Iran is one of America's foremost self-proclaimed enemies. Iran has become one of the most serious threats to stability in the Middle East and has developed the means to strike Israel. American and Israeli intelligence assessments agree that the Islamic regime in Iran will be able to complete a nuclear weapon within five years — sooner if a device or substantial technical assistance is acquired abroad.

Iranian opposition figures have said the regime is intensifying its efforts to complete a weapon with the hope of building a device within the next two years.

The Brains Behind Iran's Nuclear Project
Iran has concluded agreements with China and Russia to obtain nuclear facilities. In 1990, China signed a 10-year nuclear cooperation agreement that allowed Iranian nuclear engineers to obtain training in China. In addition, China has already built a nuclear research reactor in Iran that became operational in 1994. In 2002, Iran revealed that it had purchased special gas from China that could be used to enrich uranium for the production of nuclear weapons. The gas purchase was supposed to be reported to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), but it was concealed instead. Chinese experts have also been involved in the supervision of the installation of centrifuge equipment that can be used to enrich uranium.

According to the CIA, “Iran continues to use its civilian nuclear energy program to justify its efforts to establish domestically or otherwise acquire the entire nuclear fuel cycle. Iran claims that this fuel cycle would be used to produce fuel for nuclear power reactors, such as the 1,000-megawatt light-water reactor that Russia is continuing to build at the southern port city of Bushehr. However, Iran does not need to produce its own fuel for this reactor because Russia has pledged to provide the fuel throughout the operating lifetime of the reactor and is negotiating with Iran to take back the irradiated spent fuel.”

The Bushehr project has provided valuable training to Iranian technicians and engineers, and expanded the regime's nuclear infrastructure. Financial wrangling between the Russians and Iranians have delayed completion, but it is expected to go online after the delivery of the reactor fuel sometime in 2006. To allay U.S. fears that the fuel Russia is providing for the plant could be diverted to a weapons program, the Russians agreed to take back the spent fuel rods from the plant, but Iran has not agreed to this.

Though China and Russia have provided technology to Iran, the “brain” behind the Iranian nuclear program is believed to be Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear program, who passed secrets and equipment to Iranian officials. Khan became involved in helping Iran in the mid-1990s. Pakistani investigators have told the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that centrifuges built by Iran closely resemble the design of Pakistani centrifuges. Khan also helped the Iranians to set up a secret procurement network involving companies and middlemen around the world. In March 2005, former Iranian president Hashemi Rafsanjani admitted Iran developed its nuclear program in secret, going to the black market for material.

Iran's Secret Plants
In 2002, two previously unknown nuclear facilities were discovered in Iran. One in Arak produces heavy water, which could be used to produce weapons. The other is in Natanz. An Iranian opposition group claimed that Iranian officials removed sensitive equipment installed at Natanz to hide it from IAEA inspectors who were scheduled to visit the plant.

In February 2003, Iranian President Mohammad Khatami announced the discovery of uranium reserves near the central city of Yazd and said Iran was setting up production facilities “to make use of advanced nuclear technology for peaceful purposes” (AP, February 11, 2003). This was an alarming development because it suggested Iran was attempting to obtain the means to produce and process fuel itself, despite the agreement to receive all the uranium it would need for civilian purposes from Russia.

Though it is not the best method, Iran could "run the reactor at low fuel burn-up levels to produce weapons-grade plutonium or, alternately, separate reactor-grade plutonium from spent fuel awaiting reshipment to Russia," according to Michael Eisenstadt.

Eisenstadt also notes that Iran is North Korea's principal customer for arms, missiles, and nuclear technology. North Korea could export plutonium from its nuclear weapons program, as well as weapon design data, to Iran to earn desperately needed cash to bolster its weak economy. As it is, North Korean experts are believed to have helped Iran with its centrifuges.

The Iranian government, confronted in February 2004 with new evidence obtained from the secret network of nuclear suppliers surrounding Khan, acknowledged it had a design for a far more advanced high-speed centrifuge to enrich uranium than it previously revealed to the IAEA. This type of centrifuge would allow Iran to produce nuclear fuel far more quickly than the equipment that it reluctantly revealed to the agency in 2003. This revelation proved that Iran lied when it claimed to have turned over all the documents relating to their enrichment program.

