Last week Israel activated thousands of reservists to help confront the most dangerous set of security challenges in the nation’s 64-year history.  That is why the U.S. House of Representatives should immediately reaffirm America’s unshakable support for Israel by passing the U.S.-Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation Act (H.R. 4133). That act is expected to come to the House floor this week.

The act, which was introduced by Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and House Minority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), recognizes an unprecedented set of security challenges facing the Jewish nation: Arab political instability, the rapidly growing arsenals of Hamas and Hezbollah, and Iran’s nuclear drive.

In March, Rep. Cantor accused President Barack Obama of sending “mixed messages” to Israel’s enemies about where America stands on numerous conflicts in the Middle East.  “Let us not send mixed messages when it comes to Israel,” Cantor said.

Passage of the act, according to Cantor, will affirm the deep military and security ties forged over the past decades between the U.S. and the State of Israel.  Further, it will reiterate U.S. policy guaranteeing Israel’s right to defend itself and “America’s unshakable commitment to Israel’s security.”  

Consider the confluence of three security crises facing Israel, a nation of 7.6 million that is the size of New Jersey at the heart of the tumultuous Middle East. 

First, Israel activated six army battalions under emergency orders in light of new dangers created by Arab political instability along its Egyptian and Syrian borders.  The Knesset, Israel’s parliament, has given the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) permission to summon a further 16 reserve battalions if necessary. 

“This signifies that the IDF regards the Egyptian and Syrian borders as the potential source of a greater threat than in the past,” said retired General Dan Harel, the former IDF deputy chief of staff.    Harel said Egypt’s deteriorating control over the Sinai and the Syrian situation “could explode at any moment.”

Israel’s security challenges in the Sinai are a direct result of Egypt’s ongoing political revolution.   Egypt’s new parliament is dominated by anti-Israel Islamists and later this month Egyptians will elect a president from among a list of candidates who all hate Israel.

Egypt’s leading presidential candidate Amr Moussa said the 33-year-old Camp David Peace Accords with Israel are “dead and buried.”   But he promised to honor the treaty if elected even though majorities in Egypt’s parliament belong to Islamist parties which favor scuttling the treaty. 

The rabidly anti-Israel Egyptian political power surge evidently affected security along the Israel-Egypt 150-mile Sinai border which prompted Jerusalem to call up the reserves.  The Sinai Peninsula is now a lawless region for Bedouin gangs and terrorists, who smuggle weapons such as anti-aircraft missile launchers, repeatedly bomb the pipeline carrying gas to Israel, kidnap and kill foreign nationals, and rocket Israel’s Red Sea resort of Eilat.

Israeli intelligence indicate terror groups are planning cross-border attacks from the Sinai and recently 400 armed Bedouins besieged the base of the United Nation’s International Peacekeeping Force in the Sinai.   Now, Egyptian battalions are in the Sinai ostensibly to keep the peace but some Israelis fear they are really there to prepare for a future war with Israel.

Jerusalem also fears the revolution rocking its northern neighbor Syria could spill over into Israel’s Golan Heights.  Syria’s President Bashir al-Assad is doing whatever necessary to defeat his armed opposition and is expected to survive because no outside power to include the U.S. will intervene.  For now, the worst outcome from the Syrian debacle for Israel is the emergence of an Islamist-driven counterinsurgency that spreads throughout the region.

Jordan, Israel’s eastern neighbor, is especially concerned about Syrian Sunni militancy spilling over into Jordan if Assad’s regime collapses.  Those Sunni militants who are supported by Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood would inevitably influence their politically active Jordanian counterparts who are already challenging King Abdullah’s reign. 

Last week, the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood sponsored protests across the Hashemite Kingdom calling for economic and political reform as well as condemning Israel.  The protests were marked by calls to end the 1994 Israeli-Jordanian Peace Treaty and chants of “death, death to Israel.”  Israel is rightly concerned about Jordan’s stability.

Second, Israel is sandwiched by Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, both Iranian terror proxies that share the goal of annihilating Israel.  The leaders of the two terror organizations recently met and agreed to cooperate in any future terror attacks against Israel, the Lebanese daily As-Safir reported.

