Sound The Trumpet : Report: North Korean Test May Mean Iran Has a Nuclear Missile Warhead

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“Report: North Korean Test May Mean Iran Has a Nuclear Missile Warhead”
by The World Tribune
March 4th, 2013

WASHINGTON — A U.S. think tank has raised the prospect that Iran acquired nuclear weapons capability.

The American Foreign Policy Council said the administration of President Barack Obama was quietly mulling the possibility that Iran and North Korea succeeded in a joint nuclear weapons project. The Washington-based council cited the North Korean nuclear test last month of what was believed to have been that of an Iranian missile warhead.

“During Secretary of State John Kerry’s listening tour of the Middle East, one troubling regional issue might go unspoken: the possibility that Iran already has nuclear weapons capability,” the council said in a report.

The report, titled “Does Iran Already Have The Bomb?” said Iran was believed to be testing its nuclear warheads in North Korea. Senior fellow James Robbins, who wrote the report, said the likelihood of an Iranian nuclear weapons capability would top Obama’s agenda during his visit to Israel on March 20. The national security specialist said the emergence of an Iranian atomic bomb would “represent a U.S. foreign policy failure of historic proportions.”

“It is not the kind of crisis that Kerry would like to face in his first month on the job or that Obama would like to shape his second term,” Robbins said. “Fortunately for them both, if Teheran does have the bomb, odds are it
will keep it under wraps, at least for the time being.”

[On Feb. 28, the Senate mulled a resolution that would require the United States to help Israel in any war against Iran. The resolution introduced by Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Robert Menendez and Sen. Lindsey Graham called on Washington to provide military, diplomatic and economic support should Israel attack Iran's nuclear weapons facilities.]

The administration has determined that Iran remained undecided over whether to acquire nuclear weapons. But Western intelligence sources said an Iranian delegation attended the North Korean underground nuclear test on
Feb. 12, believed to have marked a breakthrough in the joint weapons program.

“Iran and North Korea have long cooperated on nuclear and ballistic missile technologies,” Robbins said. “Iran’s ballistic missiles are based on North Korean designs, and the two countries have long exchanged defense
scientists and engineers.”

A senior U.S. official did not rule out that Teheran was using North Korea to test Iran’s nuclear warheads. The official told The New York Times that Iran could not hope to conceal a nuclear explosion. “It’s very possible that the North Koreans are testing for two countries.” the official was quoted as saying.

The Rand Corp., a leading consultant to the U.S. Defense Department and military, determined that the latest North Korean nuclear test differed from the two previous blasts. Rand said the latest explosion was believed to have
been that of highly-enriched uranium, a method developed by Teheran.

“Given the relative seismic readings, this test likely had about 2.5 times the weapon yield of North Korea’s second test, which according to Dr. Sieg Hecker of Stanford was in the range of two to seven kilotons, putting
this test at about 5 to 18 kilotons,” Rand defense analyst Bruce Bennett said.

For his part, Robbins raised the prospect that Iran was already signaling that it reached nuclear weapons capability. He cited a statement by Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei in wake of the North Korean nuclear test that if Teheran “intended to possess nuclear weapons, no power could stop us.”

“This strange construction — saying the Islamic republic does not desire nuclear weapons but there was no way to prevent it from having them — might have been the first in a series of diplomatic signals intending to inform the United States that, with North Korea’s help, the game is already over and Iran has won,” Robbins said.

Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13