Iran Offers Muslims An Umbrella, And Invites Them To Step Into Its Reign

The Optimistic Conservative writes that Iran is now offering a missile umbrella to fellow Muslim nations

Of course this was going to happen (h/t: “Reza Khalili”). The whole point of having theater missiles, for Iran, is being able to engage in deterrence. What Iran will protect under the missile umbrella is not peace, harmony, and light, but the nation-torturing activities of the paramilitary Qods Force and Iranian-backed terrorists like Hezbollah and Hamas.


This move puts Iran in the aspiring-nuclear-power category of the former USSR and China – not that of Britain, France, India, Pakistan, or North Korea. Iran is still in the “aspiring” stage, but has already revealed the scope of her ambitions for deterrence. The radical Islamic regime has no intention of merely deterring a single neighbor, maintaining its independence inside a foundational alliance, or even just brooding dementedly inside its borders. Revolutionary Iran aims to achieve regional dominance, and sees deterring the West as the first step.

Just to be clear, when Iran offers a missile umbrella to the Muslim nations of the Middle East, she means she can, and under certain circumstances will, launch missiles at the non-Muslim nations she can reach with her arsenal, which right now include Israel, Southeastern Europe, and Russia. When the joint missile base in Venezuela is completed, Iran will be able to reach the territory of the United States with her missiles. A secondary meaning is that Iran can threaten with missiles those Muslim nations that collaborate with the West (e.g., by hosting military forces), like Bahrain, Kuwait, and UAE.

Despite the fact that they are helping Iran with their nuclear program, it should not come as a surprise that, as that last paragraph suggests, Russia is also in Iran's sites. Back in February, Lt. Colonel James Zumwalt, USMC (ret) wrote about the enormous mistake Putin and Russia were making regarding Iran:

In the end, it will prove to be Russian assistance given to the Iranians in building their nuclear facilities and Putin’s reluctance to work with the US and other nations to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapons capability that will come back to haunt Moscow. For as Russia’s Muslim population and the ranks of Islamist separatists grow in the future, the latter will be looking for a “game changing” means of imposing its influence over all Russia. That means may well come in the form of a nuclear weapon the Islamist separatists come to possess—courtesy of Iran.

Putin naively believes in a non-existent Russian/Iranian bond that places Moscow outside Iran’s crosshairs. But Iran eventually has in mind for Russia the same fate it has for other non-Islamic states—a fate shared by the Caucasus Emirate: i.e., to make the country subservient to shariah law.

In making its offer to protect its allies, Iran is drawing a line in the sand in reaction to Saudi Arabia--as Barry Rubin writes:

So the Saudis are doing what I’ve been telling the Obama administration to do for 2.5 years: Form an alliance opposing revolutionary Islamism. Of course, the Saudis won’t include Israel (at least publicly) and they won’t get Europe, but at the moment they’re all we’ve got.[Hat tip: DG]

On the other hand, maybe we should be heartened by news that Iran wants a nuclear-free world:

“The Iranian nation wants a world free from nuclear weapons,” [Iranian first vice president] Mohammad Reza Rahimi was quoted by IRNA as saying on Tuesday.

That's right: Iran wants a world free of nuclear weapons!
(assuming you define 'world' as Dar al-Harb.)

Technorati Tag: Iran.