Iran Could Produce First Nuke in 60 days

[Oldemandalton]

Iran could produce first nuke in 60 days with 7,000 centrifuges working 24/7 – Western experts


April 21, 2009, 12:17 PM (GMT+02:00)


Mmilitary sources cite some Western intelligence and nuclear weapons experts as predicting that Iran could turn out nuclear weapons some time in the next 12 months.

This estimate is based on Tehran's announcement that 7,000 centrifuges are in operation to enrich uranium. If all those machines were to work at top speed day and night, seven days a week, they could produce enough weapons-grade uranium to build a bomb in 60 days, say some intelligence sources. According to American experts, given the current rate of the program's development, Iran will be in a position to manufacture as many as 60 nuclear bombs and warheads in 12 to 18 months.

This judgment was confirmed by Israel's military intelligence (AMAN) chief, Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin in his latest briefing to the cabinet Monday, April 20. He reported that Iran is going all-out for enriched uranium from overseas to shorten the process.

Japanese sources recently reported that a North Korean boat shipped a large quantity to Iran earlier this year. According to the big-circulation The Nikkei, the North Korean vessel's hold carried a secret cargo of uranium highly-enriched to 50-60 percent. The ship set out for Iran in December, moving at a leisurely pace so as not to call attention from Western spy satellites, surveillance vessels and warships. Earlier this year, the illegal consignment was dropped at an Iranian port for transport to a facility near Tehran, according to the Japanese paper.

Yadlin noted that extreme economic crisis has not delayed Tehran's headlong nuclear progress or curtailed its designs on other Middle East countries – Hizballah's subversive activities in Egypt are not a lone instance. Inflation is officially put at 30 percent but is probably closer to 50 percent, while unemployment is deepening, yet Tehran upped the 2009 appropriation for its nuclear program by 15 percent.

Rather than translating the crisis into leverage for persuading Iran to abandon its nuclear objectives, the Israeli intelligence chief noted that the Obama administration has opened the door to dialogue with all the extremists of the Middle East, including Iran, albeit "with open eyes."

Iran, for its part, is accelerating its nuclear program, taking full advantage of the undercover communications with Washington which are aimed at gaining Tehran's cooperation for the US war effort in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

[Col. Flagg]

Israel has over 500.

Oh yeah, but they could manufacture a nuke and smuggle it over here, avoiding all detection or take one out to sea, retrofit it to a missile and launch it, detonating it high in the atmsophere, say some 150 miles over the U.S. and knock out all electrical power with an EMP attack, again, all without detection but with all the technological know-how.

Iran stands in the way of a global chess game being played right now for position, power and control. Ulterior motives is what drives these propaganda reports about how serious of a threat Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran are to U.S. 'security'. Good grief... our biggest threat to our security resides in Washington, DC!

[preparednesspro]

In a viable book I read recently, it estimated that only 6 EMP bombs launched onto U.S. soil would completely obliterate life as we know it. Think about it for a second. If everything electrical in our nation was debilitated, how would your life change? The banks wouldn’t be able to function. Airplanes won’t be able to travel. Cars post-1978 would indeed be useless (unless they were “hardened” specifically for such an event as the military does to many of their vehicles.) I hope you like riding a bike under such circumstances.

A massive scale EMP attack wouldn’t create a simple power outage. It would destroy power grids all over the nation to the point that they would have to be rebuilt from scratch. (Kind of hard to do without power to rebuild them, eh?) Trucks would not be able to transport our foods and other valuable supplies. Stores would be emptied. Most everyone would be without a job of any kind, without access to money, and they would be forced to truly live off of the land and their emergency preparedness supplies. Are we ready?

http://tinyurl.com/d89ogd

[Col. Flagg]

In a viable book I read recently, it estimated that only 6 EMP bombs launched onto U.S. soil would completely obliterate life as we know it.

It would depend upon the yield of the explosive power. If it were only kilotons, then yeah, it would take 5-10, but a megaton weapon... different story.

