Despite the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate that said Iran has no nuclear weapon program, the Obama administration is reviving the old and false claim that it has such:
U.S. officials said that although no new evidence had surfaced to undercut the findings of the 2007 estimate, there was growing consensus that it provided a misleading picture and that the country was poised to reach crucial bomb-making milestones this year.
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Often overlooked in the NIE, officials said, was that Iran had not stopped its work on other crucial fronts, including missile design and uranium enrichment. Many experts contend that these are more difficult than building a bomb.
Uranium enrichment has of course a perfect civilian application and a missile program is needed if one intends to send a man into space by 2021 as Iran does.
What is always missing in these discussion though is another likely nuclear power with ballistic missiles in the Middle East.
No, I am not talking about Israel.
At the end of the 1980's Saudi Arabia bought some 120 intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) from China. These were modifications of the Chinese nuclear armed DF-3A, but, the Saudis say, only for use with conventional warheads. As these missiles are quite imprecise and two tons of TNT thrown against a big city to possibly hit anywhere in it will not cause much damage, one wonders if that claim is really true.
At the same time Saudi Arabia acquired those missiles Pakistan achieved the capability to detonate a nuclear weapon.
Up to 1991 Saudi Arabia financed the Iraki nuclear program and probably also the Pakistani nuclear weapon program. It is not proven that Saudi Arabia really has nuclear warheads for its missiles, but so far it has not allowed any foreigner or the IAEA to inspect the relevant bases.Even if such inspections would be allowed, nuclear war heads made elsewhere would be hard to detect.
The existence of huge missile bases and launch areas for these missiles in Saudi Arabia is publicly known at least since 2002 when it was reported in Yediot Ahronot.
Sean O'Connor recently published new research based on satellite imagery of the bases in Saudi Arabia where these missiles are hosted.
The picture by O'Conner shows the likely range of these DF-3A missile when fired from those Saudi bases with 2 tons of deadly payload.
With a lighter than 2 tons warhead those missiles could reach half of Europe.
So why do we constantly hear of a nuclear ballistic missile threat from Iran which has neither missiles of intermediate range nor any nuclear weapon program nor financed foreign nuclear programs, while Saudi Arabia has a significant missile capacity and probably (likely) also the nuclear warheads for them?
Why is the relative free Islamic Republic seen as more dangerous than the strict Wahhabi dictatorship on the west side of the Gulf from where 9/11 was financed and staffed?