by Jay Solomon at The Front Page: Hardly a day goes by without a reminder of that fact. Yesterday, it was the news out of Ukraine, where two Russian missiles hit the Ukrainian city of Poltava, killing at least 51 people and wounding more than 200 others. Before that it was Hamas’s murder of six hostages in southern Gaza. By one count there are 56 active conflicts ongoing today, more than at any point since the Second World War. And alongside headlines about the world’s major hot wars are signs that the new cold war may be warming up: China’s coast guard ramming Filipino vessels in the South China Sea—a now routine practice—or a Chinese spy plane violating Japanese airspace—that was last week—or Beijing saber-rattling over Taiwan.
In other words, things aren’t great. But they can always get worse!
One way in which things could get a lot worse would be if Iran—the power behind so much of the bloodshed in the Middle East today—acquired nuclear weapons.
How close is Iran to getting the bomb? Closer than many experts seem to think, according to Free Press investigative reporter Jay Solomon. Today he reports on documents translated by The Free Press that reveal how Iran’s parliament is expanding the funding and military pursuits of Tehran’s Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research, a secretive body that reports directly to the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei—with no civilian oversight—and is charged with researching advanced and nonconventional weapons.
One former UN weapons inspector says the documents show Tehran’s brazenness and desire to make known its growing capabilities. They also suggest that Western assumptions about Tehran’s willingness to strike a new nuclear deal are dangerously mistaken.
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