War with the terror proxies may be just around the corner.  Last week Iranian vice president Mohammad Reza Rehimi toured Lebanon’s border visiting Hezbollah fortifications emphasizing the need to oppose “the Zionist regime.”   At the same time on the other side of the border IDF troops were preparing for possible attack while building a 20 foot high wall to protect residents of the border town of Metula.

Hezbollah which controls Lebanon south of the Litani River – an area 18 miles north of the Israel-Lebanon border – is ready for a repeat war with Israel.  It fought a 34-day sustained battle with Israel in 2006 launching nearly 4,000 rockets.  The terror group has a refreshed arsenal thanks to Iran and some of its new rockets can range Tel Aviv, Israel’s largest city.

Hamas, also a U.S. designated terrorist group, controls the Gaza Strip, a part of the Palestinian terrorities inside Israel.  Hamas enjoys the support of Egypt’s ruling Muslim Brotherhood, which allows arms shipments into the terrorist haven.  In 2011, 627 rockets were fired from Gaza into Israeli towns which is higher than in 2010, when 566 rockets were fired.   The threat is growing thanks to Egypt and Iran.

Third, Israel faces an existential threat from the Islamic Republic of Iran whose leaders have threatened to “wipe Israel off the map.”  There is international consensus that Iran is working on the capability to build nuclear weapons, which earned the rogue nation four sets of international sanctions.

Those sanctions appear to be having some effect but not enough to convince Israel that Iran no longer seeks nuclear weapons.  Besides, the direct nuclear threat to Israel posed by Iran’s future atomic-tipped missiles is not the only concern.  Jerusalem is also concerned Tehran would share the bomb with terror groups like Hezbollah and/or Hamas for use against Israel and it is concerned a nuclear-armed Iran would spark an irreversible regional arms race.

Last month Iran met with international representatives to alleviate fears it intends to weaponize its nuclear program.  As a result of that meeting international representatives agreed to re-launch talks later this month but almost immediately Iranian officials created new barriers to resolution.

Last week, the Iranians told Reuters they will never suspend uranium enrichment or close the Fordow underground facility which is protected from air strikes deep inside a mountain.  The international community demands Iran close the Fordow facility and stop enriching uranium for other than nuclear power plants.   This crisis is heating up.

The U.S.-Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation Act is desperately needed to send an unambiguous message that America is committed to Israel’s security especially as the region implodes around the tiny state.

Nearly one year ago U.S. Navy SEALs swooped into a Pakistani compound, killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, and then dumped his body into the Arabian Sea. The master terrorist is dead but his ideologically inspired franchises continue to threaten global peace in spite of a senior Obama administration official’s claim that “The war on terror is over.”

Bin Laden evaded capture for nearly a decade until the pre-dawn hours of May 2, 2011 when SEAL Team Six raided the terrorist’s heavily fortified compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.  The commandos flew away with the terrorist’s body and a treasure trove of intelligence. 

That intelligence, according to James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, demonstrated that bin Laden’s roughly six years of isolation made him almost irrelevant to his terrorist network. His importance slipped significantly, Clapper told Voice of America, even though he continued to hatch new plots and issue aspirational and delusional guidance.

Clapper said bin Laden evidently believed al Qaeda’s ideology was sidelined by the “Arab Spring” movement which is installing Islamic governments across the Middle East and North Africa.   But bin Laden should have been encouraged because countries like Egypt are falling to global Islamic movements like the Muslim Brotherhood and ultra-conservative Salafists which gave rise to the likes of al Qaeda.  Besides, al Qaeda adapted to challenges by diversifying its network, which today makes it larger and stronger than ever.

Al Qaeda’s franchised global threat is stronger today, which defies the Obama administration’s naive wish — “The war on terror is over.” And while bin Laden’s radical Islamic ideology continues to inspire a global network, the only significant change post bin Laden is that al Qaeda’s core leadership is no longer operationally in charge.

Rather, the decentralized al Qaeda-inspired network of franchises pledge cooperation among themselves, share money and weapons and often train together.  They are not likely to pull-off massive attacks like the 9/11 assault on America but smaller-scale attacks relying on a “strategy of a thousand cuts.”

The single exception to the rule of no “massive attack” potential is al Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) which President Barack Obama called al Qaeda’s “most active operational affiliate.”  AQAP has been a major threat having twice tried to attack U.S.-bound flights including a jetliner over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009.

