Nuclear Iran
The Iranian Bushehr Nuclear Reactor has a long history, beginning in 1975, during the reign of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, when its construction was begun. During the Iran Iraq war, 1980-1988, the facility, not completed, was bombed. In 1995 Iran and Russia signed a contract for the construction of a new reactor facility at Bushehr. That contract came to completion in August 21, 2010 when Russia delivered to Iran 80 tons of Uranium for the reactor and the transfer of the Uranium into the reactor facility was begun.
What is so unusual about a country having a nuclear reactor? After all, many countries have nuclear reactors.
The problem is not with Iran's nuclear reactor. The problem with Iran is with its motivation, its vitrolic talk, its belligerent actions, its sponsorship of terrorism, and its idea that the Iran should lead the Islamic world into a messianic End of Times. In short, Iran is neither a peace loving or peace promoting country. Since the overthrow of the Shah in 1979, the revolutionary regime has pursued aggressive bullying and destabilizing policies in the Middle East in its attempt to gain a domineering and leadership role. Indeed, it has been one of the main state sponsors of terrorist activities. The council of foreign relations publication 9362 says in its opening paragraphs,
The U.S. State Department has called Iran the world's most active state sponsor of terrorism. U.S. officials say Iran continues to provide funding, weapons, training, and sanctuary to numerous terrorist groups based in the Middle East and elsewhere, posing a security concern to the international community. Iran's declarations that it has successfully enriched uranium and developed new missile technology have heightened alarm in the United States and a growing number of other states. Iran asserts its rights under an international treaty to pursue nuclear power and that it is only interested in nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. But it has faced growing sanctions, through the UN Security Council as well as international financial bodies, out of concern over its motives.
The tie between Iran's belligerency, its sponsorship of terrorism, its nuclear reactor, and its projects of enriching Uranium even to a 20% level, a level well beyond that needed for reactors producing electricity, is that one of the by products of the fission of Uranium is Plutonium. Enriched Uranium and Plutonium are used in Atomic Bombs. Atomic bombs can be used to blackmail other states to make their foreign policies and actions in accordance with what the bully state wants. Arab states in the Middle East fear being destabilized and bullied by Iran.
This analysis is reinforced by Iran's constant refusal to satisfy the International Atomic Energy Agency and international community that its work on Uranium enrichment and heavy water projects are exclusively peaceful.
Given that Obama's foreign policy in the Middle East is weak, indeed it is a blunder, Iran's pursuit to be a nuclear power is now being matched by other Arab states doing likewise for their own protection. This makes an already unstable situation more unstable. Why? Because of Obama's feeble foreign policy: a foreign policy with no teeth and a policy that shifts and is not consistent. Hence, all the Middle East countries realize that the United States cannot be counted on to protect them. This is the problem that Iran presents.
With respect to Israel, Iran's actions in supporting the Hezbullah terrorist group and as well Palestinian terrorist groups against Israel is well known. And Iran's policy toward Israel has been consistent: to annihilate her. Here is a sampling. There is a famous quote on Dec 14, 2001 from one of Iran's leading clerics Rafsanjani.
If one day, the Islamic world would be equipped with weapons available to Israel now, the employment of even one atomic bomb inside Israel will wipe it off the face of the earth but would only do slight damage to the Islamic world.
In April 2005, Ayatollah Nouri-Hamedani who has a Moslem vision of the End of Times stated,
One should fight the Jews and vanquish them so that the conditions for the advent of the Hidden Imam will be met.
On October 26, 2005, the radical President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said
Our dear Imam [Khomeini] ordered that this Jerusalem occupying regime must be erased from the page of time. This was a very wise statement. Soon this stain of disgrace will be cleaned from the garment of the world of Islam. And this is attainable!
On Thursday, March 2, 2006, he declared in Malaysia after a meeting in Kuala Lumpar with the King of Malaysia that
Islam will be the dominant power in the near future.
On October 22, 2006, Resalat, the Iranian Islamic Eduational Foundation, wrote
Great war is ahead of us, perhaps tomorrow, or in a few months, or even a few years. The nation of Muslims must prepare for the great war, so as to completely wipe out the Zionist dream, and remove this cancerous growth.
On May 13, 2008, Mohammad-Reza Khabbaz, member of the central committee of Iranian National Trust Reformist party said,
Creation of Israel only served the purpose of creating a cancerous tumor in the body of Islamic society.
On June 14, 2008, the President of Iran, Ahmadinejad, said
Israel's days are numbered. Peoples of region know there is the narrowest opportunity to annihilate this false regime.
Towards the end of 2006, U.N. Security Council unanimously passed the first of three resolutions sanctioning the Islamic Republic for its nuclear activities. In 2007. the U.S. House of Representatives voted 411 to 2 for House Resolution 21, "Calling on the United Nations Security Council to charge Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with violating the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and United Nations Charter because of his calls for the destruction of the State of Israel.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad not only hates Jews, not only calls for the destruction of the Israel, but he calls into question the murder of six million Jews in the Holocaust. How can it be missed the Ahmadinejad is a spiritual descendent of the Persian royal adviser Haman?
It is not just Ahmadinejad that has the vision of Israel's destruction. The Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader and judicial authority of Iran has also made such declarations. In a talk in Tehran on December 15, 2000, he said regarding Israel,
Iran's stance has always been clear on this ugly phenomenon (Israel). We have repeatedly said that this cancerous tumor of a state should be removed from the region.
On February 7, 2010 in a meeting with Ramadan Abdullah, the secretary general of the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad, he said in reference to Israel,
God willing, its destruction will be imminent.
The Iranian ideal driving its policies and actions is the role it believes it should play in an Islamic End of Times vision. The President of Iran, Ahmadinejad, perceives his personal role to be the divine harbinger of the Mahdi's coming, to pave the path for the glorious reappearance of Imam Mahdi. Reaffirming his religious views, Ahmadinejad said,
The ultimate promise of all Divine religions will be fulfilled with the emergence of a perfect human being [the 12th Imam], who is heir to all prophets. He will lead the world to justice and absolute peace. Oh mighty Lord, I pray to you to hasten the emergence of your last repository, the promised one.
Justice and absolute peace: who can be against it? Justice? Justice means Islamic Sharia Law, universal Sharia Law. Peace? Peace means all countries and all peoples submit to Islam and become Moslems. Any other state of affairs is a just a state of affairs on the way to such an Islamic peace. Justice and peace is Islamic doubletalk. In Arabic, Embrace Islam and you shall have peace is simply a two-word pun: aslam taslam, which most literally means Submit, have peace. Until that time, what exists is a perpetual state of warfare, jihad, against all those people, countries, and institutions against Submit, have peace.
On May 14, 2010, Ayatollah Mohammad Bagher Kharrazi, the leader of Iran's Hezbollah party, the proprietor of the newspaper of the same name, carried an incendiary article calling for a Greater Iran that would assume hegemonic control over much of the Middle East and Central Asia (stretching from Afghanistan to Palestine. This would, he argued, possess three very attractive attributes: it would abolish the Jewish state; it would eliminate the cancerous tumors of Sunni Islam, [Iran practices Shia Islam]; and it would assist in the arrival of the long-awaited Mahdi, or hidden imam, whose promised reign of perfection has been on hold since his abrupt disappearance in the ninth century.
The behavior and the statements from governmental people are all similar. Iran wishes to lead Shia Islam to dominate the world and annihilate Israel. Therefore, an Iranian nuclear reactor producing Plutonium and Iran's program to produce atomic bomb grade Uranium represent a severe existential threat to Israel, to all the other countries in the Middle East, and to all the countries of the world.