Dear Members and Friends,

President Barack Obama in his historic address to the Muslim world in Cairo, Egypt last Thursday focused on reaching out to cooperate and form partnerships to address the four most prominent issues facing our shared cultures – terrorism, Israel, Iran and democracy. I would like to highlight and expand upon his third point which is his concern over Iran’s persistent efforts to attain nuclear weapons and become a nuclear power.

“It’s about preventing a nuclear arms race in the Middle East that could lead this region and the world down a hugely dangerous path,” said President Obama.

In this instance, missile defense will play a vital role in the solutions that our two cultures will work together to develop in order to peacefully resolve this dilemma. There are three possible policies that we must consider with Iran: 1) Acceptance of Iran being a nuclear power; or 2) Military action and 3) Diplomacy to prevent Iran from becoming nuclear.

There are consequences with each of these processes and their effects would involve the requirement to field and deploy effective missile defense systems for the national security of the United States homeland and throughout the Middle Eastern region and Europe as well as Russia.

Diplomacy, the third option, requires a stable environment and cooperation between many countries and cultures, as the Sunni countries of the Middle East and Israel will be tempted to use military force or become nuclear in response to failed diplomatic efforts.

Deployed missile defense systems can a produce a stable environment necessary for diplomatic efforts which will require a steady hand against increased rhetoric, belligerent behavior and military testing of missiles and nuclear technology. The case for missile defense has been made, proven and continues to be proven to allow U.S. and International diplomacy to continue with North Korea without military intervention or nuclear proliferation. Japan and South Korea have restrained their actions due to their confidence of US deterrence and belief in the current missile defense assets in place to protect them.

This real life case study would have merit with the neighboring countries of Iran and those in the Middle East. The missile defense systems cannot just based in the local region, but rather stem from the fundamental core belief that the US homeland must be defended to allow the US the credibility to assure defense of its allies and friends. This would entail the deployment of long range, medium range and short range missile defenses in the United States, the critical regions throughout the world and in Europe.

It is of amazement or of political gamesmanship that the United States Secretary of Defense is attempting to convince the US Congress that a reduction of 32 percent of long range missiles to defend the United States homeland is necessary, even though the threat has increased, the diplomatic need has increased and the US assurance of our allies has increased. Moreover, the American taxpayer has paid for the majority of the system that the US Department of Defense stated was necessary to defend the US homeland from both Iran and North Korea. It would be hard to believe that the American people who support missile defense at close to 90% would accept a significant reduction in protection that has being sold to Congress this past month by the Department of Defense.

Think about it.