AQAP controls much of Yemen’s south and recruits Westerners such as the now dead radicalized American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who inspired the U.S. Army psychiatrist Major Nidal Malik Hasan charged with murdering 13 soldiers at Fort Hood.

The Somalia-based al-Shabaad, “Movement of striving youth,” is the latest addition to al Qaeda’s network.  It shares similar ideologies with al Qaeda and was designated a U.S. foreign terrorist organization in 2008.   

It has a transnational record and cadre that could eventually impact the U.S.   Al-Shabaab recruits from Minnesota and elsewhere in the U.S. to man its insurgency in Somalia and since 2010 it has operated outside that country.

It claimed credit for suicide bomb attacks against two targets in Kampala, Uganda, on July 11, 2010 that killed 74 and wounded another 70.  The group’s spokesman said the attacks were in response to Uganda’s participation in peace enforcement operations inside Somalia.

Last October, a Kenyan affiliated with al-Shabaab conducted a grenade attack in Nairobi, Kenya.  Similar attacks this March at a busy bus stop in central Nairobi killed six and wounded 63.  Last week, the U.S. embassy in Nairobi warned of possible attacks due to Kenyan troops pressuring al-Shabaab in southern Somalia.

Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb is primarily focused inside North Africa but allegedly harbors ambitions to strike outside the region, especially against its former colonial master France.  The Algerian-based group played a role in the success of the recent Turareg rebellion in Mali and allegedly has a large arms cache due to smuggling during Libya’s recent revolution.   An estimated 5,000 man-portable air defense weapons are reported missing from Libya.

Boko Haram, “Western education is forbidden,” is a Nigerian-based al Qaeda and al-Shabaab affiliate.  It reportedly killed 550 – most of whom were Christians — last year in over 100 attacks in the oil rich country.  Last week, it exploded two vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices in the offices of several Nigerian news agencies but the government’s response has been ineffective. 

Al Qaeda has associates in Libya who recently flew the group’s flag, complete with Arabic script reading “There is no God but Allah” and full moon underneath, at the courthouse in Benghazi, the seat of Libya’s revolution.   Al Qaeda will thrive in Libya because the Shar’ia (Islamic law) based transitional government doesn’t control much of the land mass which could become a safe haven for radicals.

Al Qaeda continues to be active inside Iraq.  During the Iraq war al Qaeda worked with Sunni insurgents to attack American and Iraqi security forces.  Recently, as sectarian tensions grew, al Qaeda took credit for spectacular attacks that killed many innocent Iraqis.

Next door Syria, which is racked by an uprising against President Bashir al-Assad, includes an al Qaeda component.  The group works with Sunni rebels to make inroads and recent bombings in Damascus are thought to have an al Qaeda nexus.

Approximately 100 al Qaeda fighters operate inside Afghanistan alongside their Taliban ally.  Other al Qaeda operatives under the leadership of Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri remain in safe havens inside Pakistan where they plot how to attack the U.S. with nuclear dirty bombs and biological weapons.  The U.S. has given Pakistan $25 billion in aid since 2001 to assist with the fight against al Qaeda.

Al Qaeda also influences Pakistan-based franchises like the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET), “The army of the pure,” which focuses its operations against India with the alleged help of Pakistan’s Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence.  LET’s biggest attack was the November 2008 assault on India’s commercial capital Mumbai, which killed 164 people and the U.S. State Department contends LET has a global agenda that advocates terrorism and propagates virulent rhetoric against the U.S.

Bin Laden may be dead but al Qaeda’s core and its many franchises are very much alive, spreading their hatred through violence, and now enjoy more welcoming environments thanks to the “Arab Spring.” 

Al Qaeda is joined on the terror front by other groups like Iran’s terror proxy Hezbollah which also has American blood on its hands.  Hezbollah has a global network of supporters including some in North and South America who are assisted by Iran’s clandestine service, the Quds (Jerusalem) Force.

The war on terror is young — not over — and from all indications is likely to get much worse as the Muslim world embraces sympathetic Islamist governments vis-à-vis the “Arab Spring.”  Those governments will undoubtedly embrace Shari’a law and then radical Islamic groups like al Qaeda and Hezbollah will use those countries as platforms from which to continue their war of terror.

