Inside the Revolution

by Joel C. Rosenberg

  Jafarzadeh certainly knows what he’s talking about. An outspoken advocate of a “non-nuclear, secular, democratic state” in the country of his birth, it was Jafarzadeh who on August 14, 2002, held a press conference in Washington to reveal the existence of two top secret Iranian nuclear weapons research facilities. Up to that point, both facilities—a uranium enrichment plant in Natanz, about 100 miles north of Isfahan, and a heavy-water uranium production plant in Arak, about 150 miles south of Tehran—were completely unknown to U.S. or Western intelligence agencies. But the existence and significance of both have now been confirmed by the CIA and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), intensifying Western fears that Iran is hiding advanced nuclear weapons research facilities and could be closer to the Bomb than previously believed. During his 2002 news conference, Jafarzadeh also revealed that in a closed session of the Iranian regime’s Supreme National Security Council earlier that year, it had been agreed that “access to [a] nuclear bomb is the most important guarantor of our survival and in case of having the bomb, the Western countries will not be able to block penetration and expansion of the Islamic Revolution.”10

  Senator John McCain is also deeply concerned about Iran’s nuclear ambitions and the implications of the mullahs getting the Bomb. “There’s only one thing worse than using the option of military action [to stop Iran], and that is the Iranians acquiring nuclear weapons,” the Arizona Republican said on NBC’s Meet the Press while gearing up to run for president. If Iran gets the Bomb, he said, “I think we could have Armageddon.”11

  The Clock Is Ticking

  The bottom line: time is running out.

  Western diplomatic efforts to persuade Tehran to abandon its feverish bid for nuclear weapons have not succeeded as of this writing. Nor have economic sanctions. By the fall of 2008, Iran claimed to have upwards of 6,000 operational centrifuges, sophisticated machines that can turn low-grade uranium into highly enriched, weapons-grade, bomb-making material.

  Senior Israeli intelligence officials tell me they now fear Iran could have operational nuclear weapons by the end of 2009 or sometime in 2010. Senior U.S. intelligence and military officials tell me they think we have a bit more time. Some believe Iran will not have the Bomb until perhaps 2011. Others believe it could be as late as 2015.

  Hopefully, those who say Iran is still quite a few years off from having nuclear weapons are right. But all the military and intelligence officials I interviewed for this book readily acknowledge that no one knows for certain how close Iran is to getting the “Islamic Bomb” and either holding hostage every power in the Middle East or actually carrying out their apocalyptic agenda.

  In the end, it may not matter if U.S. and European intelligence analysts believe the world has more time before Iran gets the Bomb. It may not even matter if they are correct in their analysis. Why not? Because if the U.S. and NATO refuse to take military action to neutralize the Iranian nuclear threat, and if Israel thinks that time has run out, leaders in Jerusalem may feel as if they are in the same situation their fathers were in 1967.

  Then, Israel’s enemies threatened to “throw the Jews into the sea” while they amassed state-of-the-art military forces on the borders of the Jewish state. Israeli officials faced an existential threat, and they concluded that they had no choice but to launch a preemptive strike in the hopes of neutralizing, if not eliminating, that threat. If they waited to be attacked, they feared they could be hit so hard, so fast, with so much firepower that they could never recover. So strike they did. Miraculously, the war lasted only six days.

  Today, Israel faces an even more dangerous scenario than that of 1967. If Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei and President Ahmadinejad are able to acquire nuclear warheads and attach them to the high-speed ballistic missiles already in their possession, they would be in a position to accomplish in about six minutes what it took Adolf Hitler nearly six years to do: kill six million Jews.

  Israeli leaders may, therefore, choose a strategy similar to the one their predecessors chose in 1967. In this case, they may launch a massive air and missile strike against Iranian nuclear facilities, air bases, missile launchers, air defense systems, and possibly government offices and critical infrastructure facilities before Iran has the opportunity to strike Israel first.

