Will Iran Usher in the New Year With Nukes?

From time to time, I hear Glenn Beck discussing the possibility of World War III looming on the horizon. Beck can be an alarmist and is a self-described catastrophist. But a cursory glance at world events would suggest that we are much closer to the Midnight Hour on the Doomsday Clock than we would care to admit. 

Tulsi Gabbard also contends that our leaders are steering us toward global conflict. It is tempting to turn our gaze to less critical concerns and comfort ourselves with the thought that our leaders could not possibly be that corrupt, obtuse, or just plain stupid. But how many times, particularly in the last three years, has that idea been disproved? Our leaders can be that corrupt, obtuse, and just plain stupid, and plenty of people will happily follow them. 

With that in mind, I wonder why so little attention has been paid to the fact that Iran is closer than ever before to creating a nuclear weapon. The specter of a nuclear Iran has been in and out of the headlines for years, and for the people who do not follow such things, it was easy to shrug our shoulders and say, "Well, that won't happen for years. And besides, there is no way anyone will let them do it." But Iran is close. How close? Some have said that as the ball drops at Times Square, Iranian leaders may be congratulating themselves on their latest military development. 

In an op-ed for The New York Post, Mark Toth and Jonathan Sweet note that Iran has enough highly enriched uranium (60%) to construct nuclear weapons. The country also has the necessary centrifuge capacity to hit 90% enrichment. That, say the authors, is enough to sustain a nuclear chain reaction. The piece cites a November warning from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that "Iran’s stocks of enriched uranium and its centrifuge capacity combined are sufficient to make enough weapon-grade uranium... for six nuclear weapons in one month, eight in two months, ten in three months, eleven in four months, and twelve in five months."

The authors rightly assert that given Iran's support of Russia in its war with Ukraine and its support of Hamas terrorists in the October 7 attack, there can be little doubt what the country may do when it finally has nuclear weapons. I say "when," not "if." We are well past "if" at this point, and "when" may be only days away. A State Department spokesperson told Fox Digital:

Iran’s nuclear escalation is all the more concerning at a time when Iran as well as Iran-backed militant groups and Iran’s proxies continue their dangerous and destabilizing activities in the region. This includes the latest drone attack against U.S. personnel in Iraq, Houthi attacks against commercial shipping vessels in the Red Sea as well as Iran’s latest armed-drone attack against a chemical tanker in the Indian Ocean.

The State Department has also said that Iran "must cooperate" with the IAEA "so its nuclear activities can be verified and make sure there is no diversion or misuse of nuclear material." I'm sure that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei will get right on that. He's probably on the phone with Subway, ordering sandwiches for the IAEA visit. Actually, it issued a threat that Israel would "pay the price" after an IDF airstrike in Damascus killed Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps advisor Sayyed Razi Mousavi. This was incidentally during a memorial service as the crowd chanted "Death to America."

What will the Biden administration do? Are we referring to the same Biden administration that left billions of dollars worth of weapons and vehicles in the hands of the Taliban? The same Biden administration and Democrat party that, in their greed and delusion, had done their level best to decimate the energy industry, leaving us dependent on foreign oil? The same Biden administration who, following the example of Obama, released $6 billion in Iranian oil revenues as part of a prisoner swap? That Biden administration? The world knows that the administration does not mean business, except when it comes to enforcing left-wing ideals on the American people and wherever else it can extend its reach. 

It may well be that whoever it is who runs our country and the world thinks that a nuclear-armed Iran has utilitarian purposes or that it could be managed in such a way that it never decides to push the buttons that will change the political, cultural, civilizational, and literal landscapes of the world. Such people may be so deluded or likely so arrogant that they contend that Iran can be "handled." And Iran may acquiesce at least for a time. 

During my anti-terrorism training years ago, an instructor once told the class that people with terroristic ideals are profoundly devoted to those ideas and are phenomenally patient. The idea of Iran unleashing its nuclear arsenal at Israel and, by extension, the world, along with the chain reaction that would follow, is horrific and unthinkable. But we have seen, time and again, that the unthinkable, albeit on a much smaller scale, can easily become reality. 

At best, Biden, his handlers, and their fellow travelers worldwide live in a fantasy world in which they can somehow manage everything, and that utopia as they see it will thrive, no matter the cost. At worst? Perhaps they see a "limited" conflict as a boon to the creation of their vision.

No one wants to consider the idea of a mushroom cloud rearing its head. There is comfort in the mundane. And there is truth in the idea that we should not surrender our everyday lives to the words of the doomsayers. Be that as it may, the ugly truth is that we are, in fact, closer to a global conflict than we have ever been since the surrender of Japan. 

There is a quote that has been attributed to Albert Einstein. Its veracity has been debated, but Einstein reportedly remarked, "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."