The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee is fit to be tied by President Barack Obama’s lack of leadership when it comes to the looming budget train wreck that threatens to disarm our military in time of war.   The chairman outlined his concerns regarding the national security train wreck in a conference call on May 1.

Rep. Buck McKeon (R-Calif.), the HASC chairman, is beside himself with worry about the “mindless way” the Obama administration is doing absolutely “nothing” to stop and/or prepare for sequestration, the mandated year-after-year automatic defense cuts that begin in seven months — January 2013.

The sequestration crisis is the product of two efforts.  The 2011 Budget Control Act (BCA) created an automatic sequester process to force $1.2 trillion in spending reductions over 10 years.  Even though national defense is the first job of government the BCA specifies that half of those reductions, $492 billion, will come from defense.  But defense spending constituted 20 percent of federal spending in fiscal year 2011, yet it will bear 50 percent of spending reductions. 

McKeon points out the proposed sequestration cuts would come atop $487 billion in already agreed to reductions which together will “essentially freeze the Pentagon.”  It could cost at least 1.5 million jobs pushing unemployment back over 9 percent, McKeon said, and nullify all Pentagon contracts which will force the government into massive litigation. 

The second effort was the failure by last fall’s Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction to find a fix to avert the budget train wreck.  That means sequester takes effect in January unless something dramatic happens, which in this political year is doubtful.

Unfortunately, President Obama said “I will veto any effort to get rid of those automatic spending cuts” and “the only way to get rid of those cuts is to get Congress to come together and work on a deal.”   The veto threat prompted House Republicans like McKeon to push for a $333 billion reconciliation bill to protect our defense from sequestration.  

Six House committees are now scrubbing legislation to find the $333 billion in savings needed to protect defense but this effort won’t happen unless the American people pressure their members of Congress, said Mr. McKeon.  Besides, the chairman said House Democrats “are not paying attention to sequestration.  They think this will get fixed in the lame duck session.”  And President Obama is on the campaign trail having already proposed a distasteful bait and switch budget deal.

The president’s fiscal 2013 budget proposal includes $400 billion of deficit reduction over 10 years that protects defense but it requires an unacceptable $1.5 trillion in new borrowing and a tax increase of $1.9 trillion.  Further, the president’s new budget increases other government agency budgets while only defense — the government’s highest priority — is forced to make do with less.

The HASC chairman said that if the House’s reconciliation bill fails and sequestration goes forward, the Obama administration has no plan to mitigate the draconian consequences.  In fact, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta testified “We have made no plans for a sequestration because it’s a nutty formula.”

Worse, Mr. McKeon said, Ash Carter, Obama’s deputy secretary of defense, also emphasized the administration is doing nothing to plan for sequestration.  Therefore, if sequestration happens, Carter said, the administration will chop big chunks out of every Pentagon program and suffer the consequences.

Mr. McKeon was especially galled when he heard from Admiral Jonathan Greenert, the chief of naval operations, that he was ordered not to plan for sequestration.  That is suicide and “mindless” McKeon said especially given the dangers America faces.

General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the joint chiefs, testified “In my personal military judgment, formed over 38 years, we are living in the most dangerous time in my lifetime … I think sequestration would be completely oblivious to that, and counterproductive.”   Dempsey further warned it will create a “hollow force” and “pose unacceptable risk.”

Former vice chief of staff of the army, General Jack Keane testified sequestration “would absolutely break the bank at the Defense Department.  We would be a mere shadow of our former selves and be unable to face our global responsibilities.”

The Pentagon brass understand the consequences of a $1 trillion cut over 10 years, but are politically helpless given Obama’s veto threat and radical agenda. 

If the cuts happen our military will loose another 100,000 troops, making ours the smallest ground force since 1940 even though we are at war in Afghanistan and elsewhere.  Our navy will have fewer than 230 ships, the smallest level since 1915 even though the threatening Chinese fleet outnumbers our blue water navy.  We will end up with the smallest tactical fighter force in history even though air power is already critically short.  And our all-volunteer military could become unsustainable due to cuts in benefits which could force America to return to the draft.

