Here's one article on missile technology that nonetheless manages to ignore the bleeding obvious:
“Although Iran has paused progress in some areas of its nuclear program and fulfilled its obligations under the Joint Plan of Action (JPOA), it continues to develop technological capabilities that also could be applicable to nuclear weapons, including ballistic missile development,” a one-page unclassified summary of the [Pentagon] report says.
So we have Iran working on ballistic missiles. That's dangerous enough when you consider nobody builds long-range conventional missiles.
But has it not occurred to the authors of the Pentagon report that perhaps Iran has "paused" indigenous nuclear programs because they don't need them now? Perhaps because Iran has subcontracted nuclear warhead work to North Korea?
This article should be disturbing for showing how Iran can do an end-run around any nuclear deal with Iran:
Growing cooperation between Iran and North Korea suggests that Tehran may develop a nuclear weapon with support from Pyongyang despite ongoing negotiations with the P5+1. Accordingly, the United States must seek to prohibit any form of nuclear cooperation between the two regimes as part of a final nuclear agreement, and challenge their broader goal of undermining U.S. global leadership.
The 30-year relationship between Tehran and Pyongyang reflects both shared interests and shared opposition to the United States and its allies. Iran seeks, and North Korea possesses, nuclear weapons in part to challenge U.S. influence and authority. Moreover, as Iran’s key supplier of ballistic missile technology since the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, Pyongyang has relied on Tehran for a major portion of its hard currency. ...
Today, the two countries seek to advance not only ballistic missile sales, but also a common strategic goal. North Korean deputy foreign minister Pak Kil Yon said during a 2011 visit to Iran that the two countries lie in “one trench” against “arrogant powers.” Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, told North Korean leader Kim Yong Nam the following year that the two nations have “common enemies.”
If they have common enemies, what else might North Korea do to help Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions?
I've suggested that North Korea might host an Iranian missile arsenal that could reach Iran's enemies and deter attack until Iran can build nuclear weapons on their own territory:
What if North Korea sells Iran nuclear missiles and rents the facilities in North Korea to launch them?
From North Korea, these missiles could reach Europe, Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan, and a number of targets in America. So Iran doesn't need to have the missiles inside Iran, really.
This is the map of the radius of the latest missile that North Korea is developing.
What target relevant to Iran is outside of that radius if North Korea rented Iran launch silos in North Korea in addition to selling Iran the nuclear missiles themselves?
That would count as sharing one trench against their enemies, right?
Have a super sparkly day.
