October 1, 2019—So, What’s New?

While congress goes on another recess without agreeing on appropriations to fund the government for the next fiscal year — again — and seeking feedback from the folks at home over their primary focus on impeaching President Trump — one more time, America’s geopolitical challenges grow.

For example, China’s Communist Party is today celebrating its 70^th birthday and demonstrating products of its long time efforts to replace America as the dominant global power. Click here for last week’s message, “Red Storm Coming from China” for some of the details. And note today’s street battles in Hong Kong — shades of Tiananmen Square? And today’s reports revealing yet another Chinese spy operation, this time supported by a Californian.

And Iranian leaders are making the United Nations rounds seeking to alleviate the pain being caused by President Trump’s sanctions and “economic warfare” policies that are also tightening the screws on them. And while they feign “new” efforts to develop nuclear weapons, they continue their long standing efforts toward that end. This week’s message focuses on that Iranian threat.

As I have reported on numerous occasions during that past several years, Iran is a close ally of North Korea’s and also may have low yield Super EMP weapons. Click here for an important February 1, 2015 Newsmax article in which I joined four other well informed individuals to report our opinion that Iran then was a nuclear ready state, with missiles capable of hitting the United States.

Dr. Peter Pry, a coauthor, recently expanded on our old views in the following recent important Mackenzie Institute article, repeated in its entirety.

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“We assess…Iran probably already has nuclear weapons”

By Dr. Peter Vincent Pry (September 25, 2019)

Mackenzie Institute

Some in Washington want to bomb Iran for attacking Saudi Arabia’s oil fields. But what if Iran has nuclear missiles?

Intelligence failure can kill thousands, as Washington learned on December 7, 1941, and should have learned again on September 11, 2001. Intelligence failure in the nuclear missile age can destroy entire nations.

Washington officialdom believes Iran does not yet have nuclear weapons based on little more than wishful thinking and blind faith in an Intelligence Community deeply corrupted by the Obama Administration—and still unreformed by President Trump.

Three years ago, senior Reagan and Clinton administration officials warned that Iran probably already has nuclear weapons. See “Underestimating Nuclear Missile Threats from North Korea and Iran” National Review February 12, 2016:

“Iran is following North Korea’s example — as a strategic partner allied by treaty and pledged to share scientific and military technology. Iran sacrificed its overt civilian nuclear program to deceive the Obama administration, to lift international sanctions, to prevent Western military action, while a clandestine military nuclear program no doubt continues underground. That is why Iran, under the nuclear deal, will not allow inspection of its military facilities and prohibits interviewing scientists — it is concealing the dimensions and status of Iran’s nuclear-weapons program.”

“We assess, from U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency reports and other sources, that Iran probably already has nuclear weapons. Over 13 years ago, prior to 2003, Iran was manufacturing nuclear-weapon components, like bridge-wire detonators and neutron initiators, performing non-fissile explosive experiments of an implosion nuclear device, and working on the design of a nuclear warhead for the Shahab-III missile.”

“Thirteen years ago Iran was already a threshold nuclear-missile state. It is implausible that Iran suspended its program for over a decade for a nuclear deal with President Obama.”

The above assessment is by Ambassador R. James Woolsey, President Clinton’s Director of Central Intelligence; Dr. William Graham, President Reagan’s White House Science Advisor, leader of NASA, and recently Chairman of the Congressional EMP Commission; Fritz Ermarth, a national security advisor to President Reagan and Chairman of the National Intelligence Council; and Ambassador Henry Cooper, former Director of the Strategic Defense Initiative.

These stellar intelligence officers, strategic thinkers, and scientists played major roles helping win the Cold War. Perhaps we should listen to them now about Iran:

“Iran probably has nuclear warheads for the Shahab-III medium-range missile, which they tested for making EMP attacks…Iran already has the largest medium-range ballistic-missile force in the Middle East.”

“Iran could be building a nuclear-capable missile force, partly hidden in tunnels, as suggested by its dramatic revelation of a vast underground missile-basing system last year. Iran is building toward a large, deployable, survivable, war-fighting missile force — to which nuclear weapons can be swiftly added as they are manufactured.”

“And at a time of its choosing, Iran could launch a surprise EMP attack against the United States by satellite, as they have apparently practiced with help from North Korea.”

More recently, David Albright, former nuclear inspector for the UN International Atomic Energy Agency, and Ollie Heinonen, former Deputy Director General of IAEA, published an Institute for Science and International Security report based on Iran’s secret nuclear weapon archives clandestinely obtained by Israel’s Mossad:

“The archive shows that the AMAD program intended to build five nuclear warhead systems for missile delivery and possible use in preparation for an underground nuclear test; an actual test would require a decision to proceed. The program was also partially designed to have its own independent uranium mining, conversion, and enrichment resources. The documentation indicates that Iran’s nuclear weaponization efforts did not stop after 2003…”

“The United States incorrectly assessed with high confidence in a 2007 declassified National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that ‘in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program.’ Based on the information in the archives, Iran’s nuclear weapons program continued after 2003…Moreover, the 2007 NIE also incorrectly asserted that Iran had not re-started its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007…However, there is no evidence that the program was ever fully halted, even up to today.”

“The information in the archive evaluated so far does not answer the question of what the current status of Iran’s nuclear weapons program is…”

Assessments that Iran does not yet have nuclear weapons assume erroneously: our intelligence is perfect, Iran’s civilian nuclear program is all there is, no clandestine nuclear weapons program exists in Iran’s numerous underground military facilities—including unaccounted uranium and plutonium facilities for fueling nuclear weapons, as in North Korea.