Think about it for a second. If everything electrical in our nation was debilitated, how would your life change? The banks wouldn’t be able to function. Airplanes won’t be able to travel. Cars post-1978 would indeed be useless (unless they were “hardened” specifically for such an event as the military does to many of their vehicles.) I hope you like riding a bike under such circumstances.

Yep... we go back in time 200 years!

A massive scale EMP attack wouldn’t create a simple power outage. It would destroy power grids all over the nation to the point that they would have to be rebuilt from scratch. (Kind of hard to do without power to rebuild them, eh?) Trucks would not be able to transport our foods and other valuable supplies. Stores would be emptied. Most everyone would be without a job of any kind, without access to money, and they would be forced to truly live off of the land and their emergency preparedness supplies. Are we ready?

There are many scenarios under which the U.S. could become neutralized technologically and militarily, but an EMP attack by a nation like Iran or North Korea actually succeeding would be remote. Russia or China might be able to pull it off, but not rogue states.

[Mark]

Iran stands in the way of a global chess game being played right now for position, power and control. Ulterior motives is what drives these propaganda reports about how serious of a threat Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran are to U.S. 'security'. Good grief... our biggest threat to our security resides in Washington, DC!

Who the heck is kidding who here. Iran already had sophisticated weaponry and access to all assortments of WMD's thru their close alliances and arms deals with Russia and China. The global chess game as you call it Col. is really which players will eventually control the worlds oil supplies and resources which will then lead to who will be calling the shots in this global power game and be numero uno king of the hill. There are many global players in this quest for total control and they don't all live in WASH DC. How many times do we need to be reminded of this?

[Col. Flagg]

Iran stands in the way of a global chess game being played right now for position, power and control. Ulterior motives is what drives these propaganda reports about how serious of a threat Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran are to U.S. 'security'. Good grief... our biggest threat to our security resides in Washington, DC!

Who the heck is kidding who here. Iran already had sophisticated weaponry and access to all assortments of WMD's thru their close alliances and arms deals with Russia and China. The global chess game as you call it Col. is really which players will eventually control the worlds oil supplies and resources which will then lead to who will be calling the shots in this global power game and be numero uno king of the hill. There are many global players in this quest for total control and they don't all live in WASH DC. How many times do we need to be reminded of this?

Mark, I totally agree with everything you said there. However, please tell me how Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea, etc. are 'security threats' to the existence of the U.S.? The only way a nuke would get smuggled into the U.S. is with the help of intelligence services without it being detected and if any of these nations try anything, we've got ICBM's and submarines ready to obliterate them and they know it. We've been warned many times by former prophets that only treason from within will bring war, bloodshed and the downfall of the United States. Washington, DC is a stinking pile of doggie doo doo and if you don't think we've been sold down the river, you are naive my friend. Did you by chance happen to hear the news that Obama is giving $100 billion to the IMF? When asked where he's getting the money, his reply was 'it's an exchange of assets'. Hmm... let's see... what asset has been pledged as collateral the most by our gangsters and criminals in DC? Oh yeah... land!

[jbalm]

So then, why are we so concerned about Iran producing nukes when the Russians can just give Iran nukes when it suits them?

[Col. Flagg]

So then, why are we so concerned about Iran producing nukes when the Russians can just give Iran nukes when it suits them?

Because Iran has lots of oil sitting under it. Black gold... texas tea! It's also no coincidence that Iran happens to be one nation left on earth with no central bank... they need to be taught a lesson.

[Mark]

So then, why are we so concerned about Iran producing nukes when the Russians can just give Iran nukes when it suits them?

Because we are drunkards of Ephraim whose crowning splendor has become as fading wreaths on the heads of the opulent overcome with wine.

Modern day Isaiah translation: We are nothing but a bunch of washed up has been dipwads.

[Col. Flagg]

So then, why are we so concerned about Iran producing nukes when the Russians can just give Iran nukes when it suits them?

Because we are drunkards of Ephraim whose crowning splendor has become as fading wreaths on the heads of the opulent overcome with wine.

Modern day Isaiah translation: We are nothing but a bunch of washed up has been dipwads.

Mark, I love your humor! I also know you're being serious, which is the sad part.

[shadow]

Mark, I love your humor! I also know you're being serious, which is the sad part.

