“The German newspaper, Die Welt, reported on Nov. 25, 2010 of a deal Iran struck to establish a military missile base on the northwestern shores of Venezuela. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is vying with Ahmadinejad for the title of most anti-American thug on the planet. According to Die Welt, Venezuela agreed to allow Iran establish a military base manned by Iranian missile officers, Iranian Revolutionary Guard soldiers and Venezuelan missile officers.

Iran also granted Chavez permission to use the missiles in case of an “emergency” and for “national needs” – radically increasing the threat to pro-American neighbors like Colombia. The report says Iran planned to place a variety of medium-range ground-to-ground missiles on the base.

In a related article published Dec. 8, 2010 by the Hudson Institute in New York, Anna Mahjar-Barducci cites published Russian reports of additional weapon sales to Venezuela, conveniently skirting around a UN sanction against Iran. The sale includes “five battalions of S-300PMU-1 air defence systems and a number of other weapons” originally contracted to Iran for $800 million. “If Iran, therefore, cannot get the S-300 directly from Russia, it can still have them through its proxy, Venezuela, and deploy them against its staunchest enemy, the U.S.” writes Mahjar-Barducci.

The Iran-Venezuela-Russia alliance establishes a missile base with nuclear weapons potential right “in the United States soft underbelly (and) many US cities will be able to be reached from there even with short-medium range missiles,” she warns.

Die Welt reported on May 13, 2011 that an Iranian engineering team had visited Venezuela in February, and confirmed the missile complex site is to be on the Paraguana peninsula – the northernmost tip of Venezuela. The article indicates that Iran and Venezuela will construct a complex of 20 meter deep underground silos for the Shahab-3 medium-range missiles. The article explains that the agreement between Venezuela and Iran would mean Chavez would fire missiles at “Iran’s enemies” should Iran face military strikes.

http://alineofsight.com/policy/the-telescope-iran-at-our-doorstep-part-1

“General Vallely now serves as Chairman of Stand Up America, a private organization that includes numerous former military and intelligence community experts and analysts. In his September 4 article, Vallely wrote, “SUA believes strongly that Iran now possesses low yield nuclear war heads that can be mounted on the Shehab missile and deployed on the oceans in container ships with the Russian provided Club K missile launch system.” The General went on to explain that Iran’s objective is to “launch EMP (electro-magnetic pulse) weapons on U.S. Coastal cities and freeze our national grid systems.”

A June, 2011 RAND report agreed with Vallely’s analysis. According to RAND senior defense policy analyst Gregory S. Jones, Tehran’s nuclear program has progressed to the point that “it will take around two months for the Iranian regime to produce the 20kg of uranium enriched to 90 percent required for the production of a nuclear warhead.”

The window may have slammed shut on the opportunity to prevent Iran from going nuclear.”

http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/bobbeauprez/2011/09/24/iran_at_our_doorstep_-_part_ii,_the_emp_threat