Kenneth Timmerman at Newsmax.com reports that intelligence agencies believe that Iran is practicing a nuclear strike against the U.S. They appear to be planning a single strike that would be launched from a merchant ship off the coast. A nuclear warhead would be mounted on a Scud missile and sent into the upper atmosphere where it would be detonated creating an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that would fry all of our electronics across the entire continent. In the worst case we would be instantly thrown back into the 19th century and the resulting chaos and starvation would eventually kill off over 70% of our population.
We've written about EMP before and there's some doubt as to how successful such an attack would be, but evidently the Iranians think it would work.
There are several measures we can take to prevent it. We can stop Iran from securing nuclear warheads. We can continue to develop our missile defense system. We can tell Iran that any such attack in which they are suspected will result in a total obliteration of their country. Of course, this last option depends on being able to demonstrate that the attack came from Iran, and if they sink the ship that launched the missile we might not be able to do that.
In any event, the last alternative is certainly the worst since if it fails to deter the Iranians a nuclear holocaust would ensue. The best way to prevent such a catastrophe is to prevent the Iranians from developing a nuclear weapon in the first place. The second best is to build a missile shield and create enough uncertainty of success in the minds of the Iranian mullahs that they wouldn't attempt the attack. Of the three options, guess which two Senator Obama and the Democrats are on record opposing.
RLC