July 11, 2008 | By Nathaniel Ward

Iran’s missile test

Iran’s government launched nine missiles on Wednesday as part of a military exercise. This is the latest example of belligerence from the radical regime.

Alarmingly, the missile tests suggest that “Iran is on a collision course with the United States and its allies,” explains Heritage Foundation Middle East expert James Phillips.

Phillips says explains these tests had four principal goals:

1. Deter military action against its accelerating nuclear program;
2. Undermine the international coalition seeking to dissuade Iran from attaining a nuclear weapon;
3. Intimidate its neighbors; and
4. Boost President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s flagging domestic political support.

In short, as Heritage’s Peter Brookes writes in the Orange County Register, “Iran’s chest-beating” demonstrates that “it plans to become the Middle East’s 800-pound gorilla.”

Will this aggressiveness serve as a much-needed wake-up call to America and its allies?

“Iran’s missile-rattling provides one more reminder,” Phillips writes, “that the United States and its allies need to cooperate more effectively to contain Iran’s rising power, put a higher priority on missile defense and prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.”

Reinforcing the need for missile defense

Writing in the Middle East Times, Heritage’s Ariel Cohen echoes Phillips’ call for strengthened missile defenses.

“The recent Iranian missile tests demonstrate the need to deploy a missile defense capable of mid-flight interception of Iranian warheads, which in a few years may be able to reach Europe and the United States,” Cohen argues.

Unfortunately, America’s missile defense plans have hit a setback. Poland’s government is having second thoughts about placing interceptors in their country. “This is a momentous event and should not be lightly dismissed,” Cohen says.

But there is good news. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice signed an agreement with Czech officials this week to host a radar station integral to the missile shield.

“The agreement signed in Prague represents progress toward a more secure world, and the Czech government has to be commended for its steadfastness in following through on its commitments to the United States,” Heritage’s Helle Dale writes in the Washington Times.

Live webcast Monday with Steve Forbes

Heritage Foundation Trustee Steve Forbes will be speaking Monday in Denver, Colo. at an event sponsored by the Colorado Committee for Heritage.

Watch the webcast live on MyHeritage.org on Monday, July 14 at 2:40 p.m. Eastern time.

Filling the mainstream media void

They say a picture is worth a thousand words.

With newspaper circulation declining, the mainstream press is cutting back on newsroom staff. Some newspapers are unable to conduct the amount of analysis they used to, nor can they produce timely charts and other graphics to illustrate news stories and opinion columns.

The Heritage Foundation’s experts have worked hard to fill this void—and at the same time advance conservative ideas through topical information.

» Read the rest of the article about our innovative use of charts and graphics to spread conservative ideas.

Other Heritage work of note

• First Principles. Though thinkers like Edmund Burke and Russell Kirk laid the intellectual foundations of the modern conservative movement, Heritage Foundation President Ed Feulner writes, much more needs to be done to translate their ideas into practical policy solutions. “Ideas are not self-implementing or self-sustaining: they must be linked to action,” he argues. “Translating even the best of ideas into policies and laws that reverse the statist domination we have had in America for the last 70 years is certainly a daunting but not an impossible task.”

• Health Care. Congress is mulling new restrictions on how Americans can spend their own health care money, Heritage’s Greg D’Angelo and Ryan Lynch report. Money in health savings accounts would be subject to new usage rules, making the innovative health care reform less attractive to consumers.

• American Leadership. The Rev. Miguel D’Escoto Brockmann of Nicaragua, recently chosen as the new president of the United Nations General Assembly, is just the latest embarrassment for the corrupt international organization, Heritage President Ed Feulner explains in the Washington Times. “It’s time for the United Nations to turn its investigators loose on itself, to identify and eliminate the abuses that have come to define the world body.”

• Rule of Law. Hans von Spakovsky, who served as a member of the Federal Election Commission for two years, explains the threat to electoral integrity from non-citizen voters in a new Heritage analysis. “Thousands of non-citizens are registered to vote in some states, and tens if not hundreds of thousands in total may be present on the voter rolls nationwide,” he writes. This is enough to swing several close local and even national elections. “Americans may disagree on many areas of immi­gration policy, but not on the basic principle that only citizens—and not non-citizens, whether legally present or not—should be able to vote in elections.”

• American Leadership. “The admission of Israel to NATO should be an important foreign policy goal for the United States,” Heritage’s Nile Gardiner told a Congressional Committee this week. “Israel is a vital American ally and friend, and membership of the alliance would be in America’s and Israel’s interest.” Gardiner is the director of Heritage’s Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom.

In other news

• In a troubling development, the Hezbollah terrorist group has joined the Lebanese government, gaining a measure of direct political power in the country.

• A costly and economically harmful plan to bail out banks and homeowners is expected to pass the Senate. The House of Representatives favors a similar but not identical plan; the White House is threatening a veto.

• President Bush has once again asked Congress to lift the ban on offshore energy exploration.

• The Senate voted Thursday to confirm Gen. David Petraeus as commander of the Central Command, which oversees military operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Petraeus led the successful surge strategy in Iraq that dramatically improved the country’s security situation.

• Transportation special interests including airlines are backing a plan to impose regulations on energy markets. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reports on the harmful consequences of past Congressional regulation of futures markets.

Coming up at Heritage

To attend these or any other events at Heritage please RSVP at Heritage’s website. Or you can view these events live online. All times are Eastern.

• On Tuesday, July 15 at 11:00 a.m., Declan Ganley, leader of Ireland’s campaign against the Lisbon Treaty, explains their victory over expanded European consolidation.

• On Wednesday, July 16 at 11:00 a.m., Admiral Timothy Keating, commander of the Pacific Command, discusses the region he oversees.

Nathaniel Ward is the Editor of MyHeritage.org—a website for members and supporters of The Heritage Foundation.

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