Family Security Matters
By Amil Imani
June 3, 2011

There is so much smoke around the Iranian Mullahs’ bomb that makes Tehran’s smog feel like a fresh ocean breeze, by comparison. Here is a partial list of views about the Mullahs, their capabilities and intentions about the bomb affair.

The Mullahs:

• Will never dare to use the bomb, even if they had it. To do so would be suicidal. 
• Are years away from anything resembling a credible bomb, in any quantities. 
• They lack the technological skills needed to make a workable bomb. 
• Don’t have the means of hitting Israel with the bomb, their professed favorite target. 
• Want the bomb for defensive purposes only. 
• Would never hand the bomb over to proxy terrorists. 
• Are using this whole bomb thing as a ploy to rally the populace and survive. 
• Are visionary patriots planning for a future when the oil dries up. 
• Are environmentalists aiming to curb global warming caused by the use of fossil fuel. 
• Are striving to join the nuclear club for its prestige.

And on, and on, and on, goes the litany. I believe, based on facts rather than wishful thinking, that every one of the above assertions, as well as all other similar dismissive arguments are both false and fraught with danger, because all the above arguments are confounded by various amounts of denial. 

Psychological denial is a common quirk of the human mind. People use denial to distort, even refute reality, when accepting it is too threatening to them. Alcoholics are habitual users of denial, a major tranquilizer of the mind. The alcoholic will adamantly deny having any problem with alcohol and continues to drink, even in the face of irrefutable contrary evidence. Denial is resorted to by both individuals and groups, and can be just as deadly for both. 

Perhaps the most compelling dismissive argument is that the Mullahs would never dare to use the bomb, since it would be suicidal to do so.

This argument is just as flawed as the rest. The “mutual deterrence” argument may work in state-to-state confrontations. It apparently has worked in the past and the hope is that it will work in the future. However, the mutual deterrence argument fails when a non-state entity is the adversary. The Mullahs don’t have to lob a bomb at Israel or at anyone else to inflict huge harm. They can pursue their cause of death and destruction by simply providing their killers with dirty bombs in a suitcase. Given the Mullahs’ fanaticism and Machiavellian nature, they would come up with a myriad of clever schemes to achieve their objectives. 

Consider dirty bombs. They are easy to make, are portable, can kill as well as make a city uninhabitable, without leaving a “finger print.” The Mullahs can go to work then turn “innocently” to the international community for help-to find a group of rogue radicals, so they claim, who had penetrated their facilities and have made off with a loot of radioactive stuff. 

It is not as if events like this have never happened in the past. Deadly stolen radioactive materials have found their way to the black market on a number of occasions. The world would respond in panic, yet with its usual arthritic sluggishness searching for the miscreants. Given how clumsy and disorganized the world’s intelligence community is, the prospect of acting expeditiously, much less apprehending the “thieves” is not very encouraging. This is particularly the case when the Mullahs themselves would have a short leash on the “thieves,” to hide them and deploy them only with the greatest of care. 

Iran’s ruling Mullahs are clustered around major factions such as the conservatives, the moderates, and the so-called reformists. Yet, the differences among these factions are tactical rather than strategic. One and all share the same overarching goal of defeating the “Crusader-Zionists” by any and all methods possible; bringing about the “end of the world” Armageddon; and, thereby creating the requisite conditions for the appearance of the Hidden Imam, the Mahdi, to assume his rule of the world. 

Therefore, it is "Carteresque" (foolish risk-taking a la Jimmy Carter’s throwing the nation’s lot with the Mullahs during the 1979 Iranian Revolution) to overlook the fact that it is Islam, irrespective of any and all considerations, that poses a deadly threat to the world. Choosing one faction over another is no choice at all. 

What is the likelihood that the ruling Mullahs will actually use the bomb? If they remain in power long enough to have it, they are very likely to use it, in one form or another. At the very least, they use the bomb for blackmail and intimidation in the region. Not even the all-out nuclear exchange can be ruled out. Islam is a religion centered on death with the faithful eyes fixed on the afterlife and its promised eternal pleasures. If the faithful kills, he goes to Allah’s paradise; if he gets killed, he goes to Allah’s paradise. 

