While the world tries to muster the courage to defend against the Iranian nuclear threat, an Israeli official has just announced that there is no more cause for concern:
'
Arrow Can Fully Protect against Iran'
Recent modifications made to the Arrow enable Israel's ballistic missile defense system to successfully intercept and destroy any ballistic missile in the Middle East, including nuclear-capable missiles under development by Iran, Arieh Herzog, the head of the Defense Ministry's Homa Missile Defense Agency, has told The Jerusalem Post.
In a rare interview that will appear in full in Monday's Post, Herzog provides an inside look at the decision-making process behind Israel's missile defense systems, led by the Israeli- and American-developed Arrow missile, one of the only operational ballistic missile defense systems in the world.
On Monday, the IAF successfully tested a newly modified Arrow interceptor.
Iran and Syria, Herzog said, were investing unprecedented amounts of money in long-range ballistic missile capabilities - with the help of North Korea - and had all but given up building modern air forces.
"The Iranians are continually increasing the range of their missiles," he said. "They are buying technology and in some cases even complete systems from North Korea and other countries."
Herzog also said that while there might be missile systems in Iranian hands that the Arrow could not intercept, all of the ballistic missiles "currently operational" in the Islamic Republic could be destroyed by the Israeli defense system.
"Our Arrow operational system can without a doubt deal with all of the operational threats in the Middle East, particularly in Iran and Syria," he declared.
Unfortunately Dr. Herzog must assume that the daily missiles now falling in Israel's south have made us forget the thousands of missiles that fell in Israel's north during the Lebanon War. These are not ballistic missiles, so Israel has no defense against them whatsoever. In other words, all it will take for Iran to deliver a nuclear warhead into Israel is to drive one in a truck through its client state Syria for delivery to its client terror group Hezbollah, unless it prefers to ship it to its client terror group Hamas for an attack on Israel's south. Both groups are currently receiving enormous quantities of Iranian armaments without any molestation.
The US is now
broadcasting this very concern:
There is a growing threat that terrorist groups such as Hezbollah will acquire nuclear or other WMD technology, a senior U.S. State Department official told the Jerusalem Post this week.
"You have this environment of material, expertise and supporting equipment [for weapons of mass destruction] being more widely available than before."
"You have that coupled with the demonstrated interest of some terror groups to acquire these capabilities, and that is a real concern to us."