Iran: Nuke Test Will Give Us 'National Sparkle'

“The day after Iran’s first nuclear test is a normal day.” So begins a strange article posted on the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Gerdab website that has set off alarms in the West. Originally posted in April, the hypothetical article waxes poetic about how great it will be when Iran successfully tests a nuclear weapon. “In the eyes of some of us there will be a new sparkle. A sparkle of national pride and strength,” it promises, according to the Guardian’s translation.

The post is startling because Iran is usually careful to toe the official line that its nuclear activities are purely peaceful. “I have never seen anything like this report. It’s breaking a major taboo,” says one Iranian-Israeli expert from Colombia University. Iran also raised some eyebrows yesterday when it announced that it would be installing more advanced equipment in one fortified underground nuclear site to speed up its enrichment activities, the AP reports. (More Iranian Revolutionary Guard stories.)