Our technology edge will be tossed out the window by cuts to the Joint Strike Fighter, termination of the new strategic bomber, delaying new submarines, shrinking America’s aircraft carrier fleet and terminating the littoral combat ship.

Even before sequestration kicks in, defense companies are making deep cuts to our industrial base.  But sequestration risks severe and permanent damage to our industrial base through massive layoffs, slashing research and development spending, and reducing the number of reliable providers of wartime goods.

The consequence of $1 trillion in cuts over 10 years is “We would no longer be a global power,” General Dempsey testified.  But that is the game of chicken President Obama is playing with our defense. 

Mr. McKeon calls for Americans concerned about our national security to contact their members of Congress to insist they support pending reconciliation legislation.  Mr. Obama must not be allowed to irresponsibly sacrifice our security to protect out of control entitlement spending and continue to drive-up our national debt.

New evidence indicates Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, wants nuclear weapons and he created a religious-based ruse to deceive the world into joining new talks.  The leader intends to use those talks to buy more time to harden his weapons program, prevent an attack, and persuade world powers to lift sanctions.

Six world powers — the U.S., U.K., France, China, Russia and Germany — fell for the ayatollah’s ruse at exploratory talks held in Istanbul, Turkey April 16.  Saeed Jalili, the ayatollah’s “personal representative” at the talks, cited the supreme leader’s fatwa — an Islamic order declaring possession of a nuclear weapon to be “a sin” — to deceive the “six” into believing Iran is serious about resolving its disputed nuclear program.  The “six” took the bait and new talks begin May 23 in Baghdad.

But the supreme leader seeks nuclear weapons in spite of his false fatwa.   A just unveiled 2009 internal International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) document summarizes a conversation with then Iran’s president, Ayatollah Khamenei.  The ayatollah explained “During a [1984] meeting …the spiritual leader Iman Khomeini had decided to reactivate the nuclear program.”   Khamenei served as president 1981-89 before becoming Iran’s current supreme leader.

President Khamenei explained “This [possessing nuclear weapons] was the only way to secure the very essence of the Islamic revolution from the schemes of its enemies … and to prepare it for the emergence of Imam Mehdi [messiah],” who would bring the world under Islamic rule.  Khamenei also said “that a nuclear arsenal would serve Iran as a deterrent in the hands of God’s soldiers.”

The ayatollah’s words, other than the false fatwa, and actions support his 1984 view that a nuclear arsenal is needed to “secure…the Islamic revolution.”  For example, he frequently affirms Iran will never surrender uranium enrichment, which continues today with 9,000+ centrifuges and more than 12,500 pounds of enriched uranium stockpiled.  Iran has enough enriched uranium to make several bombs.

Further, last year Khamenei provided a 1984-like defense against “the schemes of its enemies.”  He said it “was a mistake for Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya to give up his nuclear weapons program.”  Then the ayatollah said “Look where we are, and in what position they are now.”  Qaddafi surrendered his nuclear program to the U.S. in 2003 and then NATO helped rebels defeat him in 2011.

Iran’s nuclear program is run by the Quds Force, an element of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps.  Quds commanders answer directly to Khamenei which suggests the ayatollah has operational knowledge of every aspect of Iran’s nuclear program, to include its weapons-related activities.

A 2011 IAEA report claims there is “credible information that Iran is engaged in activities relevant to the development of nuclear explosives,” according to Yukiya Amano, director general of the IAEA. Amano said Iran is engaged in design of weapons, computer modeling, neutron initiators, high explosives, and detonators — all nuclear weapon-related technologies.

Further, a 2011 United Nations report reveals Iran — the Quds Force — runs a worldwide smuggling operation, “including procurement related to the nuclear and ballistic missile programs.”  The report also indicates Iran tested a long-range ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead that can reach central Europe.

These nuclear activities earned international suspicion which led to four sets of UN sanctions and threats of attack from Israel and/or the U.S.  That pressure evidently prompted the supreme leader to create a ruse to reverse the mounting pressure.

The ruse came in the form of a tongue-in-cheek fatwa, the ayatollah’s guarantee Iran will never seek to produce nuclear weapons.