Col., have a drink, you'll feel better

[Oldemandalton]

Col. Flagg, here’s a simple way for Terrorists or Iran/N. Korea et al to easily attack the US with EMP.

1.Make/acquire/steal a couple of nukes.
2.Purchase a few scud missiles. Cheap, $100,000 each, and easy.
3.Launch several from cargo ships in the Atlantic and Pacific.
4.Have them detonate over the continental US.

Instant Dark Ages!

North Korea is testing Long range missiles that could reach the US right now. If you can put a satellite into orbit you can explode a nuke over the US. NK is exporting their nuclear and missile technology to any with the $$, Iran, Syria, etc.

Pakistan has several dozen nukes. If they fall into the hands of Islamic Radicals, no telling where they will show up, as EMP attacks or smuggled into major US/Israeli cities.

Russia and China can just use their own balistic missiles of course but everyone would know where they came from so we would strike back. How do you strike back against Terrorists who hides among civillian populations?


OMD

[Col. Flagg]

Mark, I love your humor! I also know you're being serious, which is the sad part.

Col., have a drink, you'll feel better

Is a pina colada on ice OK with you? Man, those pina colada Sobe's are good!

[Col. Flagg]

Col. Flagg, here’s a simple way for Terrorists or Iran/N. Korea et al to easily attack the US with EMP.

1.Make/acquire/steal a couple of nukes.
2.Purchase a few scud missiles. Cheap, $100,000 each, and easy.
3.Launch several from cargo ships in the Atlantic and Pacific.
4.Have them detonate over the continental US.

Instant Dark Ages!

North Korea is testing Long range missiles that could reach the US right now. If you can put a satellite into orbit you can explode a nuke over the US. NK is exporting their nuclear and missile technology to any with the $$, Iran, Syria, etc.

Pakistan has several dozen nukes. If they fall into the hands of Islamic Radicals, no telling where they will show up, as EMP attacks or smuggled into major US/Israeli cities.

Russia and China can just use their own balistic missiles of course but everyone would know where they came from so we would strike back. How do you strike back against Terrorists who hides among civillian populations?


OMD

It takes a high degree of sophistication, technology, capitulation from an intelligence agency and scientific know-how to build a nuke, smuggle it to wherever you want it to go, retrofit it to a scud missile, launch it from a ship at sea and then explode it high over the nation you want to paralyze. Iran alone does not possess this ability and neither does North Korea, which struggles to get their missiles to even go where they want them, let alone getting an ICBM with a nuke on-board over the U.S. and then detonating it high in the atmosphere. I'm not discounting or dismissing the threat because like you said, China and/or Russia are fully capable of this, but rogue states like Iran/NK... no, at least not now and perhaps for many more years.

[Col. Flagg]

Uh-oh... looks like Iran is giving more excuses for the U.S. to attack:

http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=193107

Iran has discovered a new oil layer and a gas field in locations in the center and southwest of the country, says the Iranian Oil Minister.

The new oil layer forms part of the Band-e-Karkheh oil field northwest of Ahvaz, capital of Iran’s oil-rich southwestern province of Khuzestan, said Gholam-Hossein Nozari on Saturday, on the sidelines of the International Oil, Gas and Petrochemistry Exhibition in Tehran.

[Oldemandalton]

From Col. Flagg:
It takes a high degree of sophistication, technology, capitulation from an intelligence agency and scientific know-how to build a nuke, smuggle it to wherever you want it to go, retrofit it to a scud missile, launch it from a ship at sea and then explode it high over the nation you want to paralyze. Iran alone does not possess this ability and neither does North Korea, which struggles to get their missiles to even go where they want them, let alone getting an ICBM with a nuke on-board over the U.S. and then detonating it high in the atmosphere. I'm not discounting or dismissing the threat because like you said, China and/or Russia are fully capable of this, but rogue states like Iran/NK... no, at least not now and perhaps for many more years.

Col, Iran has already tested this method.

Iran military journal eyes
nuclear EMP attack on U.S.