In another disclosure that contradicted earlier claims, Iran admitted in June 2005 that it conducted experiments to create plutonium, which is used only in weapons and not for energy production, for five years beyond the date when it previously insisted it had ended all such work. Iran had said that the experiments were completed in 1993 and that no plutonium had been separated since then, but an IAEA investigation found that it had processed uranium as recently as 1998.

In 2005, the National Council of Resistance, an Iranian opposition group, which has given accurate information in the past on some of Iran's nuclear facilities, said Iran allocated $2.5 billion to obtain three nuclear warheads in mid-2004. The group, also said Iran was speeding up work on a reactor south of Tehran which could produce enough plutonium for an atomic bomb by 2007 (Reuters, March 31, 2005).

Iran is a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which allows the peaceful pursuit of nuclear technology, including uranium mining and enrichment, under oversight by the IAEA. The IAEA wants Iran to agree to more stringent monitoring, which, in theory, would make it more difficult for Iran to divert fissile material to a weapons program.

Iran Admits Deception
Hassan Rowhani, the man who headed talks with Britain, France and Germany until 2005, told a meeting of Islamic clerics and academics that Iran played for time and tried to dupe the West after its secret nuclear program was uncovered by the Iranian opposition in 2002. He revealed that while talks were taking place in Teheran, Iran completed the installation of equipment for conversion of yellowcake – a key stage in the nuclear fuel process – at its Isfahan plant. Rowhani also said that on at least two occasions the IAEA obtained information on secret nuclear-related experiments from academic papers published by scientists involved in the work (Telegraph, (March 5, 2006).

The quickest way for Iran to complete a weapon would be to openly build a gas centrifuge plant to make weapons-grade uranium. This would end any doubt about Iran’s intentions so it is more likely that Iran will continue a covert program and it would be difficult for the IAEA to locate a clandestine facility. The IAEA has admitted that it cannot monitor Iranian activities outside the areas where the organization has containment and surveillance.

A Commitment to Join the Nuclear Club
In June 2004, Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi rejected further outside influence on Tehran's nuclear ambitions. “We won't accept any new obligations," Kharrazi said. “Iran has a high technical capability and has to be recognized by the international community as a member of the nuclear club. This is an irreversible path” (AP, June 12, 2004).

After pledging to suspend its nuclear program, the IAEA reported in June 2004 that Iran was continuing to make parts and materials that could be used in the manufacture of nuclear arms. The report also cited continuing evidence that Iran misled inspectors with many of its early claims, especially on questions about where it obtained critical components. For example, Iranian officials admitted that some of those parts were purchased abroad, after initially insisting that Iran had made them itself (New York Times, June 3, 2004).

On July 27, 2004, the Telegraph reported Iran had broken the seals on nuclear equipment monitored by UN inspectors and was again building and testing machines that could make fissile material for nuclear weapons. Teheran's move violated an agreement with European countries under which Iran suspended “all uranium enrichment activity.” Defying a key demand set by 35 nations, Iran announced September 21, 2004, that it has started converting raw uranium into the gas needed for enrichment, a process that can be used to make nuclear weapons. A couple of weeks later, Iran announced it had processed several tons of raw ''yellowcake'' uranium to prepare it for enrichment - a key step in developing atomic weapons - in defiance of the IAEA (AP, October 6, 2004).

South African Defense Minister Mosiuoa Lekota and his Iranian counterpart Rear-Admiral Ali Shamkhani signed a memorandum of understanding August 17, 2004, on bilateral cooperation. The agreement included an arrangement for South Africa to sell uranium to Iran, according to Israel's Channel 1 TV. Lekota reportedly said that making peaceful use of nuclear energy is the legitimate right of the Islamic Republic. The South African Ministry of Defense subsequently denied the report.

In another sign of Iran's determination to move forward with a nuclear weapons program, the government approved the establishment of a secret nuclear research center to train its scientists in all aspects of atomic technology (Telegraph, March 20, 2005).

