July 9, 2019—Hang Tough on Iran, Mr. President!

Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result . . . Attributed to Albert Einstein and others … Keep that thought in mind as you read my message this week…

Recent press accounts have lamented Iran efforts to move beyond the limits of the so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the terrible Iran Deal negotiated by the Obama administration and which President Trump abandoned last year — while remaining open to negotiating a truly verifiable agreement that is in the interest of the United States.

For example, click here for Sunday’s Military Times/Associated Press article by Jon Garnbress and Nasser Karimi. They reported that Iran increased its uranium enrichment “beyond the limit allowed by its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers — inching its program closer toward weapons-grade levels while calling for a diplomatic solution to a crisis heightening tensions with the U.S.”

And click here for yesterday’s Washington Post article by Erin Cunningham. He emphasized that a spokesman for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization warned Monday that “Tehran would take further steps to reduce its commitments under the accord,” having already exceeded the JCPOA’s 3.67 percent limit and now enriching uranium at 4.5 percent — while emphasizing that this rate was still below the 90 percent needed to produce a nuclear weapon and that there were no obstacles to Tehran enriching at even higher levels.

President Trump should resist intensified pressures urging him to find effective ways to reduce the adverse impact on our allies (and in the U.S.) caused by U.S. sanctions — in particular, those blocking Tehran’s oil sales abroad. He should hold firm, while continuing to indicate a willingness to negotiate verifiable agreements that truly reverse Iran’s longstanding persistent efforts to gain nuclear weapons to hold the American People and our allies at risk.

The future of an accord that is in the U.S. interest remains in question, and Iran’s recent measures could be easily reversed — so, our allies and others still struggle to find alternative situations, notwithstanding the President’s 60-day warning that increases were coming as his policy tightens the pressure on Iran to change its longstanding efforts to gain deliverable nuclear weapons. And there are concerns that miscalculations could explode into open conflict.

Frankly, I have a sense of déjà vu in considering the current situation.

After all, Iran has not shown any indication of a serious change in its past behavior — for decades. The JCPOA really did nothing to prevent its long-standing deliberate efforts to gain a major nuclear capability. Indeed, it released $150 billion for Iran to accelerate its unhelpful efforts — for example, even to buy from its ally North Korea what it does not produce on its own.

Click here for a still pertinent excellent review of Iran’s past history by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich in his October 16, 2017 Fox News article, “Death to America — Why Trump’s Iran Policy is Right.” This presentation is actually still one of the best discussions on this ugly deal that I have read — and it is still currently on target.

He began by correctly describing Iran’s serious threat to America (the “Great Satan”) and Israel (the “Little Satan”) — and the delusion of past American leaders of both political persuasions in dealing with both Iran and North Korea.

He noted that President Trump understands this history and the failure of the “appeasement and negotiation” policy since 1992 that produced North Korea’s current nuclear-armed ballistic missile threat. And he argues that President Trump will not fall prey to the arms control community’s siren song that has so often misled our national leaders. So far, so good — and we’ll soon see how he fares in the current situation.

Newt’s review of Iran’s activities since the 1979 “revolution” and our failed responses was instructive — among them:

1979-1981 Iranian hostage crisis that ended with the election of President Reagan after President Carter’s failed efforts at negotiation and failed rescue efforts by special forces;
1983 truck bombs that killed 241 U.S. service personnel and 58 French paratroopers in Lebanon;
1987-88 U.S. naval support efforts to help Kuwaiti tankers pass through the Straits of Hormuz while Iran was attempting to mine the Persian Gulf;
1979-2008 U.S. unsuccessful efforts to contain Iranian and North Korean dictatorships, via an “axis of evil” strategy; and
2008-2016 Obama administration failures in its attempt to develop a new relationship with Iran, a “fictional fantasy” that allowed Iran to dominate the Middle East.

Newt noted that Obama administration policies enabled much increased Russian influence in the Middle East, including in conjunction with Russia’s longstanding alliance with Iran and its allies like Hezbollah, then and probably still armed with more than 100,000 missiles that can be fired into Israel — while it builds missile factories in Syria and Lebanon and develops plans for an Iranian Port in Lebanon. He noted that Iran, flush with money thanks to the JCPOA, was fermenting major instabilities, including propping up Hamas and funding a proxy war in Yemen against the Saudis.