The Mullahs’ claim that they are pursuing the nuclear program to meet the country’s energy needs could only fool the most gullible-denial type. Why is it that the Mullahs invest nothing at all in stopping the leak of more than six percent of the precious oil they pump out? For every 100 barrels, six barrels of Iran’s irreplaceable national treasure dissipates at the wellhead. Yet, they spend billions of dollars to harness nuclear energy. Just as troubling is the fact that Iran sits on one of the world’s most dangerous earthquake fault lines. Building nuclear plants on sites such as the one in Bushehr is absolute insanity. 

Speaking of insanity, Ahmadinejad, the Monkey, comes to mind. He is dismissed as being a zany fanatic who shouldn’t be taken seriously for his bomb-rattling threats. But this type of dismissiveness can prove deadly. Recall that even a multi-billionaire former president of Iran Rafsanjani, a man seen by many as moderate and a shrewd live-let-live type, has publicly announced that a single bomb would finish off Israel while the Muslims would suffer a setback from which it can easily recover. 

The Mullahs are proven vicious mass killers. They summarily executed tens of thousands of Iranian dissidents. They had no qualms at sending thousands of children to clear the minefields ahead of their tanks during the 80-89 war with Iraq; and, they have thousands of “martyrs” brainwashed and prepared to serve as bomb mules to be dispatched to any place in the world. 

Sadly, once again it is the peak of “Me First” time with American politicians. Time and again we are told by the politically correct “experts” not to worry about Islam posing a threat to our way of life. We are repeatedly lectured that only a very small minority of Muslims are troublemakers who are giving the peaceful masses of Muslims a bad name. We are also informed that the terrorists, who happened to be Muslims, are the disaffected and the young. And not to worry, since as the fire of youth turns to ashes of old age the rebellious will mellow, as they always have.

In the meantime the real enemy, Islamofascism is forging ahead toward its goal of dominating the world. 

I have been warning that it is a deadly miscalculation to engage in infighting, and sit and wait this emerging catastrophe out. It is little more than an exercise in denial to believe that nothing bad will happen, and that the corrupt inept Mullahs will likely shoot themselves in the foot instead of wreaking havoc on the world. I also keep pleading that we should forthwith help the Iranian democratic opposition and send the death-bearer Mullahs back to their mosques. It is the free world’s best and urgent option. 

What sane person would want to take a chance to wait and see if the mad Mullahs, once they have the bomb, would use it or not?

FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Amil Imani is an Iranian-born American citizen and a pro-democracy activist residing in the United States of America. Imani is a columnist, literary translator, novelist and essayist who has been writing and speaking out for the struggling people of his native land, Iran. He maintains a website at www.amilimani.com. Amil Imani is the author of the smashing book Obama Meets Ahmadinejad.

This article was originally published here.

Fox News
By Wes Barrett
April 7, 2011

A new facility in Iran is being used to secretly produce components for the country’s renegade nuclear program, a well-known Iranian dissident tells FOX News.

Alireza Jafarzadeh and his organization, Strategic Policy Counseling, have released a report that claims a clandestine facility, called TABA, has played an integral part in Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Though Fox News cannot independently confirm the facility or Iran’s intention for it, Jafarzadeh and his group are leading sources on the Islamic state’s activities.

Continue reading here. 

By Rich Trzupek

FrontPageMag.com

Dec 6th, 2010

While Iran has a huge amount of crude oil reserves in its rich fields, its ability to tap those reserves is steadily declining. According to CSIS, Iran is losing between 400,000 barrels per day to 700,000 barrels per day in crude production as its oil fields mature. There’s still plenty of oil down there, but Iran lacks the technology to engage in the sort of enhanced oil recovery practices that more advanced nations use to coax stubborn crude out of the ground. Absent the assistance of the West, Russia or China, oil export revenues could soon disappear. According to the CSIS report:

A 2007 National Academy of Sciences study reports that if decline rates are allowed to continue, Iran’s exports, which in 2007 averaged 2.4 million bbl/d could decrease to zero by 2015. To offset natural decline rates, Iran’s oil fields require structural upgrades including enhanced oil recovery (EOR) efforts such as natural gas injection.

Gasoline is Iran’s other Achilles’ heel. The Islamic Republic is desperately trying to increase its internal refining capacity, with good reason: Iran is much too heavily dependent on outside sources to supply the gas needed to keep its economy stumbling along. From the CSIS report:

Iran’s oil consumption was approximately 1.7 million bbl/d in 2007. Iran has limited refinery capacity for the production of light fuels, and consequently imports much of its gasoline supply. Iranian domestic oil demand is mainly for gasoline and diesel. Tehran imports about 40 percent of its gasoline.

