Does Iran Have Secret Nukes in North Korea? - Gordon G. Chang - http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/03/29/does-iran-have-secret-nukes-in-north-korea.html
Washington's nuclear deal with Tehran depends on aggressive inspections inside Iran. But the mullahs may well have a secret program outside their borders.
In October 2012, Iran began stationing personnel at a military base in North Korea, in a mountainous area close to the Chinese border. The Iranians, from the Ministry of Defense and associated firms, reportedly are working on both missiles and nuclear weapons. Ahmed Vahidi, Tehran's minister of defense at the time, denied sending people to the North, but the unconfirmed dispatches make sense in light of the two states announcing a technical cooperation pact the preceding month.
The P5+1-the five permanent members of the Security Council and Germany-appear determined, before their self-imposed March 31 deadline, to ink a deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran regarding its nuclear energy program, which is surely a cover for a wide-ranging weapons effort. The international community wants the preliminary arrangement now under discussion, referred to as a "framework agreement," to ensure that the country remains at least one year away from being able to produce an atomic device.
The P5+1 negotiators believe they can do that by monitoring Tehran's centrifuges-supersonic-speed machines that separate uranium gas into different isotopes and upgrade the potent stuff to weapons-grade purity-and thereby keep track of its total stock of fissile material.
The negotiators from the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, and China are trying to get Tehran to adhere to the Additional Protocol, which allows anytime, anyplace inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog. If Iran agrees to the IAEA's intrusive inspections, proponents of the deal will claim a major breakthrough, arguing for instance that Iran will not be able to hide centrifuges in undisclosed locations.
But no inspections of Iranian sites will solve a fundamental issue: As can be seen from the North Korean base housing Tehran's weapons specialists, Iran is only one part of a nuclear weapons effort spanning the Asian continent. North Korea, now the world's proliferation superstar, is a participant. China, once the mastermind, may still be a co-conspirator. Inspections inside the borders of Iran, therefore, will not give the international community the assurance it needs.
The cross-border nuclear trade is substantial enough to be called a "program." Larry Niksch of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., estimates that the North's proceeds from this trade with Iran are "between $1.5 billion and $2.0 billion annually." A portion of this amount is related to missiles and miscellaneous items, the rest derived from building Tehran's nuclear capabilities.
Iran has bought a lot with its money. Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, thought to be Tehran's chief nuclear scientist, was almost certainly in North Korea at Punggye-ri in February 2013 to witness Pyongyang's third atomic test. Reports put Iranian technicians on hand at the site for the first two detonations as well.
The North Koreans have also sold Iran material for bomb cores, perhaps even weapons-grade uranium. The Telegraph reported that in 2002 a barrel of North Korean uranium cracked open and contaminated the tarmac of the new Tehran airport.
In addition, the Kim Jong Un regime appears to have helped the Islamic Republic on its other pathway to the bomb. In 2013, Meir Dagan, a former Mossad director, charged the North with providing assistance to Iran's plutonium reactor.
The relationship between the two regimes has been long-lasting. Hundreds of North Koreans have worked at about 10 nuclear and missile facilities in Iran. There were so many nuclear and missile scientists, specialists, and technicians that they took over their own coastal resort there, according to Henry Sokolski, the proliferation maven, writing in 2003.
Even if Iran today were to agree to adhere to the Additional Protocol, it could still continue developing its bomb in North Korea, conducting research there or buying North Korean technology and plans. And as North Korean centrifuges spin in both known and hidden locations, the Kim regime will have a bigger stock of uranium to sell to the Iranians for their warheads. With the removal of sanctions, as the P5+1 is contemplating, Iran will have the cash to accelerate the building of its nuclear arsenal.
So while the international community inspects Iranian facilities pursuant to a framework deal, the Iranians could be busy assembling the components for a bomb elsewhere. In other words, they will be one day away from a bomb-the flight time from Pyongyang to Tehran-not one year as American and other policymakers hope.
The North Koreans are not the only contributors to the Iranian atom bomb. Iran got its first centrifuges from Pakistan, and Pakistan's program was an offshoot from the Chinese one.
Some argue that China proliferated nuclear weapons through the infamous black market ring run by Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan. There is no open source proof of that contention, but Beijing did nothing while Khan merchandised Chinese parts, plans, and knowhow-its most sensitive technology-from the capital of one of its closest allies. Moreover, Beijing did its best to protect the smuggler when Washington rolled up his network in the early part of last decade. The Chinese, for instance, supported General Pervez Musharraf's controversial decision to end prematurely his government's inquiry, which avoided exposing Beijing's rumored involvement with Khan's activities.
