As the Middle-East descends into chaos and Mr. Obama asks our only reliable ally in the region to surrender territory which is vital to its defense, Iran continues to spread its influence and build its military capabilities.  Reuters reports:

Iran’s military received a new ballistic missile system on Sunday, which it said demonstrated the country’s self-sufficiency in mass producing weaponry.

 

“The new surface-to-surface missiles, Qlyam (Resurrection) 1, were successfully tested and delivered to the armed forces today,” Iran’s Arabic-language state television channel Al Alam said.

 

It did not disclose the range of the missile, delivered to the aerospace wing of the elite Revolutionary Guards, but said it was designed to be less easily detected than older models.

With the Bushehr nuclear reactor just weeks away from going online the very real threat of a nuclear armed Iran should demonstrate the vital role of our Israeli allies in maintaining a semblance of stability in the troubled region.

Israel sees the potential of a nuclear armed Iran – which refuses to recognize the Jewish state and supports Hamas and Hezbollah – as a major threat to both it and its ally Washington do not rule out military action to prevent such a scenario.

 

Iran has said it would respond to any attack by targeting US interests and Israel.

The role of on-the-ground human intelligence in maintaining a degree of preparedness against an openly hostile Iran is more important than ever.  The gutting of our CIA’s human intel capabilities during the Clinton administration and the current prosecution of CIA agents by the Obama/Holder DOJ has greatly reduced our capability to obtain vital intelligence.  The Tehran Times reports that Iran’s intelligence service has delivered a serious blow to our intelligence network.

In a statement published on Saturday, the ministry announced that it managed to identify and break up the complicated spy network and identify 42 CIA intelligence officers in different countries through carrying out major intelligence and counterespionage operations at home and abroad.

 

According to the statement, a number of CIA intelligence officers established the network in several countries and starting setting various traps for Iranian citizens to elicit information from them and convince them to spy for the United States.

 

[…]

 

In addition, the statement says thorough investigation revealed that CIA officers used the U.S. intelligence bases, embassies, and consulates in countries like the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, and Malaysia to trap Iranian citizens including students into passing on information about Iran’s research centers, nuclear facilities, universities, aviation industry, defense sector, communications networks, banking system, airports, and customs.

If the Tehran Times is to be believed this would be a serious setback for our intelligence community.  Still Mr. Obama seems to think that everything will be alright if only he can persuade Israel to pull back to its 1967 borders.

May 22, 2011