Point of No Return?
On August 1, 2005, a senior Israeli military commander said, “We no longer think that a secret military track runs independent of the civilian one....If it were then they would acquire weapons in 2007... We have changed our estimation. Now we think the military track is dependent on the civilian one. However, from a certain point it will be able to run independently. But not earlier than 2008” (Jerusalem Post, August 1, 2005). Earlier, Israel estimated that Iran would be nuclear-capable by 2005, But last year it adjusted that estimate to 2007, saying that international diplomatic pressure had impeded the Iranian nuclear program. In January 2006, the chief of Israeli Military Intelligence said the “point of no return” will be reached in March 2006. If Iran starts to enrich uranium, it can start producing weapons-grade uranium by the end of the year and have enough to produce a nuclear weapon in another three years (Jerusalem Report, (February 6, 2006). Iran will have acquired nuclear weapons by 2010, the head of Israel's Military Intelligence, Major General Amos Yadlin, told the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on May 16, 2006 (Haaretz, May 10, 2006). In November 2006, the Israeli defense establishment said Iran will obtain nuclear weapons by the end of the decade (Jerusalem Post, December 5, 2006).

About the same time that Israel revised its estimate of Iran's progress, a U.S. intelligence review roughly doubled the time Iran would need to manufacturing the key ingredient for a nuclear weapon from five to ten years. The analysis concluded that Iran is acquiring and mastering technologies that could be used for weapons. A senior intelligence official said, “it is the judgment of the intelligence community that, left to its own devices, Iran is determined to build nuclear weapons” (Washington Post, August 2, 2004). In late 2006, the U.S. ambassador to the IAEA, Gregory Schulte, said the soonest Iran could produce a weapon would be 2010 to 2015. “They've shown on a couple of occasions that they can enrich,” Schulte said, “but what they have to show is they can do this on a sustained and reliable basis, and it's not apparent they are there yet” (AP, November 27, 2006).

The head of the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei, suggested the Iranians were potentially closer to building a bomb than either the U.S. or Israeli intelligence analysts predicted. Even though it may take two years for Natanz to become fully operational, ElBaradei, warned in December 2005 that once the facility is running, the Iranians could be “a few months” away from a nuclear weapon (The Independent, December 5, 2005).

Negotiations
Iran agreed in a meeting in Tehran with French, German, and British ambassadors on November 14, 2004, to immediately suspend its nuclear programs in exchange for European guarantees that it will not face the prospect of UN Security Council sanctions as long as their agreement holds. Bushehr was not covered under the EU-Iranian deal. The Bush administration was dissatisfied and said Tehran needs to convince the world it is not a danger (Washington Post, November 15, 2004).

Shortly after the Iranian-European agreement, the National Council of Resistance said Iran had bought blueprints for a nuclear bomb and obtained weapons-grade uranium on the black market. The group also charged that Iran was still secretly enriching uranium at an undisclosed Defense Ministry site in Tehran. The claims could not be independently verified, and independent nuclear experts were divided about whether they could be true, but the group was responsible earlier for revealing the existence of two secret Iranian nuclear facilities. (New York Times, November 18, 2004).

Secretary of State Colin Powell also said the United States has intelligence indicating Iran is trying to fit missiles to carry nuclear weapons, which he intimated would only make sense if Iran was also developing or planning to develop a nuclear capability. “There is no doubt in my mind — and it's fairly straightforward from what we've been saying for years — that they have been interested in a nuclear weapon that has utility, meaning that it is something they would be able to deliver, not just something that sits there,” Powell said (Washington Post, November 18, 2004).

Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Hassan Rohani claimed a “great victory” over the U.S. at the end of November 2004 after the UN said it would not punish Iran's nuclear activities with sanctions. Rohani said Iran would never give up its right to nuclear power and stressed during talks with European countries that Iran's freeze on uranium enrichment was only temporary (BBC News, November 30, 2004). President Bush said on November 30, “The Iranians agreed to suspend but not terminate their nuclear weapons program. Our position is that they ought to terminate their nuclear weapons program” (Reuters, November 30, 2004).

In February 2005, Ali Agha Mohammadi, spokesman of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said Iran will never scrap its nuclear program, and talks with the Europeans are aimed at protecting the country's nuclear achievements, not negotiating an end to them. This view was reiterated in March by Rohani, who said, the country would never permanently cease enriching uranium, and warned that if the United States went to the United Nations Security Council to seek sanctions against Iran, “the security and stability of the region would become a problem.”