And there are circumstances suggesting that Beijing, around the time of Khan's confession and immediate pardon in 2004, took over his proliferation role directly, boldly transferring materials and equipment straight to Iran. For example, in November 2003 the staff of the IAEA had fingered China as one of the sources of equipment used in Iran's suspected nuclear weapons effort. And as reported in July 2007 by The Wall Street Journal, the State Department had lodged formal protests with Beijing about Chinese enterprises violating Security Council resolutions by exporting to Tehran items that could be used for building atomic weapons.
Since then, there have been continual reports of transfers by Chinese enterprises to Iran in violation of international treaties and U.N. rules. Chinese entities have been implicated in shipments of maraging steel, ring-shaped magnets, and valves and vacuum gauges, all apparently headed to Iran's atom facilities. In March 2011, police in Port Klang seized two containers from a ship bound to Iran from China. Malaysian authorities discovered that goods passed off as "used for liquid mixing or storage" were actually components for potential atomic weapons.
In the last few years, there has been an apparent decline in Chinese shipments to Iran. Beijing could be reacting to American pressure to end the trade, but there are more worrying explanations. First, it's possible that, after decades of direct and indirect illicit transfers, China has already supplied most of what Iran needs to construct a weapon. Second, Beijing may be letting Pyongyang assume the leading proliferation role. After all, the shadowy Fakhrizadeh was reported to have traveled through China on his way to North Korea to observe the North's third nuclear test.
Fakhrizadeh's passage through China-probably Beijing's airport-suggests that China may not have abandoned its "managed proliferation." In the past, China's proxy for this deadly trade was Pakistan. Then it was China's only formal ally, North Korea. In both cases, Chinese policymakers intended to benefit Iran.
In a theoretical sense, there is nothing wrong with an accommodation with the Islamic Republic over nukes, yet there is no point in signing a deal with just one arm of a multi-nation weapons effort. That's why the P5+1 needs to know what is going on at that isolated military base in the mountains of North Korea. And perhaps others as well.
'Iran is placing guided warheads on Hezbollah rockets' - http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Iran-is-placing-guided-warheads-on-Hezbollah-rockets-395679
Iran is placing guided warheads on its rockets and smuggling them to Hezbollah in Lebanon, a senior Defense Ministry official involved in preparing Israeli air defenses said Tuesday.
Speaking at the Israel Air and Missile Defense Conference in Herzliya, organized by the iHLS defense website and the Israel Missile Defense Association, Col. Aviram Hasson said Iran is converting Zilzal unguided rockets into accurate, guided M-600 projectiles by upgrading their warheads.
Hasson, who is in charge of upper tier missile defenses in the Defense Ministry's HOMA, which is a part of the Defense Ministry's Administration for the Development of Weapons and Technological Infrastructure, described Iran as a "train engine that is not stopping for a moment. It is manufacturing new and advanced ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles. It is turning unguided rockets that had an accuracy range of kilometers into weapons that are accurate to within meters."
Hezbollah, he continued, "is getting a lot of accurate weapons from Iran. It is in a very different place compared to the Second Lebanon War in 2006."
For Israel, the "ultimate defense is a combination of counter-attack, active defenses, and passive defense [civilian compliance with Home Front Command safety instructions]," Hasson argued.
Riki Ellison, founder and chairman of the US Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, also spoke to the conference. The Alliance is a non-profit organization advocating for the deployment and development of missile defenses.
Ellison said the US always keeps at least one war ship in the Mediterranean with an Aegis naval missile defense system to ensure that Israel is protected against long-range Iranian ballistic missiles. "It can stand off the coast and shoot long-shots coming in from Iran," Ellison said.
The US is keen to see Israel complete its multi-layered blanket of missile defenses, which would enable it to defend against Iranian missiles without the Aegis, freeing up the US Navy's ships to be deployed elsewhere, he added. Ellison told the delegates that the US remains firmly committed to Israel's security irrespective of recent disagreements between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
He added that the US could deploy its Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) batteries "if necessary to come into Israel to support your country's defense."
The US is "fully supportive of Israel getting full capable system Arrow 3 and David's Sling defense systems," Ellison said.