High-altitude missile detonation could be
launched from ship, warn top scientists
________________________________________
By Joseph Farah
© 2009 WorldNetDaily.com

WASHINGTON – In the latest evidence Iran is seriously planning an unconventional pre-emptive nuclear strike against the U.S., an Iranian military journal has publicly considered the idea of launching an electromagnetic pulse attack as the key to defeating the world's lone superpower.

Congress was warned of Iran's plans last month by Peter Pry, a senior staffer with the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack in a hearing of Sen. John Kyl's subcommittee on terrorism, technology and homeland security.

In an article titled, "Electronics to Determine Fate of Future Wars," the journal explains how an EMP attack on America's electronic infrastructure, caused by the detonation of a nuclear weapon high above the U.S., would bring the country to its knees.

"Once you confuse the enemy communication network you can also disrupt the work of the enemy command- and decision-making center," the article states. "Even worse today when you disable a country's military high command through disruption of communications, you will, in effect, disrupt all the affairs of that country. If the world's industrial countries fail to devise effective ways to defend themselves against dangerous electronic assaults then they will disintegrate within a few years. American soldiers would not be able to find food to eat nor would they be able to fire a single shot."

WND reported the Iranian threat last Monday, explaining Tehran is not only covertly developing nuclear weapons, it is already testing ballistic missiles specifically designed to destroy America's technical infrastructure. The report was published first in Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, a premium, online intelligence newsletter by WND's founder.

Pry pointed out the Iranians have been testing mid-air detonations of their Shahab-3 medium-range missile over the Caspian Sea. The missiles were fired from ships.

"A nuclear missile concealed in the hold of a freighter would give Iran or terrorists the capability to perform an EMP attack against the United States homeland without developing an ICBM and with some prospect of remaining anonymous," explained Pry. "Iran's Shahab-3 medium range missile mentioned earlier is a mobile missile and small enough to be transported in the hold of a freighter. We cannot rule out that Iran, the world's leading sponsor of international terrorism might provide terrorists with the means to executive an EMP attack against the United States."

Lowell Wood, acting chairman of the commission, said yesterday that such an attack – by Iran or some other actor – could cripple the U.S. by knocking out electrical power, computers, circuit boards controlling most automobiles and trucks, banking systems, communications and food and water supplies.

"No one can say just how long systems would be down," he said. "It could be weeks, months or even years."

EMP attacks are generated when a nuclear weapon is detonated at altitudes above a few dozen kilometers above the earth's surface. The explosion, of even a small nuclear warhead, would produce a set of electromagnetic pulses that interact with the earth's atmosphere and the earth's magnetic field.

"These electromagnetic pulses propagate from the burst point of the nuclear weapon to the line of sight on the earth's horizon, potentially covering a vast geographic region in doing so simultaneously, moreover, at the speed of light," said Wood. "For example, a nuclear weapon detonated at an altitude of 400 kilometers over the central United States would cover, with its primary electromagnetic pulse, the entire continent of the United States and parts of Canada and Mexico."

The commission, in its work over a period of several years, found that EMP is one of a small number of threats that has the potential to hold American society seriously at risk and that might also result in the defeat of U.S. military forces.

"The electromagnetic field pulses produced by weapons designed and deployed with the intent to produce EMP have a high likelihood of damaging electrical power systems, electronics and information systems upon which any reasonably advanced society, most specifically including our own, depend vitally," Wood said. "Their effects on systems and infrastructures dependent on electricity and electronics could be sufficiently ruinous as to qualify as catastrophic to the American nation."

Wood warned of the potential for unprecedented cascading failures of major electronic and electrical infrastructures.
"In such events, a regional or national recovery would be long and difficult and would seriously degrade the overall viability of the American nation and the safety and even the lives of very large numbers of U.S. citizens," he said.

Strategic EMP attacks on the U.S. have also been considered and discussed recently by China and post-Soviet Union Russia, according to the commission. Yet, the more imminent threat, according to William R. Graham, former chairman of the commission, and Wood, comes from rogue states such as Iran and North Korea and their terrorist allies.