Thus, if the civilized powers – and especially Europe – were to cut off Iran’s access to Western technology and to refined products, the regime in Tehran would be in real trouble. The combination of a loss in oil revenues and a transportation crisis would throw the already troubled Iranian economy into chaos. It might be enough to tip the balance in favor of the millions of Iranians who are already unhappy with the theocratic, reactionary regime ruling their nation. Sanctions could make a real difference in Iran, if the West somehow could find the will and the self-discipline to impose them in earnest.

If it all comes down to the military option, and it seems that the Iranian problem inevitably must come down to that, then there are only two nations in the world with the power and the will to destroy Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. Israel could do it, but the political price it would have to pay to do so would be tremendously expensive. An Israeli strike would anger its neighbors, depending on the route it choose, potentially including erstwhile friends – or at least political acquaintances – like Jordan and Turkey. Iran would certainly unleash Hezbollah and Hamas into full insurrection mode and – at best – the stability of the Middle East would continue to erode for many years to come.

That leaves the United States. The United States alone has the capability to penetrate Iranian airspace at will at minimal political cost to deliver wave upon wave of precision-guided bunker-busting munitions that would reduce critical elements of Iran’s nuclear program to smoking holes in the ground. B-2 bombers staged out of Diego Garcia need not violate the airspace of any sovereign nation other than Iran, thus avoiding the public-relations quagmire that Israel would face if it staged the raids. Our erstwhile allies in the region, nations like Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Turkey, wouldn’t have to lift a finger to cooperate with us, nor would they have to express outrage, because we would not need to trample their lawns. They could instead quietly breathe a sigh of relief because Uncle Sam would have once again eliminated a grave threat infesting their portion of the globe.

The mission of the P5+1 nations in Geneva is clear: to convince Iran in no uncertain terms the that mullahs will face economic hell if they refuse to comply with the West’s demands. And, as important, it must be made abundantly clear that even if sanctions should fail, the United States has the ability and the will to end Iran’s nuclear ambitions once and for all. It is unfortunately doubtful whether the current dithering president of the United States has the backbone to draw such a line in the stand. Still, there is hope. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister David Cameron appear to be made of sterner stuff. Perhaps they can fill the vacuum and provide the kind of leadership that Barack Obama is unwilling or unable to supply.

This article was originally published here.

By Ryan Mauro

FRONTPAGEMAG.com

WikiLeaks’ release of 250,000 diplomatic cables is a shameful act that will discourage countries from sharing information with the U.S. and officials from having frank discussions. In the shadow of this disgrace, however, one kernel information may rise above the subversions and deliver an unexpected benefit: the world, including the Iranian regime, now knows that many Arab states are secretly entreating the U.S. to strike Iran.

In March, a member of Israel’s parliament claimed that a “wall to wall coalition” of Muslim states had secretly informed the Jewish State that they’d be behind whatever action was necessary to stop Iran’s nuclear weapons program. The files released by WikiLeaks show that the MP was not bluffing. The Sunni Arab states are petrified of the prospect of a nuclear Iran, and an unofficial alliance of necessity between Israel and the Arab states has been forged.

Saudi Arabia, despite its promotion of anti-Semitism and Wahhabism, was reported, on several occasions, to have offered Israel its air space to carry out an attack. Exercises to simulate such an event have taken place. The Saudis deny that any agreement exists, but the private communications revealed by WikiLeaks show that King Abdullah “frequently exhorted the U.S. to attack Iran.” He has told the U.S. that if Iran gets nukes, the rest of the countries in the Middle East, his own in particular, will follow suit. King Abdullah went so far as to tell the Iranians in March of 2009 that they had one year to change their approach. It is not clear from the documents what Abdullah planned to do after that deadline.

In a meeting in April 2008 between General Petraeus and the Saudi ambassador to the U.S., the ambassador said, “He [Abdullah] told you [Petraeus] to cut off the head of the snake,” a remark that could be interpreted as meaning the Saudis support regime change in Iran. If so, then they are on the same page as the Israelis. The director of Mossad, Meir Dagan, was recorded imploring the U.S. in August 2007 to support regime change in Iran by supporting the democracy movement and restive minorities like the Kurds, Baluch, and Azeris. The cable says that Dagan was “sure” the regime could be toppled.