Following these statements of a clear set of problems, the Speaker then explained that President Trump was properly interpreting the law passed by Congress requiring him to certify that:

“(1) Iran is fully implementing the JCPOA and all related agreements; (2) Iran has not committed (or if committed, has cured) a material breach; (3) Iran has taken no action to significantly advance its nuclear weapons program; and (4) that continued suspension of nuclear-related sanctions is both appropriate and vital to our national security interests.”

Whatever one might think of the other required certifications, it then seemed, and still seems, impossible on its face for the President to certify that Iran is complying with Item 4, given the summary of Iran’s behavior since the JCPOA was signed. And the Speaker noted that President Trump’s decision was supported by his key national security advisors — including the Secretaries of State and Defense.

I think such certification would require ignoring a number of other realities about the JCPOA — which was why I then favored the President ending the charade immediately. Click here for the September 21, 2017 letter I co-signed with 44 others to that effect.

President Trump should stay the course with his sanction strategy which is taking an increasing toll on Iran. And he should insist on including truly valid “challenge” inspections of Iranian infrastructure involved in Iran’s nuclear development infrastructure in any future agreement that reduces these sanctions.

Moreover, as noted in numerous previous High Frontier messages, EMP Commissioners and others have reported for years that North Korea’s war plans include the use of EMP weapons against the United States. Moreover, in the summer of 2004 — 15 years ago, senior Russian Generals informed EMP Commissioners that Russia had “accidentally” passed to North Korea how to build “Super EMP weapons,” perhaps tested years ago by North Korea in underground tests counted as failures by many U.S. observers.

And as I have reported on numerous occasions during that past several years, Iran is a close ally of North Korea’s, was reportedly present at these tests. and thus also may have such low yield Super EMP weapons.

Click here for an important February 1, 2015 Newsmax article in which I joined three other well informed individuals to report that, in our opinion, it was prudent to assume that Iran then was a nuclear ready state, with missiles capable of hitting the United States.

(My coauthors were Dr. William R. Graham who served as President Reagan’s science adviser, administrator of NASA, and chairman of the Congressional EMP Commission for 17 years; Fritz Ermarth, who chaired the National Intelligence Council; and Dr. Peter Vincent Pry who is executive director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security and served as Chief of Staff for the Congressional EMP Commission, and earlier with the Strategic Posture Commission, the House Armed Services Committee, and the CIA.)

Another fact that should be kept in mind when reviewing recent reports is that Iran reportedly had plans to test five nuclear weapons. For example, click here for the November 21, 2018 Washington Free Beacon article by Adam Kredo heralding that “Iran had Secret Plans to Build Five Nuclear Warheads.” This report should provide sobering second thoughts for those who claim that the Intelligence Community is inerrant in its pronouncements. Kredo reported that

“A new bombshell report based on a secret trove of seized Iranian nuclear documents shows the Islamic Republic had concrete plans to manufacture and build at least five nuclear weapons and that it was much further along in this scheme than previously known by the international community. (Emphasis added.)

“Iran’s contested nuclear weapons program was much further along than the international community thought, according to a report based on scores of secret Iranian plans seized by Israel and publicly disclosed for the first time earlier this year.”

Not the least sobering reflection is the past EMP Commission’s warning that the intelligence community’s “2014 Joint Atomic Energy Intelligence Committee (JAEIC) report on EMP is factually erroneous and analytically unsound” [emphasis added] and should be withdrawn because it impedes progress on EMP understanding and protection.

This concern has not been rectified and was restated in the EMP Commission’s final reports last year.

Click here for the full complement of EMP Commission reports, which I urge you to read as the most comprehensive statement of the existential EMP threat.

Kredo’s article made explicitly clear that Iran’s contested nuclear weapons program was much further along than the intelligence community thought, according to a report based on scores of secret Iranian plans seized by Israel and publicly disclosed for the first time earlier in 2018.

