The Right State

What is the US to do with Iran?  We have a two fold problem with the Iranians: continued interference in Iraq and their insistence on building a nuclear program.  The Iranians have been thumbing their collective noses at the world community for years.

In Iraq, using proxies, the Iranians are arming terrorists for the purpose of killing American and British troops is well documented.  Even more alarming is Tehran’s insidious link with Osama bin Laden’s terrorist group by trying to move al-Queda in a direction that is beneficial to them and harmful to the west.

But intelligence officials have been most alarmed by reports from Iran that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is trying to persuade al-Qa’eda to promote a pro-Iranian activist to a senior position within its leadership.

The Iranians want Saif al-Adel, a 46-year-old former colonel in Egypt’s special forces, to be the organisation’s number three.

Al-Adel was formerly bin Laden’s head of security, and was named on the FBI’s 22 most wanted list after September 11 for his alleged involvement in terror attacks against US targets in Somalia and Africa in the 1990s. He has been living in a Revolutionary Guard guest house in Teheran since fleeing from Afghanistan in late 2001.

Alarm over al-Qa’eda deepened yesterday with a Foreign Office warning that the group was determined to acquire the technology to carry out a nuclear attack on the West.

A senior Foreign Office official said that the terrorists were trawling the world for the materials and know-how to mount an attack using nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.

Then there is Tehran’s threat to finish its nuclear program.  Despite warnings from the UN not to continue their enrichment process, Iran has rejected all efforts to defuse the situation.

“The Iranian nation is about to take its final step in the nuclear issue,” the official IRNA news agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.

The president has previously said Iran would celebrate its nuclear achievements by the end of the Iranian year, which falls in March 2007.

Iran now operates two experimental chains of 164 centrifuges, which can be used to make fuel for power plants or material for warheads

They continue to insist their collection of centrifuges is for peaceful nuclear energy, but the IAEA document many problems with the Iranian nuclear program, like providing access to records and explaining how they acquired highly enriched uranium.

In its latest report on the Iranian nuclear program, the International Atomic Energy Agency, based in Vienna, said Tehran is moving ahead with its efforts to purify uranium while refusing to answer basic questions about its atomic program.

For instance, the report said Iran has failed to provide full access to records needed to confirm its claims in June of having enriched uranium to a level of 5 percent, which is suitable for reactors.

The report also said inspectors have made no progress in resolving the origin of previously discovered traces of highly enriched uranium, which can fuel atomic bombs. In September, the agency disclosed the discovery of the particles on a container from a waste storage site at Karaj, not far from Tehran, but withheld judgment about where the material came from and whether it could be linked to a secret nuclear-weapons program.

Finally, the report said inspectors recently have found traces of yet another unexplained particle — plutonium — on samples from containers at Karaj and is assessing a response from Tehran about its origin. Plutonium, like uranium, can fuel nuclear weapons.  (emphasis added by TRS)

The US can do nothing diplomatically including the placing of sanctions on the rogue regime without the help of the other members of the UN Security Council.  Both Russia and China have been reluctant to provide more than meaningless words.  The problems Iran is giving the rest of the world abounds.  Iran continues to supply the terrorists in Iraq who are killing American soldiers.  Iran is also believed to be trying to acquire nuclear weapons.  And they are providing a safe haven for terrorists and al-Qaeda including two of Osama bin Laden’s sons.

During the Cold War, the struggle between United States and the USSR never came to direct war, although a couple of smaller skirmishes took place (Korea and Vietnam).  The US maintained a wary attitude towards the Soviet Block nations and took steps to block their attempts to spread communism around the world.  This became known as the ‘Domino theory.’  The US took solace in the fact that we stopped communism without having to go to war with the Soviets.  In the same way, we have a struggle against radical Islam in the world today.  While not actively admitting it, the US has engaged in several skirmishes with the Iranians—Iraq, Afghanistan, and the US embassy in Tehran.  We have been at war with them for some time, just not directly.  Iran is one of the countries who is actively supporting and financing much of the terrorist activity in the world today.  With Tehran’s insistence on its ‘peaceful’ nuclear ambitions, the US must be ready for a new Cold War, this time against Iran. A rogue regime with ties to terrorists and has nuclear ambitions is something the US just can not abide by.  They must be stopped, otherwise we may lose a lot more than 3000 as we did on 9/11.

Those who have the time, there is a long but very interesting post on BlackFive in which Subsunk responds to a letter, most likely from an Iranian.  It is a very enlightening post in which Subsunk defines why Iran is not being honest about its enrichment program.  Well worth reading.

Tags: Terrorism, Iran //