Abu Wabu

Updated Jan. 19 2006

Frank J. Gaffney Jr. writes of the biggest threat emanating from Iran:

In fact, there is reason to believe the Iranian regime is working toward a capability that could destroy America as we know it. A blue-ribbon commission's report to the Congress last year (http://empcreport.ida.org/) found a single nuclear weapon detonated in space high above the United States could unleash an immensely powerful electromagnetic pulse (EMP). An EMP wave a million times stronger than the most powerful radio transmitter would damage or destroy the electrical grid and unshielded electronic devices upon which our society utterly depends. The effect (visualized in a short video available at www.WarFooting.com) could be "catastrophic" -- possibly reducing America from a 21st century superpower to a pre-industrial society in the blink of an eye.

Iranian missile tests -- including firing a Scud missile off a ship and flying the new Shahab 3 missile in a profile apparently designed to deliver a weapon into space -- suggest the mullahs seek an EMP capability. The sort of death and destruction such an attack might precipitate seem consistent with the apocalyptic vision of Shi'ite extremists, who believe such conditions the prerequisite for a messianic age ushered in by the arrival of the "12th imam."

If this is, indeed, what the Iranian regime has in mind, would we wait to act? Would we continue to contract out to the Europeans or the United Nations the protection of our security interests? Would we allow the Israelis -- who are under no illusion their country faces an existential threat from a nuclear-armed Iran -- to act alone against a danger we may share?

The threat posed by Iran to North America, Europe and Israel is real. This is no time for wishful thinking, hand-wringing and fantasizing about diplomacy with a bunch of mad fools. It is time to destroy the Iranian leadership and its support structures. Failure to do so will mean the end of civilization as we know it. The worst that could come of a successful attack on Iran's nuclear threat, as imagined by Charles Krauthammer, would be nothing compared to the hell Iran is almost ready to visit upon this Earth.

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