DAR AL HARB - E.U.: NATO CONCERNED WITH IRAN'S MISSILE THREAT TO EUROPE

NATO chief says concerned over Iran's missile threat to Europe

NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said Thursday he was concerned by the potential threat of Iranian missiles to Europe.

"Iran's efforts to acquire nuclear capabilities create big concerns for the international community. We should not ignore that Iran has tested missile with a range of 1,800 kilometers that can even reach Europe," Scheffer told the German daily Bild.


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Iran Helps US Missile Shield
by Stefan Nicola
UPI Germany Correspondent

Iran's latest claim that it is capable of enriching uranium on an industrial level has encouraged proponents of U.S. plans for a missile shield in Eastern Europe, but Moscow is still not amused.
After Tehran's nuclear threats, members of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives even said more countries in Europe should think about participating in the U.S. anti-missile system.

"The U.S. defense system has to be expanded over all of Europe," Eduard Lintner, a foreign policy expert with Merkel's conservatives in Bavaria, told the Wednesday edition of German mass daily Bild. "In cases of emergency we also have to be willing to station rockets in Germany."

Ruprecht Polenz, one of the most senior foreign policy experts in Merkel's CDU party, told Bild that because of Iran's relentless nuclear ambitions, the question of a common defense shield should be discussed in a NATO framework. "We have a common interest to jointly develop a protection shield," he said.

The renewed support for the U.S. anti-missile plan, which foresees bunker-protected rockets to be stationed in Poland and a radar unit in the Czech Republic by 2011-12, comes after Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad boasted about his country's ability to enrich uranium on an industrial scale.

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Standing up to the west

It should come as no surprise that Russia is preparing its own military response to US plans to build a missile defence system in eastern Europe. As the Guardian reports this week, missile defence is emerging as one of the big issues driving Russia and America apart once more. Behind both the missile issue and the use of Gazprom as a tool of foreign policy, is a nagging question: what is Russia's relationship with the west?

It should astonish no one that there is total disagreement about the function, and therefore the potential strategic threat, of an interceptor missile base in Poland and a radar station in the Czech Republic. The Americans claim the interceptors could only work against Iranian intercontinental missiles. The Russians say the Iranians are nowhere near acquiring them. The US insists the interceptors have a kinetic warhead, designed to knock out Iranian missiles midway through their flight. Geography would suggest that they would be no use against missiles launched closer to the western border.

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Pertinent Links:

1) NATO chief says concerned over Iran's missile threat to Europe

2) Iran Helps US Missile Shield

3) Standing up to the west