In May 2005, Iran confirmed that it had converted 37 tons of uranium into gas, its first acknowledgment of advances made in the production process for enriched uranium. This means Tehran is in a position to start enriching uranium quickly if negotiations with the Europeans over the future of its nuclear program fail (AP, May 9, 2005). Iran’s departing president, Mohammad Khatami, said July 27, 2005, regardless of Europe’s position, “we will definitely resume work in Isfahan,” the site of a uranium processing plant. On August 1, Iran said Iranian technicians would break UN seals on the Isfahan nuclear plant, allowing uranium processing to resume. Reprocessing uranium is a step below uranium enrichment, which is to remain suspended (Jerusalem Post, August 1, 2005).

In late August 2005, European powers called off talks with Iran about its nuclear program scheduled for August 31. French Foreign Ministry spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei said talks on a formal European proposal made earlier this month would not go ahead because Iran had resumed certain nuclear work in breach of a promise to freeze it while talks lasted (Reuters, August 24, 2005).

On September 2, 2005, the IAEA reported that Iran had produced about seven tons of the gas it needs for uranium enrichment since it restarted the process the previous month. A former UN nuclear inspector said that would be enough for an atomic weapon. In unusually strong language, an IAEA report also said questions remain about key aspects of Iran's 18 years of clandestine nuclear activity and that it still was unable “to conclude that there are no undeclared nuclear materials or activities in Iran” (Chicago Tribune, September 3, 2005).

On September 20, 2005, Iran threatened to resume uranium enrichment and bar open inspections of its nuclear facilities if the IAEA refers it to the Security Council for sanctions. Newly elected Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad defended his country's right to produce nuclear fuel in a fiery speech to the UN General Assembly and later raised worldwide concern about nuclear proliferation when he said, “Iran is ready to transfer nuclear know-how to the Islamic countries due to their need” (AP, September 15, 2005). Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, repeated the proliferation threat in April, telling the president of Sudan, “Iran’s nuclear capability is one example of various scientific capabilities in the country....The Islamic Republic of Iran is prepared to transfer the experience, knowledge and technology of its scientists” (New York Times, April 26, 2006).

In early November 2005, Iran rejected a call by European ministers for it to heed a resolution of the IAEA calling for a renewed freeze on all activities related to uranium enrichment. In another alarming development, Iran also approved a resolution accepting foreign participation in its nuclear enrichment plant (Jerusalem Post, (November 6, 2005). Iran began converting a new batch of uranium at the Isfahan facility, a move seen as provocative after rejecting international pleas to suspend such work (Washington Post, November 17, 2005). Meanwhile, the head of IAEA disclosed that in 1987 Iran obtained through the Khan network the blueprint for casting uranium required in making the core of a nuclear warhead, but this alone was not enough for the manufacture of a weapon (The Guardian, November 19, 2005). A few days later, a former spokesman for the National Council of the Resistance of Iran, an Iranian opposition group, said that, beginning in 1989, North Korea has helped Iran build dozens of underground tunnels and facilities for the construction of nuclear-capable missiles (ABC News, November 21, 2005).

In yet another apparent effort to demonstrate its unwillingness to be deterred by international opprobrium, Iran announced in early December 2005 plans to build two nuclear power plants in addition to the Bushehr reactor (Washington Post, December 6, 2005).

According to an intelligence assessment from July 2005 obtained by the Guardian in January 2006, Iran is aggressively trying to obtain the expertise, training, and equipment for developing nuclear weapons, a ballistic missile capable of reaching Europe, and biological and chemical weapons arsenals. The leak of the report came shortly after Iran notified the IAEA that it intended to resume nuclear fuel research (Guardian, January 4, 2006).

Iran has secretly extended the uranium enrichment plant at the Natanz site, which has led analysts to suspect that Iran is stepping up the pace of its weapons program. Moreover, a U.S. intelligence report says that Iran’s facilities appear to replicate those used to produce fissile material for nuclear weapons in Pakistan (Telegraph, January 22, 2006). In January 2007, however, Iran admitted that it was first installing 3,000 centrifuges, which indicated the nuclear program had fallen behind schedule, since these devices for uranium enrichment were to have been in place by the end of last year (AP, (January, 15, 2007). Iran also reportedly reached an agreement with North Korea to share all the data and information the Koreans received from their nuclear test in October 2006 with Teheran's nuclear scientists. Iran also stepped up its research activity and was said to be preparing for their own underground nuclear test (Daily Telegraph, January 24, 2007).