  Such a move may prove necessary in the end, but it could also set the whole region on fire. Israel could face hundreds of incoming retaliatory missiles from Iran as well as tens of thousands of incoming ballistic missiles and rockets from Syria, from Hezbollah in Lebanon, from Hamas in Gaza, and possibly from the West Bank, as well. Some of these missiles could be carrying chemical or biological warheads, even if the nuclear warheads in Iran were not in the picture. Ballistic missiles could also be fired from Iran at the oil fields in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, at oil tankers in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, and at U.S. bases and forces in Iraq. Thousands of suicide bomber cells could be activated in the region, particularly against Iraq and Israel. At the same time, sleeper terrorist cells could be activated in Western Europe, Canada, and the United States.

  Meanwhile, terrorist efforts to topple pro-Western Middle Eastern leaders, such as Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak, in favor of Radical Islamic regimes friendly to Tehran could also be set in motion. Amid such global carnage and chaos, oil prices could soar to $300 a barrel or more. U.S. gas prices could spike to $10 a gallon or more, with horrific domestic and international economic repercussions. Worst of all, tens of millions of innocent civilians could be caught in the cross fire of a war they don’t want but cannot prevent.

  The View from Jerusalem

  General Moshe Ya’alon, former chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Forces, sees a major war with Iran coming soon because the West has been so feckless and unconvincing in confronting the regime in Tehran. When I met with him in his office in Jerusalem, he was clear and direct. “The confrontation with the Iranian regime is inevitable, and it is going to be a military one rather than a political one because of the lack of determination when it comes to the international community to deal with it [the Iranian threat] by political or economic means. And we can’t avoid it, unless we are going to give up our way of life, our values, our culture.”12

  “How much time does the West have to make a decision about how to stop Iran?” I asked.

  “When it comes to the Iranian military nuclear project,” he said, “it is in terms of a couple of years—might be a couple of months.”

  That was March of 2007.

  “Can the West successfully stop Iran?” I pressed.

  It can, he insisted, if it gets serious—quickly. “In military terms, the Iranians are not so strong.” The problem, he said, is that “the West has a lack of determination. There are few leaders today who really understand that we are engaged in World War III.”

  Like Generals Boykin and Ya’alon, former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is also worried about the rising Iranian nuclear threat and the West’s inability or unwillingness thus far to confront the crisis effectively. And he, too, believes the day of reckoning is fast approaching.

  “I think the West misunderstood, and still misunderstands, the threat of Radical Islam,” he told me in his Tel Aviv office in March of 2007. “It is a fanatic, messianic ideology that seeks to have an apocalyptic battle for world supremacy with the West. It seeks to correct what its disciples see as an accident of history, where the West has risen and Islam has declined. The correction is supposed to be accomplished by the resurrection of an Islamic empire and the acquisition and use of nuclear weapons, if necessary, to obliterate Islam’s enemies, and to subjugate the rest. This is a pathological ideology, much like Nazism was. And it poses a threat, in my judgment, in many ways bigger than Nazism because Hitler embarked on a world conflict and then sought to achieve nuclear weapons, whereas the leading radical Islamic regime, Iran, is seeking to first acquire nuclear weapons and then embark on a world conflict. And that is what is
not yet understood in the West, and certainly, if it’s understood, it’s not acted upon.

  “Once Iran has nuclear weapons,” Netanyahu continued, “they could threaten the West in ways that are unimaginable today. They could take over the Persian Gulf on all its sides and take control of the oil reserves of the world, most of them. They could topple Saudi Arabia and Jordan in short order. And, of course, Iraq. All your internal debates in America on Iraq would be irrelevant, because nuclear-armed Iran would subordinate Iraq in two seconds. And, of course, they threaten to create a second Holocaust in Israel and proceed on their idea of building a global empire, producing twenty-five atomic bombs a year—250 bombs in a decade—with missiles that they are already working on, to reach the eastern seaboard of the United States. Everything else pales in comparison to this development. This has to be stopped.”

