January 14, 2020—Don’t Relax: Iran Is Still an Existential Threat!

Although Ayatollah Ali Khamenei seems to have blinked in responding to the U.S raid that killed Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani, President Trump should not relax his guard against Iran’s maturing existential threat to all Americans.

Note from the above figure that Iran has launched ballistic missiles and satellites to their south, and they could carry nuclear weapons to attack the United States with a High Altitude Electromagnetic Pulse (HEMP) — an existential threat as often discussed in my previous messages.

Whatever, the current political debate adds to the danger — especially as extremely political controversies are fanned by the Democrat Press. (But “I repeat myself,” as conservative WMAL Commentator Chris Plante often says in reviewing the Washington scene.) Such controversy has more to do with the pending Senate Impeachment Trial (if and when Speaker Pelosi sends the House charges to the Senate to begin its valid prosecution role in that trial, which is the sole responsibility of the Senate).

Just consider events since my last message, just a week ago, that focused on fallout from politically charged reports of the January 2^nd (or 3^rd depending on your reference location) attack that killed Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani just after he had arrived from Lebanon or Syria and left in a convoy from Baghdad International Airport.

That political fallout largely ignored the President’s response to: 1) Important historical facts, 2) The previous week’s Iranian attack that killed an American and wounded four soldiers and 3) Intelligence reports of pending threatened additional Iranian attacks on Americans. Click here to read again that message that explained how these conditions and President Trump’s consequential decision had possibly changed the dynamics in the Middle East in a positive way, as reflected by four important articles:

Former House Speaker Gingrich’s October 16, 2017 Fox News article, “Death to America — Why Trump’s Iran Policy is Right,” that reviewed the 40-years of Iranian hostilities since the 1979 “revolution” ushered in the current Islamic Shia regime by capturing 52 US hostages, released immediately with President Reagan’s arrival and “Peace through Strength” agenda — a fact highlighted by President Trump’s tweet that he was considering 52 Iranian targets should Iran retaliate and kill Americans in response to the U.S. attack that killed Soleimani.
Former CIA Director and CENTCOM Commander General David Petraeus’ recent article noting that this attack possibly established a new condition for effective deterrence that could lead to needed diplomatic initiatives;
Former National Security Advisor Steven Hadley’s recent article, echoing this positive call with arguments that the President’s action had produced a new situation for diplomacy to reduce the dangers; and
Former Democrat Senator and Vice President Joe Lieberman’s reflective article calling for an end to partisan politics when dealing when such vitally important national security matters.

Subsequent events have indicated positive steps consistent with the first three, but alas little hope has developed for realizing anything like the conditions advocated by the fourth.

The Iranians did strike back — as should have been and no doubt was expected by all senior Trump officials, who have testified they agreed with the President Trump’s decision to kill the undisputed terrorist who was responsible for killing hundreds of American soldiers and maiming thousands of others — and who was on his way to attacking U.S. embassies.

Iran’s retaliatory missile barrage was directed at military bases in Iraq, and happily it killed no Americans and was immediately followed by authoritative Iranian statements that their “retaliation” was concluded.

These welcome events opened the door for possible diplomatic initiatives as suggested by General Petraeus, Steve Hadley and the President himself. But no visible movement has occurred toward Senator Lieberman’s well justified hopes for bipartisan support. It is positive that Iranian protesters seem to have welcomed President Trump’s attack on the Ayatollah’s regime — notably they reportedly have avoided walking on the American Flag in their protests against the current ruling regime.

If anything, the political hostilities within the United States have grown as Democrats and a few Republicans have disputed both the requirement for President Trump’s decision and the testimony of his most senior representatives that have sided with and defended his decisions. Moreover, press and cable news accounts have misquoted and misrepresented their public accounts of the disputed facts.

For example, just consider how they reported on President Trump’s statement in his Fox News interview with Laura Ingraham that he “believed” Soleimani plans included attacks on four U.S. embassies. First, they claimed he said the intelligence community assessed four embassies were targeted — when he only said he believed that to be the case.

Then, on Sunday Defense Secretary Mark Esper reported that he agreed with the President and also believed that four embassies were targeted — probably in addition to other targets — even though he lacked detailed intelligence supporting that assessment. The press ran only with his statement that he did not have specific intelligence evidence supporting his assessment.

Apparently, the press believes that only the intelligence community (IC) is competent to make such assessments. From my perspective, their perspective is at best uninformed of the history of important missed projections from the intelligence community. The press could benefit these uninformed folks with a serious review of this tattered history.

Most pertinent, perhaps, includes the fact that the IC missed by years the advent of Soviet atomic and thermonuclear weapons capability — and I fear its current likely incorrect assessment of Iran’s nuclear weapons capability as well as the existential threat of High Altitude Electromagnetic Pulse (HEMP) attack that such a capability would give Iran.

