The Biden Administration has been the biggest gift to the ruling mullahs of Iran as their Islamist regime has been freely and rapidly advancing its nuclear program to unprecedented levels during President Joe Biden's term.
In March 2023, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl told the House Armed Services Committee that Iran's nuclear program had made "remarkable" progress and that it would take Iran 12 days to build a nuclear bomb. Ever since the Biden Administration assumed office, the Iranian regime has been accelerating its enrichment of uranium to "near weapons grade" and declining to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). As the IAEA pointed out:
"Since 23 February 2021 the Agency's verification and monitoring activities have been seriously undermined as a result of Iran's decision to stop the implementation of its nuclear-related commitments."
At present, the ruling mullahs of Iran reportedly have enough enriched uranium to produce five nuclear bombs. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told his Greek counterpart Nikolaos Panagiotopoulos during a visit to Athens on May 4, 2023:
"Make no mistake — Iran will not be satisfied by a single nuclear bomb. So far, Iran has gained material enriched to 20% and 60% for five nuclear bombs... Iranian progress, and enrichment to 90%, would be a grave mistake on Iran's part, and could ignite the region."
The Biden Administration appears to ignore and completely underestimate threats of a nuclear-armed Iran. First, its theocratic leaders have frequently threatened to wipe a whole country -- Israel -- off the map. A core pillar of the Islamic Republic has been to destroy the Jewish state. It is also one of the religious prophecies of the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, as well as his successor, the current Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that Israel will be eventually erased from the face of the earth. General Hossein Salami, the chief of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has made the Iranian regime's plans vehemently clear: "Our strategy is to erase Israel from the global political map," he stated on Iran's state-controlled Channel 2 TV in 2019. Khamenei has also published a 416-page guidebook, titled Palestine about destroying Israel -- which Iran's former "moderate" President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, basically referred to as a one-bomb country.
In short, a nuclear armed Iran is much more dangerous than North Korea. As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pointed out:
"Iran is 50 North Koreas; it is not merely a neighborhood bully like the dynasty that rules North Korea... This is an ideological force that views us, Israel, as a small satan, and views you as the great satan — and to have Iran being able to threaten every city in the United States with nuclear blackmail is a changing of history."
Indeed, the Islamist regime of Iran is anchored in prioritizing the pursuit of its revolutionary ideals, which include exporting its Islamist system of governance to other countries around the world. The mullahs, in fact, incorporated this critical mission into Iran's constitution. The preamble stipulates:
"The mission of the constitution is to create conditions conducive to the development of man in accordance with the noble and universal values of [Shiite] Islam."
The constitution goes on to say that it "provides the necessary basis for ensuring the continuation of the revolution at home and abroad."
Finally, there is always the danger of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of Iran's proxy and militia groups, or that the Iranian regime will share its nuclear technology with its allies, such as the Syrian regime or the Taliban in Afghanistan – or sell it to anyone with the funds or political leverage to buy it. The Iranian regime has already been setting up weapons factories abroad, and manufacturing advanced ballistic missiles and weapons in foreign countries, such as Syria. These weapons include precision-guided missiles with advanced technology to strike specific targets.
In the two years since the Biden administration assumed office, Iran's ruling mullahs have been rapidly and defiantly advancing their nuclear weapons program to levels never before seen, and now have the capability of building as many nuclear bombs as they can. How many nuclear weapons will the Iranian regime -- called by the US Department of State a "top sponsor of state terrorism" -- obtain before the Biden Administration's term ends?
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a business strategist and advisor, Harvard-educated scholar, political scientist, board member of Harvard International Review, and president of the International American Council on the Middle East. He has authored several books on Islam and US Foreign Policy. He can be reached at Dr.Rafizadeh@Post.Harvard.Edu