  How much time, I asked him, does the West have to act decisively to stop Iran?

  “Not much,” he replied. “We are running out of time. I can’t tell you if it’s a period of months or a few years. Certainly no more than a few years.”13

  Chapter Two

  “Islam Is the Answer; Jihad Is the Way”

  Who are the Radicals, and what do they want?

  Over the course of researching this book, I read hundreds of books, speeches, articles, and Web sites written and produced by Radicals themselves. For weeks on end I would come out of my office at night and slump down at the kitchen table for dinner with my wife, Lynn, and our boys, feeling gloomy and depressed. When you read what the jihadists are actually saying and begin to comprehend the evil they have in their hearts, it is sobering to say the least.

  But equally distressing, I have to say, is the fact that there are far too many in positions of American national leadership and in the media who either are not studying the Radicals carefully or simply are not taking them seriously. Inexplicably, they are stuck in a pre–9/11 mind-set and seem unwilling or unable to see or comprehend the dangers that lie just ahead.

  In the midst of the 2008 presidential campaign, for example, Senator Barack Obama, the Illinois Democrat, made a shocking statement at a town hall in Oregon. He argued that Iran was a tiny country, not a “serious threat” to the United States, Israel, or our allies in the Middle East. “I mean, think about it,” he explained. “Iran, Cuba, Venezuela—these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don’t pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us. You know, Iran—they spend one one-hundredth of what we spend on the military.”14

  The press was stunned. American Jewish leaders were stunned. So were many supporters of Senator Obama. Was this a gaffe? Or did Obama actually believe that Iran was not a serious threat? Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, sharply criticized his rival. “Such a statement betrays the depth of Senator Obama’s inexperience and reckless judgment,” he argued in an address in Obama’s hometown of Chicago. “The threat the government of Iran poses is anything but tiny.”15

  The next day, Senator Obama did an about-face. He changed his tune during a speech in Billings, Montana. “Iran is a grave threat,” he said, reading from a prepared text. “It has an illicit nuclear program. It supports terrorism across the region and militias in Iraq. It threatens Israel’s existence. It denies the Holocaust.”16

  Obama’s new statement certainly conformed to accepted international opinion. It echoed views expressed by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, the New York Democrat and Obama’s chief rival at the time. It also echoed the views of then president Bush. But did it express what Senator Obama really believed? Had he misspoken one day and given his real view the next? Or was it possible that Obama’s initial, unscripted comment in Oregon provided a more accurate window into how the forty-six-year-old political novice truly viewed the Iranian nuclear threat?

  If it is the latter, Obama would certainly not have been alone. The world is replete with skeptics about the Iranian leadership’s intentions and capabilities, from diplomats to intelligence professionals, to academics, to journalists.

  Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov, for example, insisted in 2007 that “North Korea poses a fundamental threat, but Iran does not.”17

  Scott Ritter, a former Marine Corps intelligence officer and former United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq, argued in 2007 that “Iran has never manifested itself as a serious threat to the national security of the United States, or by extension as a security threat to global security. . . . Iran as a nation represents absolutely no threat to the national security of the United States, or of its major allies in the region, including Israel.”18

  Nikki R. Keddie, history professor at the University of California at Los Angeles and author of Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution, wrote in 2006 that “Ahmadinejad’s statements have an audience in the Muslim world, perhaps even more than in Iran, but they do not mean that Iran intends aggressive acts. Ahmadinejad is far from insane.”19

  Ted Koppel, the former host of ABC’s Nightline, has also belittled the Iranian nuclear threat. He even suggested—in a 2006 op-ed in the New York Times, no less—that the world should allow Iran to get the Bomb. “Washington should instead bow to the inevitable,” he insisted. “If Iran is bound and determined to have nuclear weapons, let it.”20

  CNN founder Ted Turner went even further. “They [Iran] are a sovereign state—we have 28,000 [nuclear warheads]—why can’t they have 10?” he argued in 2006. “They aren’t usable by any sane person.”21

  What the Radicals Say They Want

  Are such “experts” correct?