"The current vulnerability of critical U.S. infrastructures can both invite and reward such attacks if not corrected," Wood said. "I might add that extreme, sustained vulnerability entices such attack. However, correction is feasible and well within the nation's tactical means and material resources to accomplish. Most critical infrastructure vulnerabilities can be reduced below those levels that potentially invite attempts to create a national catastrophe. By protecting key elements in each critical infrastructure and by preparing to recover essential services, the prospects for a terrorist of rogue state being to impose large-scale, long-term damage on the United States could be minimized."

The commission estimated that major corrections could be made in the next three to five years that would greatly reduce America's vulnerability to an EMP attack. There is concern within the commission, however, that the EMP threat is not being taken seriously by the Department of Homeland Security.
Peter Fonash, acting deputy manager for the National Communications System in the Department of Homeland Security, said the agency has "determined that there is minimal EMP effect."

While the Department of Defense has received briefings from the commission at the highest levels, DHS has not, say commission members.
"We haven't had equivalent briefings like that with the Department of Homeland Security yet," said Pry at last month's congressional hearing.

Since there has never been a large-scale EMP attack anywhere in the world to evaluate, the assessments are based on extrapolation of available data gathered from small-scale nuclear experiments.

Wood said an actual EMP attack on the United States minimally would result in $20 billion in damages, no loss of life and just a great deal of inconvenience. However, on the other end of the scale, it could "literally destroy the American nation and might cause the deaths of 90 percent of its people and set us back a century or more in time as far as our ability to function as a society."

Wood agreed with Graham, who said he could think of no other reason Iran would be experimenting with high-altitude detonations of missiles besides planning for an EMP attack.

Jerome Corsi, author of "Atomic Iran," told WorldNetDaily the new findings about Iran's electromagnetic pulse experiments significantly raise the stakes of the mullah regime's bid to become a nuclear power.

"Up until now, I believed the nuclear threat to the U.S. from Iran was limited to the ability of terrorists to penetrate the borders or port security to deliver a device to a major city," he said. "While that threat should continue to be a grave concern for every American, these tests by Iran demonstrate just how devious the fanatical mullahs in Tehran are. We are facing a clever and unscrupulous adversary in Iran that could bring America to its knees."

The commission said hardening key infrastructure systems and procuring vital backup equipment such as transformers is both feasible and – compared with the threat – relatively inexpensive.

[Col. Flagg]

Dalton, there are some major differences in the example you cite...

1. The test was in the Caspian Sea... not Atlantic or Pacific Ocean.
2. The missiles were not retrofitted with a heavy nuclear payload.
3. Nuclear material would likely be detected in a freighter.
4. Iran hasn't even developed an atom bomb yet.
5. The yield from an Iranian-developed nuke would be insufficient so as to cause a massive failure of all electronics and electrical grids in the U.S.

The only scenario I can see this coming to fruition under is if Russia/China are involved... these are the only two nations that could pull this off.

[Oldemandalton]

From Col Flagg;
Dalton, there are some major differences in the example you cite...

1. The test was in the Caspian Sea... not Atlantic or Pacific Ocean.

I don't see much of a difference. They were testing to see if it was feasible to launch a missile from a cargo ship and have it go off in the atmosphere.

2. The missiles were not retrofitted with a heavy nuclear payload.

How do you know it did not have a payload = nuke?

3. Nuclear material would likely be detected in a freighter.

Do we test for nuclear material on the 100s of cargo ships in the Atlantic/Pacific? They could easily shield the payload till ready to launch also.

4. Iran hasn't even developed an atom bomb yet.

You are right. They may have some in a couple months though.

5. The yield from an Iranian-developed nuke would be insufficient so as to cause a massive failure of all electronics and electrical grids in the U.S.

They would have to use more than one of their homemade nukes or get one from somewhere else, N Korea, a future Taliban run Pakistan, or ‘steel’ one from Russia/China. “Oops they stole it, sorry.”

The only scenario I can see this coming to fruition under is if Russia/China are involved... these are the only two nations that could pull this off.

I hope this doesn’t happen, Col. I just see it as an easy way to get us out of the picture and to place the blame on terrorist who have no place for us to retaliate against.