Kredo provided impressive references that Tehran was well along to building several nuclear weapons by around 2003, including with complex infrastructure needed to produce such weapons. And associated reports supported critics of the Obama administration, who alleged the former White House underestimated the extent of Iran’s nuclear weapons progress while pursuing the Iran Nuclear Deal.

Moreover, since the five nuclear weapons were reported to have an explosive yield of 10 kilotons, it suggested the potential afore mentioned possibility that Iran might have been developing low-yield Super EMP weapons that could to be delivered by any of Iran’s many ballistic missiles, including from vessels off our coasts. And, of course, they could be launched on short range missiles to create most unhelpful EMP effects in the Middle East and European region.

Iran no doubt has retained much of its nuclear infrastructure and could continue using it to clandestinely conduct weapons work in violation of the ill-conceived Iran nuclear deal, if they don’t actually already have the weapons.

Iran’s nuclear infrastructure remains intact, further fueling concerns about what Iran has been hiding from nuclear inspectors, who — outrageously — must give Iran advance notice of any inspections and refrain from entering the country’s contested military sites under the terms of the terrible nuclear deal.

Finally, note that even short range ballistic missiles could easily create havoc if not an existential threat — for example, if launched from vessels off our coasts.

Another possibility would be if they were launched to attack the undersea cables that carry most of the nation’s critically important transactions — some $10 trillion in transactions each day.

Click here for an important November 30, 2017 Foundation of Resilient Societies report discussing such a threat from North Korea — actually for five plausible attack scenarios employing high altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) effects to damage the undersea cables.

A similar threat could be posed by relatively short range ballistic missiles carrying nuclear weapons launched from Iran.

See the figure below, and consider the implications of the loss of the undersea cables that underpin much of the free world’s commerce.

Former NATO Commander retired US Navy Admiral James Stavridis wrote in his Forward to Undersea Cables: Indispensable, Insecure (authored by conservative member of Great Britain’s Parliament, Rishi Sunak,) that: “In the most severe scenario of an all-out attack upon undersea cable infrastructure by a hostile actor the impact of connectivity loss is potentially catastrophic, but even relatively limited sabotage has the potential to cause significant economic disruption and damage.”

Click here for this important report and note again that $10 trillion in transactions pass over these undersea cables each day. Disruptions are not only costly, but also could pose important national security threats. Indeed, under some possible conditions they could be a strategic “Achilles heel” — an important strategic reality.

With this authoritative perspective in mind, click here for Bill Gertz’s July 4, 2019 Washington Free Beacon article, “Damaged Russian Sub Linked to Underwater Drone Program,” which briefly highlighted the importance of threats to the undersea communication cables — in that case from Russian submarines.

Gertz mentioned that, “According to state-run Russian news reports, the Losharik is designed for deep sea military missions, such as tapping into undersea communications cables.” [Emphasis added.] The Losharik is the Russian submarine that was damaged.

But one does not need submarines to pose such a threat, as noted above. A high altitude nuclear explosion could do the job quite well, thank you.

Bottom Lines.

What goes around comes around. So, North Korea has nuclear weapons, has had them for years — and may have provided them to Iran, even if Iran has not developed its own.

They both can launch nuclear weapons on intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) or on satellites to deliver an EMP attack on the United States. And shorter range ballistic missiles from both can threaten others in their near-abroad — or the United States if their launch systems get close enough.

It should be no surprise that Iran may have nuclear weapons and the needed delivery methods also to pose an existential EMP threat to all Americans. The concern that it is just now threatening this capability is misplaced to say the least.

Our best hope for a real agreement to stop Iran’s persistent efforts is for the U.S. and our allies to stay the course with the sanctions that are causing major problems for Iran, unless and until Iranian mullahs agree to intrusive challenge inspections of their nuclear development and deployment infrastructure along with a commitment to end their nuclear weapons program.

Whatever may come from current reactions to recent events, we should rapidly provide needed protection against the existential EMP threat to all Americans posed by both North Korea and Iran — as well as from other threatening manmade and natural possibilities.

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.

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