Shahab-3 missile launch.
November 12, 2011
FAMILY SECURITY MATTERS
Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld, K. D. M. Jensen
The past few days have seen yet another round in the latest "last straw" dithering about Iran. This time the huffing seems heavier. The IAEA suddenly wakes up and finds that Stuxnet wasn't much of a setback to the Iranian nuclear program, and is finally prepared to recognize Ahmadinejad’s weaponization effort.
This IAEA report followed on the heels of a highly detailed U.S. account of a Quds Force plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. Lo and behold, Obama finds the last bit of his inner Bush and denounces Iran and puts the military option back on the table. Hillary Clinton turns neocon and calls for regime change (not exactly right away, but the next time the Iranian people give us a chance).
What do we have? All wind and no rain. This Administration seems to plan on doing nothing but threaten. No action, despite the inability to deny Iranian nuclear intentions any longer and the enormity of the assassination provocation. A recent pledge of a coming and forceful U.S.-led effort to take sanctions against the IranianCentral bank, the principal conduit for Iranian oil sales, was soon withdrawn: "Oil prices will go up if we do that.” Duh. So, why threaten at the first place?
Meanwhile, the pundits do what they usually do on the Iran issue: "bomb," "bomb a little now to avoid a lot later," "too late to bomb," "too early to bomb," "too dangerous, too costly, too much uncertainty to bomb," "let Israel do it, "don't let Israel do it." Then, too there's "maybe we can finally get the Russians and Chinese to stop supporting the Iranian regime" (this despite the fact that the Russians said right away that they doubt the accuracy of the IAEA report, and the implausibility of China giving up Iranian oil). Most scandalously there's "the assassination plot means nothing: it was amateurish and isn't how the Iranians would do things like that.”
The inflation of the Administration’s rhetoric at the expense of action has not deterred Iran in the slightest in the past. The U.S. lack of leadership seems to have been welcomed by our ostensible allies, who appear quite happy to be only secondary targets of the Islamic Republic. The failure to respond appropriately to the Quds Force assassination plot bears serious consequences. When a DEA agent foils a plot on American soil and the link to the Quds Force is clear, policymakers can no longer backtrack and wax dubious about the extent of Iranian terrorism on at least three continents. They can no longer ignore it.
Iran's Venezuela connections were startlingly revealed in Washington more than two years ago by Manhattan’s legendary District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau. In addition to serving as a conduit for military equipment from Belarus, Syria, and other countries to Iran, Venezuela seems to have built missile emplacements at its main air force base on Margarita Island. Eyewitness accounts and Google Earth images have confirmed the presence of ballistic installations there. If true, the Venezuelan-Iranian friendship- missiles could easily threaten the Panama Canal, the Gulf of Mexico and, with a Shahab-3 missile, Miami!
Recent events confirm that we have allowed the Iranian regime to move beyond brazen. If Ahmadinejad, the mullahs, and the Revolutionary Guards feel free to do as they wish anywhere, anytime, it's not because they're mad or under the spell of the Twelfth Imam. It’s because we allow them.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld is Director of the New York-based American Center for Democracy and its Economic Warfare Institute. She is an expert on terrorism and corruption-related topics such as terrorfinancing and narco-terrorism. Rachel is the author of "Funding Evil; How Terrorism is Financed - and How to Stop It." She has helped to change New York state law, when the Libel Terrorism Protection Act (pdf) was passed. Similar laws have been passed in other U.S. states, and a federal law known as the SPEECH ACT which was signed by the president in August 2010, follows the same principle - that First Amendment guarantees should protect authors and publishers against foreign libel judgments from countries with poor free speech protections.
K.D. M. Jensen is Associate Director of ACD'sEconomic Warfare Institute.