IAEA Refers Iran to Security Council
The five permanent members of the UN Security Council agreed on January 31, 2006, that the IAEA should refer Iran to the Security Council. The United States, Britain, China, Russia and France reached a compromise whereby the Security Council would wait until March before discussing any resolutions or punitive measures to give Iran an opportunity to change its policy. Earlier, Mohammed-Nabi Rudaki, deputy chairman of the Iranian parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, threatened to forcibly halt oil supply via the Straits of Hormuz if the UN imposed economic sanctions due to Iran's nuclear program (Haaretz, January 24, 2006).

The IAEA released a report February 1, 2006, which says the agency has evidence of links between Iran’s nuclear program and its military work on high explosives and missiles. The report documents work Iran has conducted on uranium processing, high explosives and a missile warhead design, which contradicts Iranian claims that it is only interested in electrical power. The IAEA also reiterated its past complaints that Iran has not been cooperative on all of the outstanding nuclear issues that the agency has been investigating (New York Times, February 1, 2006).

Following the IAEA decision, Iran announced that it had resumed uranium enrichment efforts and will no longer comply with voluntary measures designed to enhance international inspectors' access to its nuclear facilities (Washington Post, February 15, 2006).

Iran has begun testing about 20 centrifuges used in enriching fuel and is making improvements at its Natanz nuclear facility according to a February report by the IAEA. The organization also said that it was not “in a position to conclude that there are no undeclared nuclear materials or activities in Iran.” The report criticizes Iran for failing to reveal “the scope and nature” of its nuclear program despite three years of IAEA monitoring efforts (Washington Post, February 28, 2006).

The one remaining diplomatic option to avoid pursuing sanctions against Iran failed on on March 12 when Iran rejected an offer from Russia to enrich uranium on its behalf. Negotiations on the proposal were widely viewed as merely a tactical strategy Tehran was using to continue its program while staving off referral to the UN.

The Security Council urged Iran on March 29, 2006, to suspend its uranium-enrichment activities and asked the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency to report back on Iran's compliance within 30 days. The Council took its action in a presidential statement, a nonbinding declaration that needs unanimous support, which was possible only after the European authors of the final draft eliminated language suggesting that any Iranian drive to produce nuclear weapons would be a “threat to international peace and security” (New York Times, March 30, 2006).

Iran's Foreign Minister subsequently rejected the principle of a European package that would require Teheran to suspend uranium enrichment in exchange for support to a civilian nuclear program.

In May UN inspectors found traces of highly enriched uranium on equipment from an Iranian research center linked to the military. Initial reports suggested the density of enrichment was close to or above the level used to make nuclear warheads. But later a diplomat accredited to the IAEA said it was below that, although higher than the low-enriched material used to generate power and heading toward weapons-grade level (AP, May 13, 2006).

On July 31, 2006, the UN Security Council approved Resolution 1696, giving Iran until August 31 to verifiably suspend its uranium enrichment and reprocessing-related activities and implement full transparency measures requested by the IAEA. Though it is still unclear whether Russia and China will support more serious measures, the United States and its allies have made clear that they will ask the Security Council to impose economic and political sanctions if Iran fails to comply with the resolution. Iran immediately rejected the proposal and President Ahmadinejad called for the United States and Britain to be thrown off the Security Council, calling them criminals (JTA, August 2, 2006).

Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, responded to the resolution by insisting that Iran will expand - not suspend - uranium enrichment activities. “We will expand nuclear activities where required. It includes all nuclear technology including the string of centrifuges,” Larijani said, referring to the centrifuges Iran uses to enrich uranium (AP, August 6, 2006).

After Iran ignored Resolution 1696 calling for a freeze on its nuclear activities, the United States had hoped the Security Council would begin to impose sanctions. When France publicly opposed sanctions, however, it meant that three members of the council with a veto (Russia and China are the others) would not support the U.S. position. President Bush was subsequently forced to agree to set yet another deadline, this time early October, for Iran to comply. This was the fourth time in four months the Iranians were given additional time to agree to stop its uranium enrichment program in exchange for a variety of incentives (Washington Post, September 21, 2006).

