• COMMENTARY •
Four of America’s top security experts warn Iran could strike the U.S.
BY WILLIAM R. GRAHAM, HENRY F. COOPER, FRITZ ERMARTH, AND PETER VINCENT PRY
R
egardless of intelligence uncertainties and
unknowns about Iran’s nuclear weapons and missile programs, we know enough now to make a prudent judgment that Iran should be regarded by national security decision-makers as a nuclear missile state capable of posing an existential threat to the United States and its allies. On Jan. 22, The Jerusalem Post reported
that Iran deployed a new intercontinental ballistic missile “whose range far exceeds the distance between Iran and Israel, and between Iran and Europe.” It was also shown on Israeli television. Iran’s development of an ICBM at this time would be consistent with unclassified U.S. intelligence community reports that in 2013 warned Iran could test an ICBM by 2015. Iran and others claim the missile is not a military ICBM for delivering nuclear warheads but a peaceful Space Launch Vehicle (SLV) for orbiting satellites.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
This is a distinction without
a diff erence. Iran has a demonstrated
capability to orbit satellites weighing over a ton, which means it could also deliver a nuclear warhead against the U.S. or any nation on earth. Indeed, Iran has orbited
GRAHAM COOPER ERMARTH PRY Dr. William R. Graham served as President Reagan’s
science adviser, administrator of NASA, and chairman of the Congressional EMP Commission. Ambassador Henry F. Cooper was director of the
Strategic Defense Initiative and chief U.S. negotiator to the defense and space talks with the USSR. Fritz Ermarth was chairman of the National Intelligence
Council. Dr. Peter Vincent Pry is executive director of the Task
Force on National and Homeland Security, a congressional advisory board, and served in the Congressional EMP Commission, the Strategic Posture Commission, the House Armed Services Committee, and the CIA.
several satellites on south polar trajectories passing over the western hemisphere from south to north, as if practicing to elude U.S. ballistic missile early warning radars and national missile defenses, which are oriented to detect and intercept threats coming from the north. Moreover, the altitude of
these satellites, if they were carrying a nuclear weapon detonated over the center of the U.S., was in all three cases near optimum for generating an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) field across all 48 contiguous United States. EMP could cause a
58 NEWSMAX | MARCH 2015
protracted blackout of the national electric grid and other life-sustaining critical infrastructures. Iranian military writings
describe eliminating the United States with an EMP attack. Rep. Trent Franks in congressional testimony given in December 2014 noted that an of icial Iranian military document, recently translated by the intelligence community, endorses making a nuclear EMP attack against the United States. The document describes the decisive eff ects of an EMP attack no fewer than 20 times. Iran has missiles capable of
delivering a nuclear weapon, but does Iran have a nuclear warhead? Seven years ago, in 2008, Mohamed ElBaradei, then director general of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), warned that Iran could develop a nuclear
MISSILE LAUNCH/AY-COLLECTION/REX USA / GRAHAM/COURTESY OF NASA COOPER/COURTESY OF U.S. DEPT. OF DEFENSE / PRY/COURTESY OF FAMILY SECURITY MATTERS
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