Threat? What Threat? Progressives pooh-pooh the threat from Iran as so much macho driven blather, while smarter heads report real threats to the U.S. based on real activity in Iran
Posted by Tina
Death To America? by Investors Business Daily
Among the missiles Iran said it tested this week was a new version of the Shahab-3, one with a range of 1,250 miles and armed with a one-ton conventional warhead. ** Mohammed ElBaradei, of the International Atomic Energy Agency, recently said Iran could have a nuclear warhead for the Shahab within six months.
In late May, the IAEA reported that Iran was working on a new missile warhead, known as Project 111, for the Shahab.” Iran has redesigned the current “Shahab-3 missile re-entry vehicle to accommodate a nuclear warhead ” ** On thursday…William Grahamthe chairman of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP)…updated Congress on the direct threat to the U.S. posed by these missile launches. ** As he did in 2005, Graham warned the House Armed Services Committee that Iran was developing nuclear weapons and delivery systems targeted at Israel, plus a sophisticated variant that could deal a knockout blow to the U.S. and its high-tech military industrial complex. He reported the mullahs had conducted successful tests to see if the Shahab-3 could be detonated by remote control at high altitude before it striking any ground target. ** Such a high-altitude nuclear blast would release an EMP capable of frying everything below from computer and communications infrastructure to power grids and everything that has a chip or a circuit board. ** Launched from an innocent-looking freighter in international waters off the U.S. coast, the modified Shahab-3, even your off-the-shelf SCUD, need not have to hit anything. It would only need to get its warhead high enough over the continental U.S. One such blast would be enough to send America technologically back to the 19th century. ** Apparently the Iranians are aware of it, judging from articles in the Iranian press. For example, an analysis in the Iranian journal Siasat-e Defai (Farsi for defense policy) in March 2001 weighed the use of nuclear weapons against cities in the traditional manner, as “against Japan in World War II,” vs. its use in “information warfare” that includes “electromagnetic pulse . . . for the destruction of integrated circuits.” ** Another article published in Nashriyeh-e Siasi Nezami (December 1998-January 1999) warned that “if the world’s industrial countries fail to devise effective ways to defend themselves against dangerous electronic assaults, then they will disintegrate with a few years.”
Please notice they didn’t say “if the worlds industrial nations don’t take MacDonalds and Disney movies out of the Middle East we won’t be having tea and a little chat.”
The nineteenth century, huh? Oh well, at least Libby will be happy.