Secret American intelligence assessments have concluded that Iran has obtained a cache of advanced missiles, based on a Russian design, that are much more powerful than anything Washington has publicly conceded that Tehran has in its arsenal, diplomatic cables show.

Iran obtained 19 of the missiles from North Korea, according to a cable dated Feb. 24 of this year. The cable is a detailed, highly classified account of a meeting between top Russian officials and an American delegation led by Vann H. Van Diepen, an official with the State Department’s nonproliferation division who, as a national intelligence officer several years ago, played a crucial role in the 2007 assessment of Iran’s nuclear capacity.

The missiles could for the first time give Iran the capacity to strike at capitals in Western Europe or at Moscow, and American officials warned that their advanced propulsion could speed Iran’s development of intercontinental ballistic missiles.

There has been scattered but persistent speculation on the topic since 2006, when fragmentary reports surfaced that North Korea might have sold Iran missiles based on a Russian design called the R-27, once used aboard Soviet submarines to carry nuclear warheads. In the unclassified world, many arms control experts concluded that isolated components made their way to Iran, but there has been little support for the idea that complete missiles, with their huge thrusters, had been secretly shipped.

Full Story Here:
Iran Fortifies Its Arsenal With the Aid of North Korea

And for anyone that’s old enough to remember the Iranian hostage crisis, or has studied it in the interest of history, this next part will come as NO surprise.

Around the World, Distress Over Iran

In late May 2009, Israel’s defense minister, Ehud Barak, used a visit from a Congressional delegation to send a pointed message to the new American president.

In a secret cable sent back to Washington, the American ambassador to Israel, James B. Cunningham, reported that Mr. Barak had argued that the world had 6 to 18 months “in which stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons might still be viable.�? After that, Mr. Barak said, “any military solution would result in unacceptable collateral damage.�?

There was little surprising in Mr. Barak’s implicit threat that Israel might attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. As a pressure tactic, Israeli officials have been setting such deadlines, and extending them, for years. But six months later it was an Arab leader, the king of Bahrain, who provides the base for the American Fifth Fleet, telling the Americans that the Iranian nuclear program “must be stopped,�? according to another cable. “The danger of letting it go on is greater than the danger of stopping it,�? he said.

His plea was shared by many of America’s Arab allies, including the powerful King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who according to another cable repeatedly implored Washington to “cut off the head of the snake�? while there was still time.

Full Story Here:
Iran Stirs Distress in Mideast

President George W. Bush was 2/3 correct when he labeled Iran, Iraq and North Korea as the axis of evil. I still don’t see Iraq as having been the threat Iran and North Korea pose, but Bush was privy to higher level Intelligence information I am guessing, and that was HIS assessment.

North Korea has been a thorn in our side since 1950 with the breaking out of hostilities in the south, and has remained a thorn ever since. That’s 60 years! You would think that in all that time we would have had an American president with the fortitude to end it. Apparently not.

Iran has been our antagonist since 1979, when Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was deposed as the Shah of Iran.

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s father was a supporter of NAZI Germany. Today, many compare Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Adolph Hitler. Coincidence perhaps?

1941 - The Shah’s pro-Axis allegiance in World War II leads to the Anglo-Russian occupation of Iran and the deposition of the Shah in favour of his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. SOURCE

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was Shah of Iran when radical Islam took over Iran and deposed him, also bringing about the Iranian hostage crisis a short time later.

Iran held the American people, indeed, our entire nation hostage for 444 days, from November 4, 1979 to January 20, 1981. They held this nation powerless, an entire nation of hostages, due to the utter ineffectiveness of American president Jimmy Carter.

Pressure mounted on Carter towards the end of his administration. The American people demanded that some action be taken to resolve this issue and force some ‘pay back’ on Iran.

Thus we were given Operation Eagle Claw, an operation that was a total failure.

There are those that to this very day maintain Operation Eagle Claw was nothing more than a sham, a feel good operation. One ordered by Carter himself, an operation that was planned to be a failure.

There are some that maintain the CIA and Delta went in and rounded up some locals, killed them and tossed their bodies into the aircraft that were then destroyed, and that the grieving family members were actors hired to play their part at the funeral services of deceased service members.

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