  Should we permit the Radicals to have a nuclear weapon, or ten?

  Before we do, it might be worth a closer examination of the ambitions of the Radicals in general and the Iranian regime in particular. After all, the Radicals are not shy about explaining their goals and rallying millions to help them accomplish those plans.

  “The governments of the world should know that . . . Islam will be victorious in all the countries of the world, and Islam and the teachings of the Qur’an will prevail all over the world.” —Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in January 197922

  “We must strive to export our Revolution throughout the world.” —Ayatollah Khomeini on March 21, 198023

  “We don’t shy away from declaring that Islam is ready to rule the world. . . . We must believe in the fact that Islam is not confined to geographical borders, ethnic groups, and nations. It’s a universal ideology that leads the world to justice. . . . We must prepare ourselves to rule the world.” —Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on January 5, 200624

  “I meet with you today . . . under the banner of the blessed awakening of the Ummah [Islamic nation] that is sweeping the world. . . . The world’s largest infidel military force [the Soviet Union] was destroyed. The myth of the superpower withered in the face of the Mujahideen’s [Islamic jihadists] cries of ‘God is great!’ Today, we work from the same mountains to free the Ummah from the injustice that has been imposed on it by the Zionist-Crusader alliance . . . [and create] the forthcoming pan-Islamic state. . . . Our Lord, shatter our enemies, divide them among themselves, shake the earth under their feet, and give us control of them.” —Osama bin Laden on August 23, 199625

  “We have ruled the world before, and by Allah, the day will come when we will rule the entire world again. The day will come when we will rule America. The day will come when we will rule Britain and the entire world.” —Sheikh Ibrahim Mudeiris, a leading Palestinian cleric in Gaza, on May 13, 200526

  “Our mission: world domination” —Slogan featured on the front page of a Muslim Brotherhood publication in London in 200127

  Restoring the caliphate and building an Islamic empire that literally encompasses the entire globe is, without question, the expressed goal of the Radicals, be they Shia Muslims or Sunnis. It has been a goal since the seventh century, when Muhammad, whom Muslims revere as a prophet, walked the earth. But whereas once this notion was a dream—desired but far
off—many Radicals now believe it is actually achievable as history, in their view, draws to a conclusion and the end of the world approaches.

  In 1979, there were three countries that, in the eyes of the Radicals, stood in the way of world domination: the Soviet Union, Israel, and the United States. The collapse of the U.S.S.R. on Christmas Day 1991 dramatically emboldened the Radicals. “One down, two to go,” they reasoned, and Israel was widely perceived as the next target.

  “It is the mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to erase Israel from the map of the region.” —Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in January 200128

  “One bomb is enough to destroy Israel. . . . In due time the Islamic world will have a military nuclear device.” —Iranian president Rafsanjani in December 200129

  “Rafsanjani Says Muslims Should Use Nuclear Weapon against Israel.” —Headline from the Iran Press Service, December 14, 200130

  “Israel must be wiped off the map.” —Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on October 26, 200531

  “Like it or not, the Zionist regime is heading toward annihilation. . . . The Zionist regime is a rotten, dried tree that will be eliminated by one storm . . . [because] its existence has harmed the dignity of Islamic nations.” —Ahmadinejad on April 14, 200632

  “I must announce that the Zionist regime [Israel], with a 60-year record of genocide, plunder, invasion, and betrayal is about to die and will soon be erased from the geographical scene.” —Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on June 2, 200833

  “If they [Jews] all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide.” —Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah on October 23, 2002, alluding to Shia Muslims’ end times belief that it is God’s will to create Israel briefly so that it can be destroyed34