Iran Likelier to use Nuclear Weapons via Terrorist Groups like Hezbollah and Hamas
Posted by editor-at-large on 20 July 2008 at 5:33 pm UTC
Bioterrorism expert Dr. Jill Dekker alerts me to a piece in today’s Jerusalem Post, a portion of which reads:
“The danger posed by a nuclear-armed Iran is not in that the Islamic Republic may launch an atomic bomb at Israel, but in that it could provide such a weapon to terrorist groups in the region, outgoing Israeli Ambassador to the UN Dan Gillerman was quoted as saying Sunday.
“‘The real fear is not that the Iranians will be crazy enough or stupid enough to launch a missile at Israel, but that they will have no compunction about providing rogue regimes and terror organizations like Hamas and Hizbullah with weapons of mass destruction,’ Gillerman told The New York Times. …”
Read the entire piece, Gillerman: Iran likelier to use nukes via proxies.
[Dr. Jill Dekker]
UPDATE: Relationships between Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah are far more intimate than we in the West realize — thus the ease of collaboration between state sponsors of terrorism and terrorist organizations regarding WMD development and access – according to Dr. Dekker in comments yesterday at American Congress for the Truth:
“I absolutely have to agree with Ambassador Gillerman’s statements with specific regard not only to Iran’s nuclear weapons arsenal but with their advance bio-chem programs as well.
“We should not forget that Syria too has made efforts toward acquiring a nuclear capacity and possess an advanced bio-chem weapons program. Unfortunately, very few US diplomats or politicians understand the close relationship between top Hezbollah leaders and Syrian and Iranian Ministries of Defense who run Weapons of Mass Destruction programs.
“They don’t even know the players, which scientists comprise which teams, how they are collaborating on projects in various research centers both in Iran and Syria.
“With the exception of highly limited sections of the US Intelligence Community, most diplomats or foreign service officers would have exceptionally limited access to intelligence on specific scientific teams and their familial relationships with Hezbollah, Hamas, PLO-Fatah members. They don’t understand that many Hezbollah members have family members and tribal associates working within the WMD programs of both states and it’s not some ‘formal’ arrangement. It’s not the type of hierarchal structure we in the West are used to where you must have clearances and sign off on transfers of technology or materials to other sections within the US military complex or to an allied nation. This is not at all how WMD programs and military assets are transferred within the Middle East.
“The relationships are not based on formal military alliances but instead on long-standing tribal relationships that can stretch across geo-political regions so Hezbollah acquiring WMD either nuclear, chemical, biological or radiological materials or technology “know-how” is not pre-determined by signing off on some protocol. This is a scientist meeting with a family member with associations helping a family member with the blessing of the government. It’s far more intimate than the US and allies can imagine. Proxies are not outside the systems they are not existing external to Iran or Syria. They are familial and that makes the designation to provide WMD to Hezbollah far more realistic and immediate than the US or UK could probably imagine with their somewhat limited reference points.
“In the Middle East, transfers from a state weapons lab which would be part of the Ministry of Defense structure to what the West considers a ‘terrorist’ organization like Hezbollah can occur very rapidly. That is because the Syrians and Iranians consider Hezbollah and other ‘terrorist’ groups to be extensions of their formal military. The West tends to create a false barrier -even a semantic one, between Hezbollah and Iran or Syria. This is a fictional barrier as it doesn’t really exist. The US/UK and EU base military weapons deployments on their own standards, which would be highly formal. That simply is not how it works with Syria, Iran, Hezbollah and other proxies. Instead, they may have a cousin who has a cousin who works on Viral Hemorrhagic Fevers or works on Saxotoxins and they will provide it outside a formal structure or what we would think of as a formal military structure. The lines for them are not so cut and dry.”
— Visit W. Thomas Smith Jr. online at uswriter.com.
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