And the liberals want to gut the military......

KAHLILI: Iranian missiles could soon reach U.S. shores


Mullahs’ navy equips ships for attacks from Atlantic

By Reza Kahlili
The Washington Times

6:25 p.m., Friday, July 29, 2011
Illustration by M. RyderIllustration by M. Ryder


While America focuses on its internal problems and its involvement in three wars and the world focuses on the global economy, Iran is progressing on three dangerous fronts: nuclear weapons, armed missiles and naval capability.

Despite four sets of United Nations sanctions and pressure by the United States and Europe, Iran has chosen not only to continue its nuclear program but to expand it. Iran’s leaders, dominated by fanatical mullahs, announced in mid-July that the installment of faster centrifuges had begun and that they will soon triple the production of enriched uranium to 20 percent at the Fardo nuclear facility deep in the mountain near the city of Qom. It is estimated that Iran will have enough highly enriched uranium for one nuclear bomb within two months and currently has enough low-enriched uranium for three nuclear bombs.

Iran is also perfecting its missile-delivery systems. Recently, the Revolutionary Guards held war games in which they launched several long-range ballistic missiles from missile silos. They also successfully tested two long-range ballistic missiles, capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, into the Indian Ocean. The guards’ ballistic missiles have a range of 1,200 miles, covering all U.S. bases in the Middle East and all of Israel, and now they possess missiles from North Korea with a range of 2,000 miles, which covers most of Western Europe.

The Iranian navy has also been busy expanding its operation on the orders of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has emphasized the navy’s strategic importance in protecting the Islamic republic’s interests and confronting its enemies.

In February, for the first time in three decades, two Iranian naval vessels passed through the Suez Canal en route to Syria. Iran's navy then successfully expanded its mission in the Indian Ocean, and its submarines completed a two-month-long mission in the Red Sea.

In an alarming July 18 statement, Rear Adm. Habibollah Sayyari said the Iranian navy plans on deploying warships in the Atlantic Ocean as part of a program to ply international waters, although he did not say where in the Atlantic the ships would be sent. Two days later, Rear Adm. Seyed Mahmoud Mousavi revealed for the first time that the Iranian navy has equipped a number of its logistic vessels and units with long-range surface-to-surface missiles. He stated, “Missile frigates and destroyers have been equipped with these missiles since a long time ago, and the surface-to-surface missiles of the logistic vessels were successfully tested and assessed during the recent naval war games, dubbed as Joushan.â€