With North Korea testing a second nuclear warhead (just weeks after testing a long-range ICBM) — and Iran feverishly trying to develop its own nuclear weapons — Israel’s deputy defense minister said today Israelis need to prepare for all out war. A massive, full-country war readiness exercise will commence in Israel on May 31, designed to test the nation’s emergency preparedness for thousands of missiles coming in from all directions.
One concern is that Iran may be secretly funding North Korea’s nuclear weapons development program, and receiving the test data. If that is the case, military commanders and engineers in Tehran may be far closer to testing — or using — their own nuclear warheads than is currently believed in the West to be the case. The Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff said over the weekend that Iran is between one and three years away from having operational nuclear weapons. That could be right, but what if it’s sooner? This very question is what has Prime Minister Netanyahu so concerned, and why he is actively considering the possibility of a preemptive strike against Iran if international efforts to stop Iran’s nuclear program doesn’t bear fruit fast.
Meanwhile, one cannot rule out the possibility of nuclear war on the Korean peninsula, or Pyongyang providing nuclear weapons to terrorist groups planning to target the United States. This, of course, was the fictional scenario I laid out in my last political thriller, Dead Heat. Let’s be praying none of it comes to pass.
HEADLINES TO TRACK:
- North Korea declares it conducted nuclear test
- North Korea tests nuclear weapon ‘as powerful as Hiroshima bomb’
- Obama: World must ‘stand up to’ North Korea
- North Korea nuclear test – ”internal affair”, says Iran
- N. Korea Could Transfer ICBM Tech To Iran
- Iran within 1 to 3 years of nuke, says U.S. military chief
- Obama updates military plans for Iran
- “Iran has dispatched six … warships to international waters”