In 2006, the U.S. Navy claimed it had a defense against the Iranian C-802 cruise missiles. But Iran, once again, put U.S. credibility to the test. During the war between Hezbollah and Israel, on July 14, 2006, Iranian-trained Hezbollah elite forces, operating with undercover Iranian commandos in Lebanon, fired two radar-guided C-802 missiles at the Israeli warship INS Hanit stationed 10 miles off the coast of Lebanon. The attack was timed to coincide with a speech being aired in the region by Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, who promised to deliver a series of “surprises” to Israel at the time the rocket was fired. In that missile attack, launched from Iranian-manned launchers smuggled into Beirut, four Israeli sailors died, and the Hanit suffered severe damage. The ship’s cruise missile detection system was not turned on. According to Israeli navy sources, these defensive systems are only turned on if the ship’s captain feels his ship is threatened by a cruise missile attack. If there is a small boat attack, that would be handled by the ship’s guns, a different system.
The Israeli military claimed that elite Iranian Revolutionary Guards assisted Hezbollah in launching the C-802 missiles. Nasrallah denied it. Iran insisted the Israeli claim was an attempt "to escape reality with the aim of covering up [Israel's] inability to confront the Lebanese nation and resistance." I have my own sources inside Hezbollah, and they say Nasrallah is dissembling and the C-802 units remained under the full control of Iranian Revolutionary Guards, who smuggled the launchers and missiles through Syria into Lebanon.
Dubai is a very curious place. It is run by a very rich sheik who allows very bad things to happen in his glittering little Sheikdom and always gets away with it. It is the kind of place where they give expensive cars away at airport raffles, AQ Khan buys and sells nuclear weapons plans and components almost openly, and the Dubai authorities make few arrests.
Scores are still being settled from the Iran Iraq War in the 1980s. It is no wonder. If anyone has any doubt about Iran’s ruthless use of all its human resources at the Mullahs’ disposal, let me describe for you what I witnessed on the marshes in the swamps along the Shatt Al Arab near Al Qurna, Iraq, in February 1984 when CNN sent me to cover the Iran Iraq War. As I approached the front on an old Soviet helicopter, I saw what I thought was a huge sandstorm. But, as I got closer, I realized I was witnessing a human wave attack from Iran. What unfolded was a huge and furious battle.
In a city known for the sometimes overwhelming presence of acronyms, two have been noticeably absent from the Senate floor for over a decade. The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) both pertain to nuclear nonproliferation measures. Almost ten full years after the passage of the CTBT failed in the Senate, President Obama said in Prague in April 2009, “My administration will immediately and aggressively pursue U.S. ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.” Little has been mentioned of the CTBT since.
