Iran is doing a perfectly fine job of that without U.S. assistance.
Robert Baer, See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism, Crown, 2002, page 79 places the blame for the kidnapping and murder of Buckley and the Beirut Embassy bombing on IJO which on page 264 he says the CIA knew "was merely a front for the Iranians."
The current nuclear weapons violation indicates the evidence of Bill Gertz re Iranian-Russian proliferation (Year of the Rat, Betrayal) was the tip of the iceberg.
Amid mounting international scrutiny of Iran’s nuclear ambitions, officials in Washington are expressing fresh worries about the growing missile threat from the Islamic Republic. In his June 25th testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, General John Abizaid, the incoming commander of the United States Central Command, stressed that “Iran has the largest ballistic missile inventory in the Central Command region -- to include long-range weapons of mass destruction and delivery systems capable of reaching deployed U.S. forces in the theater.” Iran, according to Abizaid, “casts a shadow on security and stability in the Gulf region” and “poses a potential threat to neighboring countries.”
These concerns are sure to be compounded by news that Iran has successfully tested its medium-range “Shahab-3” missile. Israel's Ha’aretz newspaper (July 4) reports that the latest flight test of the rocket, conducted in late June, is the most successful trial to date, showcasing an expanded range for the “Shahab-3” above and beyond its previously-projected 1,300-kilometer range.
September 11:
MOSCOW MOVES TOWARD ACCOUNTABILITY ON IRAN. A source in Russia's Atomic Energy Ministry has told Agence France-Presse that Moscow will support a draft resolution at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) setting an October 31st deadline for Iran to prove it is not secretly developing nuclear weapons. According to the source, the draft softens a previous version by giving the Iranians "room to maneuver, so they are not pushed into a corner like North Korea" and into withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Moscow is demanding that Tehran sign an agreement to send back spent nuclear fuel from the Bushehr nuclear facility, which Russia is help building, once the facility becomes operational.
Russia Reform Monitor No. 1076, September 12, 2003
American Foreign Policy Council, Washington, DC
http://www.afpc.org
PYONGYANG, TEHRAN TIGHTEN MISSILE TIES
Even as plans for multilateral talks over its nuclear program move forward, North Korea is intensifying its missile and WMD cooperation with Iran. According to the Sankei Shimbun (August 6), Pyongyang is currently in talks with Tehran to export components of its long-range “Taepo-Dong 2” missile to the Islamic Republic, as well as to jointly develop nuclear weapons. According to the conservative Japanese daily, the plan -- in the works for about a year -- could be finalized as early as this October. If it materializes, this export arrangement would provide North Korea with much-needed hard currency, and would dramatically expand the range of Iran’s ballistic missiles, making the Islamic Republic capable of striking targets in Europe.
MISSILE DEFENSE BRIEFING REPORT NO. 115, August 15, 2003
American Foreign Policy Council, Washington, DC
The agency of certain UK journalists to apologize for jihadists has come to the fore of late with the Andrew Gilligan smear and the petition to cancel the royal charter of the BBC, altogether with Israel's breaking relations with that agency.
To suggest as the author does that Israel shapes U.S. policy toward anything let alone Iran is a default to knee-jerk anti-Zionism and ignorance of reality.
Iran is working very hard to maintain membership in the Axis of Evil, an even more exclusive club since May.
Great post. The above should be a sobering influence on the quisling Euro-Axis of Weasles (France & Germany and lesser countries of little note).
I suspect the recent indication of help in Iraq from France and Germany may have something to do with their belated awareness of this threat from Iranian missles.
Baer's book was and is a classic.