(Washington Times) R. James Woolsey and Peter Vincent Pry - The Israelis are right - we should awaken to the fact that the coming of a nuclear Iran holds special dangers and requires particularly urgent attention. There is special danger in the Shiite doctrine held by many Iranians, including some of Iran's national leaders: The return of the hidden Imam will bring the war that ends the world and creates heavenly bliss for believers. As America's dean of Mideast studies, Bernard Lewis, puts it: During the Cold War, Mutual Assured Destruction was a deterrent; today it is an inducement. Iran works very closely with North Korea on its nuclear and missile programs. Consequently, it has the ballistic missile capacity to launch weapons of substantial size and intercontinental range against us, or to orbit satellites above us. So troubling is this capability - in the hands of either Iran or North Korea - that nine years ago, based on the ability of North Korea's Taepodong missile to carry a nuclear warhead to intercontinental range, the current secretary of defense, Ashton Carter, and a prominent former secretary, William Perry, urged in a 2006 op-ed a pre-emptive strike against the then-new North Korean long-range missiles on their launch pads. R. James Woolsey is a former director of central intelligence and is chairman of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Peter Vincent Pry is executive director of the EMP Task Force on National and Homeland Security.
2015-03-04 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive