Nuclear Program Correlates With Efforts to Build Missile Systems

Likewise, Iran’s nuclear program correlates with its efforts to build missile systems that go beyond defending Iran but that can strike already into the entire Commonwealth of Independent States and Turkey. The Shahab-3 Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM) already in operation, has a range of 1,300 km and can strike at every conceivable target in the Middle East and beyond.  Yet Iran is also building a Shahab-4 that has an even greater range and even a Shahab-5 Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM). Given these facts, threats by many Iranian leaders, not just President Ahmadinejad, to wipe Israel off the face of the earth, and the documented fact that Iran is the biggest state sponsor of terrorism, it is easy to understand why there is widespread apprehension that Iran is in fact building nuclear weapons that can then be placed atop its missiles.