The six world powers failed on December 5, 2006, to agree to a draft UN resolution to apply sanctions against Iran. The Europeans, the United States, Russia and China remained divided over the proposed bans on exports of sensitive materials, an assets freeze and travel ban on individuals and groups involved in Iran’s nuclear program. EU diplomats say the sanctions will be largely symbolic but that unanimous approval of even mild sanctions will signal that the world is determined to stop Iran obtaining nuclear arms. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his country would consider it an act of “enmity” if France, Britain and Germany tried to block Tehran’s nuclear development and would reconsider ties with them (Reuters, December 7, 2006).

On December 23, 2006, the Security Council unanimously passed resolution 1737 “blocking the import or export of sensitive nuclear materiel and equipment and freezing the financial assets of persons or entities supporting its proliferation sensitive nuclear activities or the development of nuclear-weapon delivery systems.” The resolution requires Iran to suspend “all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, including research and development; and work on all heavy-water related projects, including the construction of a research reactor moderated by heavy water.” The Council also decided that “all States should prevent the supply, sale or transfer, for the use by or benefit of Iran, of related equipment and technology, if the State determined that such items would contribute to enrichment-related, reprocessing or heavy-water related activities, or to the development of nuclear weapon delivery systems.” The Council requested a report within 60 days from the Director General of IAEA on whether Iran had complied with the resoluiton.

Missiles and Biochemical Threats
In August 2004, Iran tested a new version of its ballistic Shahab-3 missile (“Shahab” means shooting star in Farsi), which was already capable of reaching Israel and U.S. forces in the Middle East. The Iranians subsequently announced the missile's range had been improved from 810 miles to 1,200 (AP, October 5, 2004). Iran says the missile is entirely Iranian-made, but U.S. officials say the missile is based on the North Korean “No Dong” missile design and produced in Iran. The United States also accuses China of assisting Iran's missile program. Earlier, in June 2004, Iran announced that it was producing a stealth missile, a rocket that can evade electronic detection (AP, June 1, 2004).

Iran reportedly tested a Shahab-4 missile designed to have a range of 4,000 kilometers in January 2006. In addition, Iranian opposition figure Alireza Jafarzadeh told the AP that Iran is now producing 90 Shahab-3 missiles, more than four times its previous production rate (Scotsman.com, March 2, 2006). In January 2007, the deputy director of the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency said North Korea and Iran are cooperating in developing long-range missiles. Iran, he said, is also working on a space launcher that could allow it to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that could hit the U.S. (Washington Times, January 30, 2007).

In March 2005, Ukraine admitted that it had exported to Iran cruise missiles that are capable of reaching Israel and carrying nuclear weapons. In 2001, 12 Soviet-era X-55 cruise missiles with a range of 3,500 kilometers were exported to Iran.

Iran is also believed to have the capability to produce a variety of biological and chemical weapons. According to the CIA, “Iran may have already stockpiled blister, blood, choking, and possibly nerve agents — and the bombs and artillery shells to deliver them — which it previously had manufactured.” In addition, the CIA says, “Even though Iran is part of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), Tehran probably maintained an offensive BW program. Iran continued to seek dual-use biotechnical materials, equipment, and expertise that could be used in Tehran's BW program. Iran probably has the capability to produce at least small quantities of BW agents.”

In late 2005, Jane's Defence Weekly reported that Iran is providing technical assistance to help Syria develop the means to produce VX and Sarin nerve agents and mustard blister agent.

In December 2005, Russia announced plans to sell short-range, surface-to-air missiles to Iran. Moscow agreed to sell $1 billion worth of weapons to Iran, including up to 30 Tor-M1 missile systems over the next two years. Tor missiles can identify up to 48 targets and fire at two targets simultaneously at a height of up to 20,000 feet.

Iran has also acquired North Korean missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads and reaching Europe, according to Israel’s military intelligence chief. Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin said Iran received a shipment of BM-25s, which have a range of 1,500 miles (JTA, April 28, 2006).

Sponsoring Terror
Iran is the patron — spiritually and financially — for most of the region's Islamic militants. It is the Iranian model of revolution, its institution of Islamic law and its anti-Western philosophy that characterize the rhetoric of many extremist groups. And it is Iranian money that often pays for the weapons, training and literature that are the backbone of Islamic extremist violence.