Where Iran is concerned, our Intelligence Community appears to have learned nothing from its spectacular failures grossly underestimating the nuclear threat from North Korea. Does the Intelligence Community even want to know the truth about Iran’s Islamic bomb?

Reza Kahlili, the only CIA operative to successfully penetrate the scientific wing of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, claimed Iran does have nuclear weapons and offered to procure photographs. Obama’s Intelligence Community was not interested, and is still not interested.

President Trump has inherited an Intelligence Community that disagrees with him about almost everything, including his decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal. According to the Intelligence Community, Iran is in technical compliance with the nuclear deal, officially the Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action (JCPOA).

But if Iran already has nuclear weapons, Iran was never in compliance with JCPOA, and the Intelligence Community can chalk-up another major intelligence failure, potentially far more consequential than Pearl Harbor or 9/11.

If Iran has the bomb, why have they not yet attacked “the Great Satan” that is the United States?

Radical Islamist cleric Nasir al-Fahd’s May 2003 fatwa “A Treatise On The Legal Status Of Using Weapons Of Mass Destruction Against Infidels” may provide a clue. Although al-Fahd is a Sunni sympathetic to al Qaeda, his rules for a nuclear holocaust against Infidels may well govern the thinking of the Shiite mullahs who run Iran too:

–First, under Islam’s “Just War Doctrine” the Infidels have to be given an opportunity to convert to Islam, before they can be destroyed. This Iran’s leaders have done repeatedly, most prominently former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaking at Columbia University (September 24, 2007) and at least twice at the United Nations (September 23, 2009 and September 26, 2012) about “the current world order based on injustice” and the virtues of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

–Next, a “final solution” against Infidels cannot be implemented except in a defensive war to protect the Ummah, the community or territory of Islam. So a U.S. bombing campaign, especially one that threatens regime change in Iran, would justify nuclear annihilation of “the Great Satan”.

Is it possible Iran is deliberately trying to provoke the U.S. to attack, so the Mullahs can in “self-defense” come out of the nuclear closet by blasting a U.S. aircraft carrier, or making an EMP attack on North America?

By the way, “political correctness” under the Obama and Bush administrations, unfortunately continuing today, forbids the Intelligence Community from analyzing the ideology of radical Islam (the so-called “religion of peace”) for purposes of strategic warning or waging the Global War on Terrorism. Consequently, the best and brightest counterterrorism and Islamist experts were purged from the Intelligence Community.

We should be treating Iran like a nuclear weapons state, with the same prudent caution used toward North Korea. Let’s not learn the hard way that Iran already has its Islamic Bomb.

Click here for a more comprehensive assessment of evidence Iran already has nuclear weapons that Dr. Pry wrote in 2016, drawing upon his training as a CIA Intelligence Officer and professional lifetime as a national security scholar. Whether from bias or wishful thinking, compelling evidence Iran already has nuclear weapons, and warnings by prominent intelligence and national security experts from the U.S. and Israel, is largely ignored, as if this legitimate opinion is under a news blackout.

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I have a sense of déjà vu in considering the current situation. After all, Iran has not shown any indication of a change from its past behavior — and the JCPOA really did nothing to prevent their deliberate efforts to gain a major nuclear capability — indeed it released $150 billion for Iran to surreptitiously continue that effort — indeed for Iran to buy from its ally North Korea what it does not produce on its own.

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

He began his article by correctly describing Iran’s serious threat to America and Israel — 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 that history and the failure of the “appeasement and negotiation” policy since 1992 that produced North Korea’s current nuclear-armed ballistic missile threat. And that President Trump will not fall prey to the arms control community’s siren song that has so often misled our national leaders. We’ll see.

His review of some of Iran’s activities since the 1979 “revolution” and our failed responses was instructive:

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 Obama administration policies enabled much greater Russian influence in the Middle East, including in conjunction with its longstanding alliance with Iran and its other allies like Hezbollah, 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 Iran, now flush with money thanks to the JCPOA, is 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 was impossible on its face for the President to certify that Iran was complying with Item 4, given the summary of Iran’s behavior since the JCPAO 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. Click here for the letter I co-signed with 44 0thers also to that effect.

And President Trump withdrew from the JCPOA — and he should now stay the course with his sanction strategy that is taking its toll on Iran. Maybe someday Iran will agree to a much better deal that includes 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, the EMP Commission and others have reported for years that North Korea’s war plans include the use of EMP weapons against the United States. 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.

That fact should be kept in mind when reviewing all reports about Iran’s nuclear weapons. For example, click here for the November 21, 2018 Washington Free Beacon article by Adam Kredo that less than a year ago heralded “Iran had Secret Plans to Build Five Nuclear Warheads.” That report should have provided sobering second thoughts for those who have claimed that the Intelligence Community is inerrant in its pronouncements. More accurately, 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 place for such a sobering reflection was the EMP Commission 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.

Nevertheless, this concern remains even after it was restated in the 2017 EMP Commission’s final reports.

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

Bottom Lines.

What goes around comes around. So, North Korea has long had nuclear weapons — and they have demonstrated they can launch them on intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) or on satellites to deliver an EMP attack on the United States. And on shorter range ballistic missiles to threaten others in their near-abroad.

Moreover, it should be no surprise that North Korea’s ally Iran also probably has nuclear weapons and the needed delivery methods to pose an existential EMP threat to all Americans. The concern that they are 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 to stay the course with the sanctions, unless and until Iranian mullahs agree to intrusive challenge inspections of their nuclear development infrastructure.

Whatever may come from current reactions to recent events, we should rapidly provide needed protection against this existential EMP threat to all Americans posed by both North Korea and Iran — and China and Russia and others.

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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