IRANIAN STRATEGIC VULNERABILITIES:POLICY OPTIONS TO HALT THE IRANIAN NUCLEAR PROGRAM

Ayatollah Khomeini's heirs are breathing new life into the Islamic revolution in the hope of transforming Iran into a regional power. The Iranian revolution can only point to a single achievement in the Arab world: Hizbullah and its leader Hassan Nasrallah are keeping revolutionary fervor alive in Lebanon. This base of exported revolution is central to Iran's political-diplomatic efforts to achieve a higher status in the region and in the world.

Two additional foundations of Iranian power must be added: * The Iranian nuclear program, complete with delivery systems capable of reaching targets in the Middle East and Europe.

* Iran's relative economic independence since 2003 because of the dramatic rise in revenue from oil sales.

At the beginning of 2003, Iranians were concentrating their efforts on the centrifuge program in Natanz, where they had managed to build a cascade with 164 centrifuges. Today, they have reached a capacity of 3,000 centrifuges.

The accumulation of fissile material through uranium enrichment and plutonium production.

Weaponization – preparing a warhead from the fissile material and fitting it to a missile.

* Maj. Gen. (ret.) Aharon Ze'evi Farkash is a former head of Israeli Military Intelligence. His other positions in the IDF included chief of the Logistics and Technology Branch. He is presently director of the Sari and Israel Roizman Program in Intelligence Studies at the Institute for National Security Studies. Ze'evi Farkash holds a BA and MA in Middle East History from Tel Aviv University, and is a graduate of the International Senior Manager's Program at Harvard Business School.

Thank you JerusalemJudy for pointing the Center’s site.

Here’s a link to all the chapters and the maps, too.

http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/showpage.asp?DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=84&FID=452&PID=2280

In my humble opinion, there is no chance whatsoever of pressuring Iran into abandoning it's nuclear weapons program. The rewards they see accruing at the end of this far outweigh any negative effects of economic sanctions, no matter how far-reaching or harsh.

In this, the Iranians are correctly set upon a war footing, while the West, including at least this one Israeli, we think we are dealing with a peacetime nuisance. We think that the Iranian leadership can be persuaded. They cannot be persuaded by anything we can say or do.

The Iranian nuclear program can only be stopped.

“The Iranian nuclear program can only be stopped.”

I agree.

A Look at Iran
http://www.truthusa.com/IRAN.html

Historically when other countries developed nuclear arsenals including Russia it was at the very worst a MAD exchange, this philosophy does NOT work with Iran because they want martyrdom, Russia absolutely did not want to commit suicide, nor England, France, India or any other nuclear armed country, they never have and unless converted to Islam never will be Atomic Jihaadists.

Being an Islamic country that repeatedly spouts rhetoric that it will destroy Israel and non-muslim neighbors is the same as allowing a rabid animal free reign to prowl the neighborhood.

The conflict is that we must “break the will” of the enemy, it took two atomic devices in Japan, in Germany it was carpet bombing, I do not think just taking out the technical centers, launchers or refining facilities will deter Iran for long, they will just dig deeper under a bigger hill.

It will take a massive series of demonstrations to convince the people and the Mullahs to forever forget about non-peaceful nuclear usage.

However targeting just the nuclear facilities will work for awhile, I think the best way to show who really means business is to sell or supply Israel with stealth bombers, just a couple with possibly a few Raptors, Israel with stealth aircraft will definitely change things there.

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