The Iranian Threat: To Secure Peace is to Prepare for War
“Eager to avoid another war, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain ceded the Sudetenland to Hitler and returned to Britain declaring “Peace in our Time”. In no time at all Hitler invaded Bohemia, Moravia and Poland. Britain declared war on Germany and millions of lives were lost in World War II. No one knows what would have happened if Chamberlain had stood up to Hitler and stopped him right from the beginning would more than 10 million people have perished in his death camps?”
The question being asked in the intelligence world is simple. Will the Western world accept an Iranian bomb? US President Barack Obama, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the leaders of Europe say that they in no way will allow Iran to go nuclear. As we stand on the threshold of a nuclear Iran it seems as if the world has resigned itself to contain Iran instead of confronting it.
United States Defense Secretary Leon Panetta today announced the formation of the Defense Clandestine Service, a Pentagon spy agency to deal with areas which up until now have been under served by the intelligence community, namely Iran. Israeli intelligence service Debka says sources within the Pentagon are saying that the new spy agency will expand their intelligence and secret war efforts.
According to Debka sources, Israeli leaders were heavily criticized for too much speechifying and no real action against a nuclear Iran. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak addressed memorial ceremonies for Israel’s fallen soldiers, they reiterated the same old “Israel will not permit Iran to acquire nuclear arms” – a remark which the Israeli street has stopped taking seriously.
It is now widely assumed that Iran will have a “dirty bomb” that is nuclear material surrounded by conventional explosives. The purpose of a dirty bomb is to kill large amounts of people by exposure to radiological material.
Jerusalem and Washington are still at odds on Iran, but the theme of their dispute has shifted. No one is concerned any more about how long it will take Iran to develop a nuclear weapon but what kind of weapon they will focus on. They agree that Iran will not be arming an arsenal of nuclear tipped ballistic missiles anytime soon, at least not the type which can penetrate existing missile defense shields. The real question is when will they be able to construct plutonium devices like those in the Pakistani, North Korean and Indian arsenals anytime soon? Israel is saying that the chances that these types of nuclear bombs are in the last stages of construction is getting greater by the day.
What the West now must worry about is the likelihood that Iran may arm terror groups with these weapons and that they may find their way out of the Middle East. Will they prepare for the day before that type of event or for the day after?
The Iranian Threat is a weekly column by Inquistr writer H. Scott English examining the nuclear standoff between The United States and Iran. The column focuses on in-depth intelligence analysis and sources throughout the world.
