World Threats

Yahoo! is reporting an AP story that Iran’s President., Pasdar Ahmadinejad, has ordered Iran’s nuclear agency to build ten more uranium enrichment plants the size of the Natanz plant.

A Cabinet meeting headed by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ordered the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran to begin building five uranium enrichment sites that have already been studied and propose five other locations for future construction within two months, the state news agency IRNA reported.

The Cabinet ordered the new sites to be on the same scale as Iran’s only other industrial-scale enrichment plant currently in operation, near the town of Natanz in central Iran.

However, that is not the worst of it. Building ten more Natanz’s will take a long time. But Debka is reporting that

DEBKAfile’s counter-terror sources report that earlier Sunday, Tehran moved toward a military confrontation with the United and Britain when its parliament earmarked $20 million to support “progressive currents which resist US and UK illegal activities.” The motion also ordered an investigation of alleged “US and British plots against the Islamic Republic.”

Our Iranian and counter-terror sources report that Tehran is acting to broaden its support of terrorist movements by bringing additional armed Islamist and insurgent groups into its support cycle as a means of forcing Washington and London to ease the pressure on its uranium enrichment projects and nuclear bomb program. Tehran classifies the groups combating the West in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia as “progressive.” The West may therefore be faced with newly-empowered armed groups in those places including possibly Taliban and al Qaeda allies.

Analysis. Lest anybody doubt what the current government of Iran has in mind, this should go a long way towards erasing those doubts. What Iran is doing now is the functional equivalent of Hitler’s gradual and relatively peaceful conquest of Austria, Czechoslovakia, the Rhineland and Danzig when he could have easily been stopped by France especially showing some backbone when the Rhineland was remilitarized. (See Churchill, The Gathering Storm, for a complete account of Hitler’s rise to power).

Crazies with nukes is bad juju. They might actually consider using one offensively. Mr. Kim has chosen not to so far probably because he doesn’t have a good delivery vehicle for the size of weapons he can construct. On the other hand, the Iranians have demonstrated the ability to put a satellite in orbit and have demonstrated a solid fuel ballistic missile. Mr. Kim merely wants to keep his family country. Iran wants to spread Shia Islam to the World and resurrect the Hidden Imam.

This they are proving in Yemen where the Houthi revolt was ostensibly labeled a revolt to correct injustice against the Shiite Houthis. Probably not total fiction. However, taking the rebellion into Saudi territory shows a much bigger intention. Attempting to create anti-American demonstrations at the Hajj shows a wider plan. The seriousness is indicated by the Saudi’s SOS for the Gulf States Special Forces even after getting and employing the Jordanian Special Forces.

As long as we are going to be blamed for aiding the civil unrest in Iran caused by the fraudulent election of Ahmadinejad, we might as well actually be doing so.