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Iran, terrorists and
nukes
"If Iran goes nuclear, you worry that Hezbollah goes nuclear." So
said Paul Leventhal, president of the Nuclear Control Institute in a
New York Times article and an interview yesterday with The
Washington Times. Mr. Leventhal points to an often-overlooked danger
that Iranian possession of nuclear weapons would pose: that the
regime could pass along nuclear weapons to Hezbollah or other
terrorist organizations that it supports.
It is not beyond the realm of
possibility that Hezbollah could try to smuggle a crude nuclear
device into the hold of a ship or a truck and deliver it to a highly
populated Israeli city. According to Mr. Leventhal, if such a
fissile device functioned poorly, it would result in an explosion
with the power of 1,000 tons of TNT, resulting in radiation
contamination and a catastrophic number of casualties. If such a
device functioned properly, it could result in an explosion with the
power of 15,000 tons to 20,000 tons of TNT — roughly equivalent to
the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in August 1945.
This
is, to be sure, very much a worst-case scenario. But, given the
nature of the Iranian government — a regime striving to obtain
nuclear weapons that has supported terrorism from its inception a
quarter-century ago — it would be folly to simply dismiss the
possibility that it might decide to transfer nuclear weapons to one
of its terrorist allies. (After all, how many people on Sept. 10,
2001, would have seriously entertained a conversation about hijacked
planes destroying the Twin Towers?)
When
you have a nation that actively supports terrorism and seeks nuclear
weapons, "you cannot rule out the possibility" that it could
collaborate with terrorists "to carry out nuclear violence," Mr.
Leventhal says of Iran.
Despite Iran's
protests to the contrary, all signs suggest that Iran's nuclear
program is anything but peaceful. Last month, Iranian exile Alizera
Jafarzadeh (who in August 2002 disclosed that Iran had a covert
uranium enrichment facility at Natanz and a heavy water plant at
Arak) told Reuters that Iranian Revolutionary Guards are overseeing
400 nuclear experts to prevent further leaks of sensitive
information about the country's nuclear facilities.
The International Atomic Energy Agency
will meet next month in Vienna to discuss the Iranian nuclear
program. All indications are that the United States will reluctantly
agree to postpone action against Iran — effectively leaving the
issue to the European Union for now. Given the Europeans' dismal
track record to date, this hardly seems promising.
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