Jan
Israel peeps in on Iran
On Monday, Israel launched a powerful satellite capable of spying on Iran, even at night and in cloudy weather.
Within two weeks Israel will be able to keep tabs on Iran’s nuclear program.
Iran says their nuclear program is peaceful. The U.S. and Israel disagree and think Iran is up to something more sinister.
Israel is the only nation in the Middle East with a nuclear weapons program. Pakistan has nuclear weapons, but that country is not typically lumped in with the Middle East. Mordechai Vanunu was the whistleblower who confirmed suspicions that Israel had a nuclear weapons program. For his actions, Vanunu was in solitary confinement for 11 of the 18 years that he was imprisoned.
The launch of this satellite from India is not a surprising development, but it is a significant one because it reaffirms Israel’s monitoring power in the area with this latest multi-million dollar addition to its hefty arsenal of military and intelligence capabilities.
How it uses the intelligence it gathers, and who it shares it with (the U.S., perhaps?) remains to be seen.
Images from the satellite should be arriving in about two weeks.
Smile, Iran. You’re on candid satellite.