Evidently U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was fooled by the fatwa.  She discussed it with “experts and religious scholars” and also with Turkish Prime Minister Recept Tayyip Erdogan.  The Turkish leader said, “I have shared the leader’s [Khamenei’s] statement with [President] Obama and told him that in face of this assertion I do no have a different position.”

Obama and the other world leaders were also fooled by the fatwa because they joined the April 16 talks with Iran believing the regime is now serious about alleviating fears about its nuclear program.  But there is a problem, according to the Middle East Research Institute’s (MEMRI) investigation, the Khamenei fatwa never existed.  Rather, MEMRI contends it is nothing more than a propaganda ruse.

MEMRI conducted an exhaustive search of official Iranian websites but turned up no such fatwa.  Even a group called The Light of Freedom (cheragh-e azadi) submitted a question to the ayatollah regarding the fatwa.  The ayatollah dismissed the question as having “no jurisprudential aspect.”

Even though the fatwa doesn’t exist on paper the Obama administration accepted the ayatollah’s public statements eschewing nuclear weapons as a potential “starting-point” in negotiating an end to the nuclear dispute.  But a leading Arab commentator says the basis of the so-called fatwa — written or oral — is “truly absurd.”

Tariq Almomayed, editor-in-chief of the London-based daily Asharq al-Awsat, wrote “Tehran has sponsored and engaged with Sunni and Shiite terrorists alike, over the past decades, and these are the same terrorists whose hands are stained with the blood of innocent,” Alhomyaed said.  “So after all this, how can we trust Tehran, simply on the basis of a religious fatwa?”

Trust is the key issue but deceiving non-Muslims like the world powers appear to be the ayatollah’s purpose.  Iranian officials present the fatwa on nuclear weapons as a propaganda effort to “propose a religiously valid substitute for guarantees of inspectors’ access to Iran’s nuclear facilities,” according to MEMRI.

This official lie is Shiite Islam’s principle of taqiyya — “the obligation to be cautious” — use of lies for self-defense purposes.   Doing so is “completely legitimate in Shiite Islam,” states MEMRI’s analysis.

Alhomayed said in his column, “Tehran has a history of failing to comply by its pledges and agreements.”  Further, “The problem with the Obama administration is that it wants to pursue policies that may be acceptable to the day-dreaming cultural elite, but not to regimes that are full of cunning and deceit.”

Iran’s supreme leader is cunning and deceitful.  The evidence indicates he is doing everything possible to acquire nuclear weapons to include launching fake religious proclamations to deceive the naïve.

The world powers must stop being so naïve when it comes to Iran’s chief mullah and treat him for what he is — the great deceiver.  The May talks must not become the “deceiver’s” forum to advance his nuclear program while endangering the Middle East and the West.

Tough sanctions and the possibility of military action brought Iran back to nuclear talks over the weekend.  But don’t count on Tehran being serious about alleviating fears that it intends to weaponize its nuclear program because nuclear weapons support its regional dominance goal and besides Iran’s supreme leader believes the West is “out of options.”

Six world powers – the U.S., U.K., France, China, Russia and Germany – and Iran met Saturday in Istanbul, Turkey to confirm whether Iran is ready to seriously talk about its disputed nuclear program and if so to relaunch talks that broke down in January 2011 because the Iranian team refused to discuss uranium enrichment.

Apparently Iran is now ready to discuss its nuclear program according to European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton who chaired the talks.  Ashton labeled Saturday’s talks “constructive” and said future meetings will be guided by the “principle of a step-by-step approach and reciprocity.”  The sides set May 23 in Baghdad, Iraq to begin the process in earnest.

Ashton’s “step-by-step approach” means the international community is ready to reward Iran if it alleviates fears that it intends to weaponize its nuclear program.  That could lead to easing the four sets of United Nations sanctions imposed for refusing to stop uranium enrichment.

Iran’s chief negotiator, Saeed Jalili, labeled the new talks “a step forward” in spite of differences of opinion.  He insists Iran’s nuclear program is peaceful and has not violated the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty which the parties agreed is the “key basis” for future talks.

But Iran’s actions, not its words shout that it intends to weaponize its nuclear program.  That is in spite of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s religious edict – a fatwa – forbidding the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons – a point Mr. Jalili mentioned at Saturday’s talks.   