[Mark]

They already are involved Bear. Just because they don't telegraph every move they make does not mean they are just sitting on the sidelines twiddling their thumbs in this whole battle for global control. They know more about deception and intrigue than all the Wests so called leaders combined by a good country mile. We better wake up to that before its to late in the game to do anything about it. Frankly it probably is already.

The Real Terror Paymasters
By: William F. Jasper
September 3, 2007

In 1972, the Kremlin decided to turn the whole Islamic world against Israel and the U.S. As KGB chairman Yuri Andropov told me, a billion adversaries could inflict far greater damage on America than could a few millions.


In the quote above, Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa, head of the DIE, the KGB’s little sister in communist Romania, reveals a conversation he had with chairman Andropov, the Soviet leader. “We needed to instill a Nazi-style hatred for the Jews throughout the Islamic world,” Andropov told Pacepa, “and to turn this weapon of the emotions into a terrorist bloodbath against Israel and its main supporter, the United States. No one within the American/Zionist sphere of influence should any longer feel safe.”

Gen. Pacepa, who defected to the United States in 1978, recounted this story in an August 24, 2006 article for National Review entitled “Russian Footprints.” “According to Andropov,” said Pacepa, “the Islamic world was a waiting petri dish in which we could nurture a virulent strain of America-hatred, grown from the bacterium of Marxist-Leninist thought. Islamic anti-Semitism ran deep. The Muslims had a taste for nationalism, jingoism, and victimology. Their illiterate, oppressed mobs could be whipped up to a fever pitch.”

Gen. Pacepa explained how this was put into operation:

In the mid 1970s, the KGB ordered my service, the [Romanian] DIE — along with other East European sister services — to scour the country for trusted party activists belonging to various Islamic ethnic groups, train them in disinformation and terrorist operations, and infiltrate them into the countries of our “sphere of influence.” Their task was to export a rabid, demented hatred for American Zionism by manipulating the ancestral abhorrence for Jews felt by the people in that part of the world. Before I left Romania for good, in 1978, my DIE had dispatched around 500 such undercover agents to Islamic countries. According to a rough estimate received from Moscow, by 1978 the whole Soviet-bloc intelligence community had sent some 4,000 such agents of influence into the Islamic world.


Likewise, Anatoliy Golitsyn, one of the most important KGB defectors to come to the West, noted in his 1995 book, The Perestroika Deception, “Under concealed Russian guidance, the Muslims of the former Soviet Union … will seek to cooperate and ally themselves with Muslims in Iran and the Arab states while Russia maintains its open policy of cooperation and partnership with the West. In this way China openly and Russia secretly will jointly attempt to swing the balance of power in their favor in the highly strategic, oil-producing Arab/Iranian areas of the Middle East.”

A July 1997 article by Associated Press writer Anthony Shadid provides one measure of the impact of this Soviet KGB (and ongoing Russian FSB) strategy. The AP story, “Marxism Makes Way for Islam,” profiles a number of influential Marxist-Muslim intellectuals. It begins with the observation that “on the bookshelf of Adel Hussein sits an odd collection for one of Egypt’s leading Islamic thinkers.” Titles like Socialist Integration, On Communism, and Planning in the U.S.S.R. by leading Marxists, notes Mr. Shadid, “speak more of class struggle than the hand of God.”

Like a surprising number of others across the Arab and Muslim world, Adel Hussein “is a one-time Marxist and nonbeliever who has turned to Islam, part of a new intellectual generation reshaping the religion.” “I benefited from Marx in both theory and practice,’’ Hussein told Shadid, “but now, Islam is my starting point and my framework.” That doesn’t mean he’s abandoned Marx, however. “Hussein, for instance, says his goals have not changed,” Shadid reported. “But he now sees Islam, through its ability to persuade and to mobilize, as the best tool.” In other words, Islam for Hussein is a means to an end, and the end is a Marxist world.

Adel Hussein, says AP’s Shadid, is representative of a significant number of today’s influential imams and mullahs. “In a jarring twist, they are the same thinkers who a generation ago drew the ire of religious Muslims because their Marxist disavowal of God was seen as the biggest threat to Islam,” Shadid reported. “Today, they are often the public face of Islam — writing in leading Arabic newspapers, speaking at conferences and on television talk shows, enjoying the support of many younger, more political Muslims interested in their attempts to rethink Islam’s relationship to democracy, minorities and the West.”

