Because of the advanced nature of its nuclear weapons infrastructure, The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is the western world’s public enemy number one at the moment. North Korea recently launched its third successful nuclear explosion. North Korea, a country that doesn’t shy away from unvarnished rhetoric, has repeatedly said the aim of its nuclear program is to have the capability to hit the continental United States. It has also threatened the Republic of Korea with what it calls “final destruction.”
North Korea is unquestionably a terrorist state. However, it is not the single greatest state sponsor of terror. That ignominious title goes to Iran, a country which is also unvarnished with its rhetoric and the largest donor to the terror organizations Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as the best friend of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who has slaughtered close to 70,000 of his own people to date.
While Iran is a bit more surreptitious with its nuclear program than is North Korea, hiding several of its nuclear plants underground where the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN nuclear watchdog, is not permitted access to them, and insisting that its nuclear goals are for civilian energy only, recent actions taken by Iranian executives can hardly be defended as peaceful. Last week, the father of Iran’s nuclear program, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh-Mahabadi, observed North Korea’s nuclear launching.
This, coupled with the fact that Iran has told the world it will never shut down Fordow, one of its foremost facilities and a cache built inside of a mountain to protect it from air strikes, is cause for major concern. It may be true Iran’s nuclear goals are only aimed at civilian purposes, but those purposes are mass deaths of civilians of other countries. As previously stated, the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah is Iran’s proxy. This same group was just officially named as the source of a bus bombing that murdered six Israeli tourists in Bulgaria last June. This same group is scurrilous in its repeated calls to eradicate the State of Israel. Actually, Iran uses identical rhetoric.
But make no mistake, Israel is not the big fish in the equation. The whopper is the United States. Israel is the little Satan because it is the neighborhood foe. Israel is the enemy these groups have the capability of reaching. But with North Korea on its side, and Russian and Chinese money and support flowing into its pockets, Iran and its proxy Hezbollah will take all actions necessary to promulgate terrorism and threaten the well-being of the big Satan, the U.S.
President Obama, the UN, and the EU have led unprecedented grueling sanctions against North Korea and Iran. While the North Korean and Iranian economies have taken turns for the worse, their quests for a full-blown nuclear arsenal have only proceeded to crescendo. There are no signs either terrorist country will capitulate. If Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gets to the point where he believes the existence of his country is in immediate danger, he will strike Iran. President Obama has ostensibly assuaged Prime Minister Netanyahu’s fears of that happening by assuring him that the U.S. is committed to preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons at all costs. Containment is not an option.
As average American citizens, we may think we are powerless. We are not. Each of us has a voice. In order to raise those voices, each of us must stay informed. The New York Times has extensive pages detailing each country’s nuclear program. CNN and the Wall Street Journal run articles almost every day regarding these menacing and portentous nations. In the coming months, President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry will exhaust every last option to obviate use of military force. Let us sincerely hope those steps are effective.
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