The Omega Letter Intelligence Digest
Vol: 55 Issue: 12 - Wednesday, April 12, 2006
"Iran Has Joined the Club of Nuclear Nations"
Israeli intelligence estimates dating back to 2001 concerning Iran's nuclear timetable proved themselves to be off by about two weeks.
In '01, the Mossad estimated Iran would announce its entry into the 'nuclear club' by March '06. This is April.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made the announcement April 10 during a national televised ceremony aimed at building domestic support for Iran's nuclear program.
"At this historic moment, with the blessings of God Almighty and the efforts made by our scientists, I declare here that the laboratory-scale nuclear fuel cycle has been completed and young scientists produced enriched uranium needed to the degree for nuclear power plants Sunday," Mr. Ahmadinejad said.
"I formally declare that Iran has joined the club of nuclear countries," he said. The crowd broke into cheers of "Allahu akbar," or "God is great."
The West broke out in a sweat.
The ceremony was bizarre; almost mystical. Costumed dancers performed while holding aloft vials of raw uranium, chanting 'allahu akbar' hypnotically.
Iran admits to having successfully built a 164-centrifuge enrichment chain. Western analysts say this means Iran is still a couple of years from having enough U-235 for a bomb, since it would take thousands of centrifuges to make a workable program.
But nuclear scientists say that getting the first centrifuge chain to work was the critical issue. Now that they have a working centrifuge chain, Iran's estimate that it will have 3,000 centrifuges working by year's end, they say, is entirely feasible.
Speaking before the president, Iran's nuclear chief -- Vice President Gholamreza Aghazadeh -- told the audience that Iran has produced 110 tons of uranium gas, the feedstock that is pumped into centrifuges for enrichment.
The amount is nearly twice the 60 tons that Iran said last year that it had produced -- an amount that former U.N. nuclear inspector David Albright said would be enough to produce up to 20 nuclear bombs if Iran developed the capacity.
Aghazadeh also said a heavy water nuclear reactor, under construction near Arak in central Iran, will be completed by early 2009.
The bottom line regarding Iran is that we don't know exactly how long it will take, but the eventual outcome is certain. Iran will attain its goal of obtaining nuclear weapons. The nuclear Pandora's Box will be thrown open to radical Islam.
And the global consequences are almost unthinkable.
Assessment:
Suppose Ahmadinejad DID get The Bomb? Would he really use it? It is hard to say, which doesn't offer much in the way of assurance.
Ahmadinejad is a follower of the 12th Imam, (the Mahdi). Islamic tradition holds that the Mahdi will make his appearance on a white horse at the head of a global Islamic army he will lead to victory against the infidel world.
Islam scholars say Islam's Mahdi is prefigured in the Book of the Revelation as the rider on the white horse of Revelation 6:3. (Christian scholars identify the rider on the white horse as the antichrist.)
The Mahdi's war, Ahmadinejad believes, will kill a third of mankind before Islam achieves its ultimate victory. And Ahmadinejad believes that he is the one appointed to start that end-times' war.
Finally, and most significantly, Ahmadinejad believes the Mahdi will make his reappearance in two years. That is about the same time that the majority opinion says Ahmadinejad will have at his disposal the means to achieve the Mahdi's apocalyptic body count.
On the other hand, while Ahmadinejad might be a religious nut, he doesn't seem to be a suicidal religious nut. There is only one workable defense against a nuclear attack -- the military doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD).
The MAD doctrine kept the Soviet nuclear arsenal in check for forty years and it is what keeps Russian nukes at bay today. Ahmadinejad knows that any first use of a nuclear weapon would invite a nuclear response that would vaporize Iran's Islamic Republic.
A missile launched from Iran would invoke an immediate nuclear response.
On the other hand, a nuclear attack by al-Qaeda would be far less cut-and-dried while accomplishing the same thing while intitally concealing Iran's involvement.
A sneak nuclear attack without immediate evidence of the source would demand an investigation before any retaliation would be likely. Iran might eventually be linked as the source of the nukes, but Ahmadinejad is evidently gambling that by the time the link is established, the passage of time will have pushed the nuclear retaliation option off the table.
Ahmadinejad's defiant proclamation that Iran has joined the club of nuclear nations leaves absolutely zero doubt as to his eventual intentions.
If Western estimates are correct, the Ahmadinejad ALSO knows it will take about two more years to enrich enough material for a bomb. Ahmadinejad's expectation that the Mahdi's appearance is about two years away is more likely a case of his telegraphing his battle plan than it is that it is a coincidence.
There is a common misconception about Bible prophecy and the Rapture among Dispensationalists that lends itself to the belief that nothing bad will happen until AFTER the Rapture has happened. I call that a 'misconception' because it has no Scriptural support behind it.
The Book of the Revelation forecasts judgments and plagues that will kill 'a third of mankind' or a 'fourth part of mankind' -- which leads Dispensationalists to believe that Ahmadinejad's planned Islamic war to kill off a third of humanity MUST be a post-Rapture event.
Not necessarily. If a nuclear war with Islam killed off half of the earth's population tomorrow, it would have no impact on the horrific percentages forecast by the Apostle John. They would simply be percentages of a smaller surviving population.
I am in no way saying that Ahmadinejad's Mahdi IS the antichrist, neither am I affording any credibility to any 'prophecy' of Islam, apart from the fact that Bible prophecy forecasts much the same future scenario.
But Ahmadinejad believes it. And HE is the one who will have his finger on the nuclear button.
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