Posted by: Jon Henke on Tuesday, March 28, 2006 Let's take the "nuclear Iran = mushroom cloud over New York" crowd at their word for a moment. If this is the calculation that should drive our foreign policy towards Iran, what steps should we expect that crowd to endorse? Clearly, Iran does not have a missile program capable of reaching the United States — or even come close. In 2004, Iran announced that it had upgraded its Shahab-3 missile to a range of 2000km. Jane's describes the "enhanced Shahab", with "ranges of 1,300 km-1,500 km and 2,000 km respectively". However, it's very doubtful Iran could produce a small enough nuclear payload for that missile. Any potential nuclear weapon Iran could produce would be limited to use in its own neighborhood for quite some time... Iran’s chances of building an ICBM that can reach the United States arer pretty low for the near term—Iran would have to build a missile with a range of 9,000 or 10,000 km. Delivering a warhead with an ICBM also requires a shielded re-entry vehicle to protect the warhead that impose a substantial weight penalty.So, if a nuclear Iran really does pose a direct "mushroom cloud" threat to the United States, the only viable delivery mechanism left to them is what you might call manual delivery: terrorism. If the Right is genuinely concerned about a nuclear Iran posing a direct threat to the US, it follows that they loudly support a terrorism equivalent to the missile defense program, right? Not so much... Today, House Republicans voted almost unanimously against an amendment to beef up port security and install radiation monitors at all U.S. ports of entry. They also blocked consideration of an amendment to require 100% scanning of shipping containers entering the United States. I think this tells you just how seriously they take the actual threat of a nuclear Iran.And, while Chertoff says we're working on increasing security this year, security is lax Two teams of government investigators using fake documents were able to enter the United States with enough radioactive sources to make two dirty bombs, according to a federal report made available Monday.There are legitimate reasons to worry about a nuclear Iran, but those reasons are predominantly the prestige, flexibility and influence it would give the Iranian regime in the Middle East, rather than actual nuclear attacks. Insofar as nuclear strikes are a concern, though — really, from any nuclear or near-nuclear rogue state — hawks don't appear to be taking the defense steps that correspond to their demagoguery. |
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