Iran militia chief: Destroying Israel is 'nonnegotiable' - By Lazar Berman - http://www.timesofisrael.com/iran-militia-chief-destroying-israel-nonnegotiable/
Basij commander Mohammad Reza Naqdi also threatens Saudis, saying their fate will be like that of Saddam Hussein
The commander of the Basij militia of Iran's Revolutionary Guards said that "erasing Israel off the map" is "nonnegotiable," according to an Israel Radio report Tuesday.
Militia chief Mohammad Reza Naqdi also threatened Saudi Arabia, saying that the offensive it is leading in Yemen "will have a fate like the fate of Saddam Hussein."
Naqdi's comments were made public as Iran and six world powers prepared Tuesday to issue a general statement agreeing to continue nuclear negotiations in a new phase aimed at reaching a comprehensive accord by the end of June.
In 2014, Naqdi said Iran was stepping up efforts to arm West Bank Palestinians for battle against Israel, adding the move would lead to Israel's annihilation, Iran's Fars news agency reported.
"Arming the West Bank has started and weapons will be supplied to the people of this region," Naqdi said.
"The Zionists should know that the next war won't be confined to the present borders and the Mujahedeen will push them back," he added. Naqdi claimed that much of Hamas's arsenal, training and technical knowhow in the summer conflict with Israel was supplied by Iran.
The Basij is a religious volunteer force established in 1979 by the country's revolutionary leaders, and has served as a moral police and to suppress dissent.
In January, a draft law that would give greater powers to the Basij to enforce women's compulsory wearing of the veil was ruled unconstitutional.
The force holds annual maneuvers, sometimes with regular Iran units.
Iran: Saudi Arabia 'endangering entire Middle East' - F. Michael Maloof - http://www.wnd.com/2015/04/iran-issues-veiled-war-warning-to-saudi-arabia/?cat_orig=world
Playing with fire 'not in the interest of the nations in the region'
A senior Iranian official has warned Saudi Arabia that it is endangering the entire Middle East with its U.S.-supported aerial bombardment of Iranian-backed al-Houthi positions in neighboring Yemen.
The warning comes just as questions are being raised about U.S. policy, since it is backing Shiite Iran in bombing Sunni ISIS positions in Iraq but supports Sunni Saudi Arabia in Yemen.
In slamming the Saudis, who are leading a 10-nation coalition of Sunni countries attacking the Houthis in Yemen, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Arab and African Affairs Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said the Saudi military attacks are a "strategic mistake."
Calling the Saudi military attacks against Yemen an act of aggression, Amir-Abdollahian said "the fire of war in the region from any side ... will drag the whole region to play with fire."
"This is not in the interest of the nations in the region."
Amir-Abdollahian's warning appeared to lay a foundation for a direct sectarian conflict between Saudi Arabia, which represents Sunni Islam, and Iran, leader of the world's Shiite Muslims.
Both countries for years have been in a series of proxy battles across the terrain of Iraq, Bahrain, Syria and now Yemen. Indeed, their feud goes back to A.D. 680 when Muhammad's grandson, Hussein ibn Ali, was beheaded at the Battle of Karbala after being captured.
The event is seen as the beginning of Shiite Islam's challenge to Sunni Islam, which in turn has morphed into the extremist form of Saudi Arabia's ultra-fundamentalist Wahhabism, the inspiration for the ISIS.
In recent years, especially following the rise of Iranian influence in Iraq, Tehran and Riyadh have made perfunctory efforts toward some form of harmonization.
Those efforts, however, systematically have been undermined by the rise of Saudi-sponsored jihadist groups acting as proxies to Saudi Arabia in Iraq and Syria, with increasing encroachment in Lebanon.
More recently, Sunni predominance has been shown in the violent putdown of majority Shiite demonstrations against the minority Sunni monarchy in Bahrain. And now there's the disregard of Houthi representation in a predominantly Sunni government in Yemen, where the Shiite Houthis comprise a third of the total population.
Nevertheless, the Iranian official said Tehran and Riyadh can still reach a "political solution" in Yemen.
"We strongly object to the military solution [in] Yemen," Amir-Abdollahian said. "We believe that the Saudi military attack against Yemen is a strategic mistake."
The Saudi-led aerial attacks against Houthi positions over the last week came after Houthis took over government buildings in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa, and Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, a close ally of the Saudis, fled to the kingdom.
The U.S., meantime, has been seeking to determine its role in fast-changing events in the Middle East, which are quickly throwing the region into chaos.
Some of the chaos is a result of actions by the Saudis, who have decided they no longer can rely on the U.S. for security, after ties extending back more than 50 years. They have now pushed for the creation of a 10-nation Sunni military force to combat what they perceive to be a threat from ISIS and to engage Shiite forces in other countries and even Iran itself.