Disregard the ayatollah’s pronouncement and consider the facts.  There is consensus among Iran experts, Western intelligence agencies and recent evidence from the UN’s nuclear watchdog agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), that Iran has all the ingredients to build an atomic weapon.  

The Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security found broad agreement among experts it questioned that Iran has been putting in place the technical infrastructure that could produce the necessary nuclear explosive material quickly.  Further, it found considerable support that the regime made a strategic decision many years ago to obtain nuclear weapons.

Recent tangible evidence confirms that view.  Last fall the IAEA reported Iran created computer models of nuclear explosions, conducted experiments on triggering a fissile reaction and completed advanced research on a miniaturized nuclear warhead that could be delivered by a medium-range missile.

Iran also denied the IAEA repeated requests for access to Parchin, the site where Iran reportedly tested a pulsed neutron initiator which is found at the center of a nuclear weapon.  

Further, key allies believe Iran has a nuclear weapons program.  Germany detected Iranian procurement related to furthering its nuclear weaponization capabilities. Britain and France intelligence networks judged that Iran had either continued or restarted weaponization activities or efforts to build nuclear weapons after America’s 2007 National Intelligence Estimate mistakenly concluded “Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program” in 2003.

Iran’s growing uranium enrichment program creates significant suspicion that it is intended for more than peaceful purposes.  It has 9,000 operational uranium enrichment centrifuges and last year the regime shifted its 20 percent uranium enrichment activities to the underground site at Fordow near the holy city of Qom, which offers protection against air strikes.  By the end of this year Iran is expected to have more than enough 20 percent enriched uranium for a nuclear bomb which could quickly be turned into weapons-grade material (90 percent) in a month or less.

This evidence points to an Iranian nuclear weapons program.  Therefore, the six world powers should go to the upcoming Baghdad talks insisting Iran take the following three actions to alleviate fears that it intends to weaponize its nuclear program or face the consequences.

First, Iran should shut down the underground enrichment operations at Fordow, which is unnecessary given other facilities.  Specifically, Iran has a giant enrichment facility at Natanz, 140 miles southeast of Tehran, which houses at least 8,000 centrifuges.  The complex includes three large underground buildings, two of which are designed to be cascade halls to hold 50,000 centrifuges.

Second, Iran should suspend enriching its uranium stockpiles from 3.5 to 20 percent, the level from which fuel can be easily converted for military purposes.  The stockpile of uranium enriched to 20 percent should be shipped abroad for safekeeping.   That material can then be returned in the form of completed fuel plates Iran says it needs to make medical isotopes.

Third,  Iran should immediately agree to the IAEA’s protocol to allow inspectors greater freedom and access to conduct inspections of nuclear facilities.  The IAEA must become satisfied that any such military program has been shut down.

These actions will provide evidence Iran is serious about alleviating fears and create the incentive for the world powers to begin lifting sanctions.   Tough new sanctions this year brought Tehran to the table: sanctions that punish any bank, company or government that does business with Iran’s Central Bank and the EU’s full oil embargo that takes full effect June 28.

Unfortunately, the new talks, proposed actions to alleviate fears and any “reciprocal” lifting of sanctions may already be doomed.  Ayatollah Khamenei, who calls the shots regarding Iran’s nuclear program, apparently doesn’t believe Iran needs to cooperate with the world powers.  

Last week the Kayhan, a newspaper supervised by the supreme leader and his vehicle for communicating with the masses, stated that, for the last ten years “the U.S. has systematically backed down from its positions on the Iranian nuclear program, capitulating to Iran’s position, and that today it is completely out of options.”   

Further, the ayatollah’s editorial states the U.S. “has played all its cards” and “Iran is able to enter the talks from a position of strength and does not need to compromise.”  This authoritative statement makes clear the new talks are a ruse to reduce the pain of the sanctions, delay threatened military strike, and continue its nuclear weaponization program.

Iran made a decision a long time ago to acquire nuclear weapons, it has most of the necessary infrastructure for that program, and now Iran’s supreme leader believes the West “is completely out of options” to stop the regime. The only remaining question is: How long will it take the world powers to realize they are being played for a dunce and either accept a nuclear armed Iran or take military action to stop the mullahs?