The prospect is precisely what decades of Western policy aimed to prevent - and the war, paradoxically, may be what finally makes it happen. This scenario also undermines the condition that could justify the war in the eyes of its supporters.

Previously: "Death to America" for 47 Years: Expert Explained What Ended the Iranian Regime's Free Passes.