Introducing the Persian Bomb
(Photo: White House)
“It is American diplomacy, backed by pressure, that has halted the progress of Iran’s nuclear program – and rolled parts of that program back.”
On Wednesday, Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Gen. James Clapper, testifying during the public portion of a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, revealed a U.S. intelligence report that says Iran is now technically capable of building a nuclear weapon.
For a country like Iran, the position of the Israeli government and those who truly cannot abide Tehran with nuclear weapons has been that there is no need for them to assemble or test a nuclear device. Once they get to the point at which they are able to build a bomb, they are – effectively – a nuclear power. And, according to our intelligence community, that’s where things stand.
It’s important to understand this point. Japan, for example, is not a nuclear weapons state, but they are an advanced nuclear country. They have all the technical capability to build nuclear weapons and they choose not to do so. If that political calculation changed – if they decided to build a nuclear weapon – they could have an operational device in a matter of weeks. That is, according to Gen. Clapper, the stage at which Iran now sits.
President Obama and our Director of National Intelligence cannot both be right. If the intelligence reports are correct, then President Obama’s claim that American resolve “halted the progress of Iran’s nuclear program” is simply not true. In that case, what halted Iran was success. After you’ve crossed the finish line, there’s no more progress to be made, is there?
An Iranian bomb would mean the end of the post-World War II nuclear non-proliferation regime and would lead to an arms race across the region. If that happens, will we find comfort in President Obama’s claim that we’ve halted Iran’s progress? If our failure to challenge Iran’s brazen disregard for international law and treaty obligations leads other countries to similarly ignore what we say and do, how much will those words spoken at the State of the Union address be worth?
Author: Stand For Israel | January 31, 2014
Posted in:
Iran, Nuclear weapons
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