The cables show that Bahrain is also part of the coalition. “The danger of letting it [Iran’s nuke program] go on is greater than the danger of stopping it,” King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa was recorded communicating to the U.S. In November 2009, the U.S. ambassador to Bahrain reported that King al-Khalifa had “argued forcefully for taking action to terminate [Iran's] nuclear program, by whatever means necessary.”

Bahrain has good reason to want to stop Iran. It is a Shiite majority country, and the ruling Sunni government must worry about an uprising from its people. The country is very susceptible to Iranian manipulation, and should the regime aim to create a Hezbollah-type force there, the government could very likely be overthrown. The country has been targeted by terrorists trained in Syria, and so, King al-Khalifa is right to feel that he is seen by the Iranians as prey.

The leadership of the United Arab Emirates is also very vocal in their support for attacking Iran. Like the Saudis, the Foreign Minister explicitly told the U.S. in February 2009 that the rest of the region would be forced to build nukes if Iran is not stopped. The Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammad bin Zayed told the U.S. that “I believe this guy is going to take us to war…It’s a matter of time. Personally, I cannot risk it with a guy like Ahmadinejad.” He even asked the U.S. if “all locations of concern” could be hit with air strikes and suggested that ground forces be used if they could not be. The UAE position isn’t news — the country’s ambassador to the U.S. said in July that Iran should be attacked if sanctions don’t work and that it would be worth the cost to his country.

Jordan appears to be a part of the Arab anti-Iran coalition as well, with the president of the country’s senate saying, “Bomb Iran, or live with an Iranian bomb,” according to one of the WikiLeaks documents. In January, Jordan immediately suspected Iranian involvement in a plot to assassinate two Israeli diplomats in its territory. Kuwaiti officials expressed similar alarm about Iran, specifically accusing the regime of supporting the Shiite Houthi militants in Yemen. The country’s military-intelligence chief was also optimistic about regime change, opining that a potential arrest of opposition leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi could spark a popular uprising.

Egypt is undoubtedly in the alliance as well. The cables say that President Mubarak has a “visceral hatred” for Iran. Mubarak’s greatest challenge comes from the Muslim Brotherhood inside his country, which is the parent group of Hamas — a close ally of Iran. In April 2009, Egypt arrested 49 members of Hezbollah plotting attacks on Israeli targets in the country, which prompted the Iranian-backed terrorist group to call on Muslims to replace governments that had allied with the West. The Egyptian Prime Minister flatly stated that Hezbollah had “virtually declared war.”

The central Asian country of Azerbaijan, which borders Iran, did not explicitly support an attack in the files, but President Aliyev was recorded as expressing deep concern. He says that Iranian activity in his country, including the financing of terrorists like Hezbollah, is increasing. He also mentioned to the U.S. that Iranian state media was broadcasting photos of him with a Star of David into Azerbaijan. He condemned the fraudulent “re-election” of Ahmadinejad and said the regime is unstable.

The position of Qatar is less clear. This pro-American ally is described as “the worst in the region” in terms of supporting terrorism and is too fearful of its own population to take action. Qatar has taken a frustratingly pro-Iranian line in recent years, but Prime Minister al-Thani is recorded as saying he doesn’t trust the Islamic republic. “They lie to us, and we lie to them,” he said.

Interestingly, the WikiLeaks cables indicate that the party most opposed to a military strike on Iran’s nuclear sites is the United States. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates believes that the Iranian people would somehow forget how the regime has brutally oppressed them and embrace the regime if an attack occurred. One cable describes Gates as saying that an Israeli strike would only delay the nuclear program by one to three years “while unifying the Iranian people to be forever embittered against the attacker.”

The WikiLeaks document dump indicates a wide range of support for military action against Iran. The files show that Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, and probably Kuwait and Azerbaijan support a strike. It is safe to assume that a large number of Muslim and non-Muslim governments not mentioned in the cables are also supportive.

The documents indicate that the Obama administration has all but ruled out military action, but Israel certainly has not. Time has been bought with the success of the Stuxnet cyber attack and sanctions against Iran, but should the time come when a decision to bomb Iran is made, the U.S. and Israel can count on the support of a large but quiet Muslim bloc.

Ryan Mauro is the founder of WorldThreats.com, National Security Advisor to the Christian Action Network, and an intelligence analyst with the Asymmetric Warfare and Intelligence Center.

This article was originally posted here.