I noted this possibility in last week’s message by referencing a February 12, 2015 Newsmax article (“Underestimating Nuclear Missile Threats from North Korea and Iran”) in which I joined several well informed colleagues to note that even then our planners should have assumed then that Iran already had nuclear weapons. So, we believed that Iran may already have a few nuclear weapons they could employ against us.

This possibility not only has been missed by most of the press — even the fact that Iran has long been developing the capability to deliver such weapons seems to be oblivious even to those who responsibly appreciate the importance of Iran’s ballistic missile capability. For example, click here for an important January 9, 2020 Wall Street Journal article, “Iran Showcases Advanced Missile Arsenal,” by Sune Engel Rasmussen.

To be sure, Rasmussen reports accurately on the Iranian strike on the Iraqi military bases normally housing U.S. troops, along with a September Iranian missile-and-drone attack, whichdemonstrated Iran’s missile arsenal has a sophistication, accuracy and reach capable of threatening and deterring Iran’s adversaries across the region.

(Moreover, this capability was demonstrated by more than a dozen ballistic missiles launched from Iran to strike two Iraqi bases — Al Asad in the west and Erbil in the north — in retaliation for the U.S. killing Soleimani. Most missiles apparently detonated and hit specific military structures. Reportedly, 11 missiles landed at Al Asad and at Erbil, while four missiles failed. Tents, taxiways and a helicopter were damaged, but nothing major — and no American or Iraqi personnel were killed. Iranian leaders knew that had they killed Americans, President Trump would have probably retaliated with much greater effect — such escalation control was a new condition referred to by General Petraeus.)

This result also suggests Iranian leaders have considerable confidence in their missile capabilities, as illustrated by the below figure carried by the Wall Street Journal in this article. In spite of this assumed confidence, errors are possible and illustrated by the fact that Iranian leaders had to admit that one of their missiles had been launched by mistake, shooting down a Ukrainian Boeing 757 airliner, killing its crew and all 176 passengers.

My concern is about unrecognized associated threats from Iran, illustrated by what might be a companion figure taken from the 2009 Independent Working Group, illustrated below. Note the longer range ballistic missiles then under development. Click here for that important report and an informed 2009 discussion of the ballistic missile threat, including “rogue states North Korea and Iran,” which begins on page 1. The remainder of this important report addresses the need for space based defenses to counter this threat — a still unaddressed requirement that doesn’t yet seem to be a priority for President Trump’s brand new Space Force.

Thus, we have long known that Iran has had an impressive development program to build long range intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMS). Moreover, they have launched satellites toward their South so that they approach the United States from our mostly unprotected South — like the so-called Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS) pioneered by the Soviet Union a half century ago to achieve much the same purpose. I have written about this possibility for many years — and we still, to the best of my knowledge, ignore this important threat. Click here to review these past messages.

In particular, click here for my April 17, 2014 message, “Defeat Iran’s FOBS.” While it begins with a discussion of the less controversial now much more mature FOBS threat from indisputably nuclear-armed North Korea, it also addresses the already looming FOBS threat from Iran.

Notably, it also includes a link to my year-earlier April 24, 2013 message — “No Monkey Business – Shut the Back Door!”— that included the following picture of a live monkey that Iran on January 28, 2013 had launched into space in a 4400 pound space capsule and returned to earth.

Click here for that nearly 7-year old message and discussion that it demonstrated a capability to launch even a heavy load of nuclear warheads into space — perhaps to reach the United States or to carry on a satellite to be detonated over the United States to produce EMP pulses that could shut down the entire U.S. and Canadian electric power grid.

That event would leave the United States without electricity for months — even indefinitely — and most Americans could, and probably would, perish within a few months due to starvation, disease, and societal chaos and collapse.

So, we still have major problems. As that famous Philosopher and Catcher/Manager of the New York Yankees, Yogi Berra, famously said, “It ain’t over ‘till it’s over.” And it’s far from over, at least in my opinion.

Bottom Lines.

It is indisputable that we are living in a very dangerous time — in my opinion the most dangerous in my lifetime, and that Iran has long had a central role in conditions that influence ongoing very dangerous events — especially in the Middle East but also worldwide including through their surrogates. This situation is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future.

Whatever may come from current reactions to recent events and our political plight, we should rapidly provide needed protection against this existential EMP threat to all Americans, clearly posed by both North Korea and Iran.

What can you do?

Join us in praying for our nation, and for a rebirth of the freedom sought, achieved and passed to us by those who came before us.

Help us to spread our message to the grass roots and to encourage all “powers that be” to provide for the common defense as they are sworn to do.

Begin by passing this message to your friends and suggest they visit our webpage www.highfrontier.org, for more information. Also, please encourage your sphere of influence to sign up for our weekly e-newsletter.

Encourage them to review our past email messages, posted on www.highfrontier.org, to learn about many details related to the existential manmade and natural EMP threats and how we can protect America against them. I hope you will help us with our urgently needed efforts, which I will be discussing in future messages.

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