As the latest round of negotiations between Iran, the U.S., and Europe fails to yield any meaningful nuclear concessions from Tehran, a gathering of experts in the fields of defense, national security, and foreign policy convened in Washington D.C. on Tuesday (Nov. 19).
Held on the eve of the 50th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, the event sought to contrast and compare JFK’s handling of the Cuban missile crisis to President Obama’s response to the current impasse with Iran, and to see what lessons the former might hold for the latter. The threat posed by the rogue Middle Eastern state, say the panelists – not just to its neighbors in the region, but to the United States – is far more immediate than most realize.
The meeting was sponsored by EMPact America, a bipartisan non-profit organization dedicated to spreading awareness of the dangers of an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) attack, a stratagem that the EMPact’s founders allege is within Iran’s technological reach, and for which the United States is woefully unprepared.
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An EMP attack by Iran, explained Schwartz, would have the power to “shut down our electrical grid, and thus, end our civilization as we know it.”
“Iran has repeatedly called for a world without America,” Schwartz continued, “and has practiced this type of EMP attack from barges in the Caspian Sea.” He went on to describe various plausible scenarios for a high-altitude EMP detonation, describing the repercussions as “catastrophic.”