Evidence for the existence of an ongoing Soviet/Russian strategic plan to foment and use Islamic extremism is very extensive and goes far to explain the inordinate hatred of Muslim fundamentalists for America and the West. Not only is al-Qaeda aligned with the Kremlin (see the article "Behind Islamic Terror"), so are the other major “Islamist” terror groups including PLO/al-Fatah, Hamas, and Hezbollah (see "Who's Who In Terrorism" below). Of course, none of those groups would amount to much if not for the immense assistance they receive from Iran and Syria, regimes that were primary client-state terror sponsors for the Soviets and continue in that role for Russia under Putin.

Putin continues to build Iran’s nuclear program and upgrade its long-range missile program, not to mention provide Ahmadinejad’s regime with all of the conventional weapons that Tehran and its surrogate terrorists can use. Likewise for the longtime terrorist-sponsoring regime of Bashar al-Asad in Damascus. In January 2005, Putin welcomed President al-Asad to Moscow and forgave 73 percent of the $13.4 billion debt owed by Syria to Moscow. Then, a couple months later, he sold Strelet surface-to-air missiles to Asad and has been showering him with weapons.

Moscow Masterminds
In the 2005 action film Lord of War, Nicolas Cage plays Russian arms dealer Yuri Orlov, whose merchandise — guns, tanks, grenades, missiles, planes, bombs — spreads slaughter and genocide across Africa. The fictional Orlov is a portrayal of the real-life Viktor Bout, a “former” KGB officer who has built a global empire with his fleet of Soviet transport planes and helicopters and his unmatched access to a bottomless supply of Soviet armaments. It would be difficult to find a war, civil war, revolution, terrorist organization, dictatorship, coup, or attempted coup in Africa, the Middle East, or Central Asia over the past decade and a half that hasn’t been fueled by Bout’s deadly merchandise.

Viktor Bout was for years the main arms supplier for the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He subsequently became a major supplier to the U.S.-backed Northern Alliance. While operating a dizzying array of companies and shell companies out of Belgium and the United Arab Emirates, Bout has always maintained a home base and safe haven in Russia.

When the Belgian government issued an international arrest warrant for him in 2002, Bout fled to Moscow. “Asked if Bout was in the country when the arrest warrant was issued, the Russian foreign ministry said no, even though Bout was giving live radio interviews from studios in downtown Moscow,” note Douglas Farah and Stephen Braun, authors of Merchant of Death: Money, Guns, Planes, and the Man Who Makes War Possible. “The next day, officials grudgingly acknowledged he might be in Russia but said they had seen no evidence that he had committed any crime, and therefore could not act.”

According to Farah and Braun and other investigative reporters, Viktor Bout more recently has been running arms to Hezbollah in Lebanon and the forces of the radical Islamic Courts Union in Somalia. Bout’s status as a private entrepreneur provides protective deniability to his bosses in the Kremlin — including the top KGB/FSB man himself, Vladimir Putin — but it is obvious that they are supplying him and protecting him so he can continue stoking the fires of terror and revolution that they have sparked and fed for decades. Incredibly, Western governments that verbally condemn Bout’s sinister blood trade are more than willing to do business with his companies. For instance, the U.S. Defense Department has paid Bout’s air transport companies millions of dollars to fly supplies into U.S. bases in Afghanistan and Iraq.

As indispensable as Viktor Bout has been — and is — to the Kremlin’s ongoing terror strategy, there are others who are even more important. One of the most important is Yevgeniy Primakov, the former KGB chief in charge of Middle East terrorism during the Cold War. Primakov has been at the pinnacle of Soviet politics for decades: Soviet Politburo member, former Russian Foreign Minister, head of the Russia Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), and Russian prime minister. Now he is Putin’s right-hand man as a “private citizen.” As head of the Russia Chamber of Commerce, he continues his role directing Russia’s client terror states and terrorist groups while on commercial visits throughout the Mideast.

