Is Iran a serious threat?

The following is from exiled Iranian, Alireza Jafarzadeh, the first person to reveal the Islamic republic's secret nuclear processing sites at Natanz and Arak.

Iran is "a very, very serious threat to the free world," said Alireza Jafarzadeh, who outlines the dangers posed by the Islamic republic, as he sees them, in his new book, "The Iran Threat: President Ahmadinejad and the coming nuclear crisis."

On Iran in Iraq -

"The problem in Iraq is neither a civil nor a sectarian war.

Rather, Iraq is now a battleground for the clash of two alternatives: Islamic extremist opinion which gets its orders from Tehran and seeks to establish an Islamic republic in Iraq, and a democratic alternative seeking a pluralistic democracy in the country. The former seeks sectarian violence..... the latter seeks to ease tension, provide security and stability and establish democratic institutions."

On the Iranian threat -

First: Iran wants to pursue its nuclear program, come what may. Iran is cognizant of the facts possession of nuclear weapons puts it in a different category altogether.

Second: Iran's meddling in Iraq. Since the start of the Iranian revolution in 1979, Khomeini wanted to export the Islamic revolution to neighboring countries, particularly Iraq, Bahrain and Kuwait, who have important Shiite minorities. Iran has provided training, financing and explosives and weapons to the insurgency.

Third: Iran's support of international terrorism. Iran, says Jafarzadeh, poses a serious threat to the world by its support of terrorism. The Islamic republic has long been a supporter of groups such as Lebanon's Hezbollah, or the Islamic resistance movement in the Palestinian territories, better known as Hamas.

Fourth: Iran continues to oppose the Middle East peace process. However, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad does nothing to encourage peace in the Middle East with his repeated claims that "Israel should be wiped off the map," and persists with his insistence that the "Holocaust never happened. Needless to say, this has raised concern, not only in Israel, but in the United States and Western countries that a nuclear-armed Iran will only make matters worse.

Jafarzadeh writes: For 27 years, the Iranian regime has voiced its hatred of the United States and the West, and for the same number of years attempts have been made to change the regime's behavior ......The Iranian regime was not budged from its original theme of hating the West and working to export its Islamic revolution.

"Ignoring this will only further step up Tehran's rush to the bomb," Jafarzadeh said. More....