As it now stands, the U.S. has been bombing Sunni ISIS fighters at the request of the Shiite government of Iraqi Prime Minister Haidi al-Abadi, who also has asked Iran to provide fighters on the ground along with more moderate Sunni tribes and Shiite fighters.
To some critics, U.S. assistance makes it appear that the U.S. has become the air force for Iran.
At the same time, the U.S. is providing intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance to the Saudi-led 10-nation military coalition that continues aerial bombing of Houthi positions in Yemen.
Not surprisingly, the different positions raise questions about U.S. policy, if there is one.
"The United States has undertaken a strategy focused on maintaining the balance of power" in the region, according to George Friedman of the open intelligence group Stratfor.
"This kind of approach," Friedman said, "is always messy because the goal is not to support any particular power, but to maintain a balance between multiple powers."
He said that U.S. strategy is "so complex that it defies clear explanation."
"That is the nature of refusing large-scale intervention but being committed to a balance of power. The United States can oppose Iran in one theater and support it in another. The more simplistic models of the Cold War are not relevant here."
The U.S. balancing act comes amid continued efforts to work out a nuclear agreement with Iran, a position that the Saudis interpreted as a potential threat. Previously the U.S. policy has included commitments with the Saudis other Gulf Arab countries.
But now, it appears that the U.S. is looking to work more closely with Riyadh's regional rival, Iran.
"Deal or no deal," Friedman said, "the United States will bomb the Islamic State, which will help Iran, and support the Saudis in Yemen."
He said that the real issue is that Iran appears to be building a sphere of influence to the Mediterranean Sea, which now includes Yemen. It's a significant expansion from just a few years ago.
At that time, it was a "Shiite crescent" to include Iran, Syria and Lebanon.
"That, in turn, creates a threat to the Arabian Peninsula from two directions," Friedman said.
"The Iranians are trying to place a vise around it. The Saudis must react, but the question is whether airstrikes are capable of stopping the al-Houthis."
He said that current U.S. doctrine requires a balance between Iran and Saudi Arabia, with the U.S. "tilting back and forth."
"Under this doctrine - and in this military reality - the United States cannot afford full-scale engagement on the ground in Iraq."
Middle East analyst Robert Parry, who writes for ConsortiumNews.com, acknowledges that the tangle of conflicts in the Middle East is confusing, including what he describes as the "transformational Israeli-Saudi alliance" that he says is "dragging the American people into a sectarian religious war dating back 1,300 years."
He said the reason for the "confusion" is that the establishment media "prefer" that the American people "not fully grasp what's happening." A few points, he said, can help decipher the confusion.
"Israel is now allied with Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Persian Gulf states, which are, in turn, supporting Sunni militants in al-Qaida and the Islamic State," Parry said. "Sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly, this Israel-Saudi bloc sustains al-Qaida and, to a somewhat lesser degree, the Islamic State."
Parry pointed out that former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren, who then was a close adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said in September 2013 that Israel "favored the Sunni extremists" over Iran-backed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
At the time, Oren pointed to what was the "greatest danger" to Israel.
"The greatest danger to Israel is by the strategic arc that extends from Tehran, to Damascus to Beirut," Oren said at the time. "And we saw the Assad regime as the keystone in that arc.
"We always wanted Bashar Assad to go, we always preferred the bad guys who weren't backed by Iran to the bad guys who were backed by Iran," Oren said, adding that this was the case even if the "bad guys" were affiliated with al-Qaida.
"From Israel's perspective," Oren said in June 2014, when he no longer was the Israeli ambassador, "if there's got to be an evil that's got to prevail, let the Sunni evil prevail."
Friedman said that the regional U.S. strategy of total support of the Saudis is moving away from what it followed from the early 2000s of being the prime military force in regional conflicts.
Now, he said, U.S. policy is evolving from fighting regional powers to playing a "secondary" role.
During that period, however, the Saudis and partners on the Gulf Cooperation Council purchased advanced weapons.
"This means that while the regional powers have long been happy to shift the burden of combat to the United States," Friedman said, "they are also able to assume the burden if the United States refuses to engage."
As WND reported, with the U.S. no longer choosing to be in the lead to squelch conflicts in the Middle East before they get out of hand, Washington has security commitments with Saudi Arabia, the other 22 members of the Arab League and even Israel that could railroad the U.S. into a conflict it doesn't want.
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