In 2006, Primakov presided at the founding meeting of Russia’s new forum for Muslim countries, the “Russia-Islamic World Strategic Vision Group.” The new group held its first session in Moscow on March 27-28, attended by delegates from Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan, Iran, and 12 additional Muslim states. Putin greeted the delegates. Significantly, the “statesman” who presided at the meeting was Primakov, a renowned Arabist who played a key role in formulating the Soviet Union’s ties with the Muslim world during the cold-war era.

Jihadist Hatred for America
Is the ongoing Soviet/Russian propaganda and terror strategy really at the heart of the militant jihadist hatred directed at the United States? The overwhelming evidence would seem to answer resoundingly in the affirmative. After all, the jihadists should have good reason to view as enemies the regimes in Moscow, Beijing, and the Commonwealth of Independent States that have killed Muslims on a daily basis. In fact, the Soviet Union murdered over one million Muslim Afghans and made over five million of them refugees. Post-Soviet Russia brutally subjugated Muslim Chechnya, killing tens of thousands of civilians and leaving hundreds of thousands homeless. The Soviet Union persecuted (and present-day Russia continues to persecute) tens of millions of Muslims in Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Azerbaijan. The current openly communist government of Islam Karimov in Uzbekistan carried out the Adijan massacre of 2005, slaughtering as many as 5,000 Muslim civilians, with Moscow and Beijing both publicly voicing support for Karimov’s action. Communist China has carried out a decades-long ruthless persecution of its Muslim Uighar minority.

Communist regimes have forbidden study of the Q’uran, publicly burned countless copies of this sacred text of Muslims, imprisoned and tortured Muslim believers, and beaten Muslim clerics and then paraded them in public humiliation. Contrast that with the Western countries, where Muslims are granted full political and economic rights, can worship freely, and can obtain a Q’uran at any library or local bookstore. Yes, the jihadists have used our military presence in Iraq to fan the flames of hatred against the United States, but how about the communists?

Do the jihadists hate America more than the non-Muslim communist states because we are uniquely decadent? It is true that Western post-Christian culture, especially as seen in popular fashions and through Hollywood’s ubiquitous and depraved lens, is offensive to devout Muslims (as it is to devout Christians). But Russia is not pristine by comparison. Putin’s Russia boasts one of the largest pornography industries in the world, featuring the most hard-core kiddie porn. Russia’s mainstream media is much more salacious than its counterparts in the United States. Russia and the Muslim-populated (but non-Muslim-ruled) countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (C.I.S.) are also notorious for forced prostitution, gambling, and the production, consumption, and export of drugs and alcohol, all of which should earn them condemnation from the militant Muslim faithful. Instead, the leaders of Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda, al-Fatah, and other “Islamic fundamentalists,” not only ignore the transgressions of their infidel sponsors in Russia and China and the cries of their persecuted Muslim brothers, but they regularly break bread with and publicly support the atheist persecutors of Islam.

We in the Christian West should not kid ourselves — as certain “liberals” would have us do — into accepting the false proposition that Islam is perfectly compatible with our social-political system. It is not (see article "Religion By The Sword"). And we must not succumb to their arguments that we should accept new waves of Muslim immigrants. But neither should we allow ourselves to be further dragged into a military “clash of civilizations” (as we already are in Iraq and Afghanistan) by “Muslim” front men for our so-called allies in Moscow and Beijing.

In his October 11, 2001 news conference, President George W. Bush characterized the new global conflict as “a war against all those who seek to export terror, and a war against those governments that support or shelter them.” Striking the same theme, but with greater specificity, Weekly Standard editor William Kristol declared in a July 21, 2006 article, “Radical Islam Takes On Democracy,” that “our focus should be less on Hamas and Hezbollah, and more on their paymasters and real commanders — Syria and Iran.”

But why stop with the middlemen? The real paymasters and commanders aren’t in Damascus and Tehran; they’re in Moscow and Beijing, as they have been for decades. These paymasters and commanders are also patient strategists. They will not try to engage us in head-on military conflict when they can more easily wear us down by leading us into many “quagmire” conflicts with their surrogates.