In October 2005, a senior Palestinian intelligence official revealed that Iran has promised a reward of $10,000 to Islamic Jihad if it launches rockets from the West Bank toward Tel Aviv. The money is transferred from Iran to Syria, from where Ibrahim Shehadeh, Islamic Jihad’s head of overseas operations, forwards it to the West Bank (Sunday Times, October 30, 2005).

Tehran has been linked to numerous anti-West and anti-Israel terrorist attacks, ranging from taking hostages and hijacking airliners to carrying out assassinations and bombings. Some of these incidents include the taking of more than 30 Western hostages in Lebanon from 1984 through 1992, the bombings of the U.S. Embassy and the French-U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983, the 1992 terrorist attack on the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires and on the Argentine Jewish communal building in 1994. Iran also provides transit and temporary safe haven to members of al-Qaida.

Deadly terror weapons have also been smuggled into the hands of Iranian-sponsored groups such as Hezbollah and used against Israeli civilians in commando-style raids. New rockets, more advanced than the Katyusha, were delivered to Hezbollah by Iran and may be used to bombard northern Israel.

A Military Response?
London's Sunday Times (March 13, 2005) claimed that Israel has a plan to attack Iran's nuclear reactor and that the U.S. would not block the attack if diplomatic efforts fail to contain Iran's nuclear development. Both Israel and the United States denied the report though both are widely believed to be contemplating military action if diplomacy fails. Labor MK Ephraim Sneh said that military action would be a last resort and Israel was hopeful the international community would reach a diplomatic agreement to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons (Jerusalem Post, March 13, 2005).

Meanwhile, Iran was reportedly using reinforced materials and tunneling deep underground to store nuclear components in an effort to protect them in the event of an attack (AP, March 4, 2005). More recent reports have indicated that Iran is racing to dig a network of tunnels and upgrade its air defences to protect its nuclear facilities from possible attacks (Telegraph, January 25, 2006).

Masud Yazaiari, spokesperson of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, warned in the past that Iran would respond to any Israeli efforts to stop their nuclear program. “Their threats to attack our nuclear facilities will not succeed,” Yazaiari said. “They are aware that Tehran's response would be overwhelming and would wipe Israel off the face of the earth” (Maariv, July 27, 2004).

Iran has also asked the UN to lift sanctions on the country's uranium testing and conversion that were determined by the Paris Agreement. Iran claims that the testing is for peaceful purposes only. The United States is concerned, however, that Iran will seek to advance its nuclear capability and with it, its potential threat to Israel and other countries (CNN, July 6, 2005).

Threats Against Israel and America
"The only way to confront the Zionist enemy is the continuation and fortification of resistance and Jihad," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was quoted as saying September 3, 2005, in a meeting with the militant group Islamic Jihad's secretary general Ramazan Abdullah (AFP, September 3, 2005). In October 2005, recently elected PresidentMahmoud Ahmadinejad quoted Ayatollah Khomeini and declared, “As the Imam said, Israel must be wiped off the map.” The president added: “And God willing, with the force of God behind it, we shall soon experience a world without the United States and Zionism” (AP, October 26, 2005).

President Bush said February 16, 2005, “Iran has made it clear that they don't like Israel, to put it bluntly. And the Israelis are concerned about whether or not Iran develops a nuclear weapon, as are we, as should everybody....Clearly, if I was the leader of Israel, and I listened to some of the statements by the Iranian ayatollahs that regarded my security of my country, I'd be concerned about Iran having a nuclear weapon, as well. And in that Israel is our ally, and in that we've made a very strong commitment to support Israel, we will support Israel if their security is threatened.”

Iran's nonconventional weapons are not a threat only toward Israel, they also pose a danger to the United States and its interests around the world. And the American people recognize this danger. According to a January 2006 Gallup poll, 19% of Americans see Iran as an immediate threat to the United States and another 65% said Iran is a long-term threat.

On June 15, 2006, Iran’s defense minister, Mostafa Mohammad Najjar, signed an agreement with his Syrian counterpart, Hassan Turkmani, for military cooperation against what they called the “common threats” presented by Israel and the United States. “Our cooperation is based on a strategic pact and unity against common threats,” said Turkmani. “We can have a common front against Israel’s threats.”