Iran's Post Iraq-War Ambition

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is prepared to help fill any power vacuum resulting from U.S. troops withdrawing from Iraq, the A.P. reports:

"The political power of the occupiers is collapsing rapidly," Ahmadinejad said at a news conference in Tehran, referring to U.S. troops in Iraq. "Soon, we will see a huge power vacuum in the region. Of course, we are prepared to fill the gap, with the help of neighbors and regional friends like Saudi Arabia, and with the help of the Iraqi nation."

Needless to say, the "Iranian WMD" scaremongers will see this is another step towards Iran becoming the dominant regional power ... and a nuclear threat to the U.S. The story continues:

On another issue of contention, the U.S. and its allies fear Tehran is using its civilian nuclear program as a cover to produce atomic weapons. Iran denies the charge, saying its program is solely geared toward generating electricity. Ahmadinejad again Tuesday rejected any possibility of Iran suspending its controversial uranium enrichment program, saying it was "out of the question" and that the nation has achieved full proficiency in the nuclear fuel cycle. (pictured) "Today, Iran is a nuclear Iran," Ahmadinejad said, while vowing Iran was committed to a "peaceful (nuclear) path."

But Iran lobbing a nuclear-tipped missile at the continental United States is not the major fear: after all, you can always negotiate with even a hostile government. No, the greater fear is that Iran will hand over nukes to terrorists who will smuggle them into the U.S. But even this threat is over-blown, according to Center for Defense Information analyst Charles Pena:

*First and foremost, there is no history of hostile regimes supplying terrorist groups with chemical or biological weapons they have access to, let alone a nuclear weapon. ... It is also important to understand that terrorist groups aided by hostile regimes are not completely controlled by those regimes. There is an assumption that a terrorist group would use a nuclear weapon to attack the United States -- and that this is the only plausible scenario. *

But a nuclear weapon would also give the terrorist group the ability to topple the regime that supplied it, and the regime would have no way to prevent that from happening once the weapon was out of its control. Moreover, it would be logistically easier for the terrorists to attack the regime that supplied it -- rather than trying to clandestinely transfer the weapon to a foreign target like the United States.