During the abortive Congressional debate on Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, Senator Robert Menendez challenged Secretary of State John F. Kerry on an important point.  Senator Menendez said:

“As I read the Security Council resolution on page 119, the ban on Iranian ballistic missiles has, in fact, been lifted. The new Security Council resolution is quite clear. Iran is not prohibited from carrying out ballistic missile work. The resolution merely says, quote, ‘Iran is called upon not to undertake such activity.’  Now previously, in Security Council Resolution 1929, the council used mandatory language where it said, quote, ‘It decides that Iran shall not undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons.’ Why would we accept inferior language that changes the mandatory ‘shall’ to a permissive ‘call upon’?

Secretary Kerry told Senator Menendez that he was wrong, and that the nuclear deal would restrain Iran for eight years on ballistic missiles.  Iran resumed testing ballistic missiles nearly immediately after the United States agreed to adopt the nuclear deal.  Now Russia has declared that it will veto any sanctions at the United Nations.  Russia cites the very “weakened language” that Senator Menendez pointed to as its justification.

Iran’s missile tests were clearly intended to be provocative, as they happened in close proximity to one another and featured images of a missile marked “Israel must be wiped off the earth.”   Even if Congress can force the administration to accept punitive action the United States will have to go it alone on sanctions.  The United Nations will be blocked from any action by Putin’s veto.

It is worth reiterating that the largest immediate danger of Iranian missile tests is the possibility of an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) strike.  Such a strike would not require great accuracy from the missiles involved.  Iranian missiles are barely accurate enough to make nuclear weapons a viable choice against ground targets.  As an EMP strike would target the upper atmosphere, however, accuracy is not especially important.  Neither is access to powerful, modern nuclear weapons.  Nearly any sort of functional nuclear weapon could be used to create the pulse, according to former CIA director James Woolsey, Jr., “even a relatively primitive, older, low-yield nuclear weapon.”

Woolsey went on to point out that Iran has published a theological justification for attacking America in this way:

Woolsey says the Iranian military has laid the groundwork for a religious justification for an EMP strike. In 2010, a military textbook called “Passive Defense” was published, which included a section that outlined how an EMP strike would be compliant with Islamic law.

“The deaths from electromagnetic pulse are all indirect,” said Woolsey. “They come from destroying the electricity grid, and thereby not being able to operate the other 17 infrastructures in the United States — food, water, finance…. [S]ince one is not directly attacking or killing humans,” Woolsey said, “it doesn’t come under the stricture of some other ruling, or idea that one should not use nuclear weapons against people.”

The EMP threat represents one of the few options for a rogue state or a radical terrorist group to kill the United States of America. Congress and the administration, having gotten the Iran deal so disastrously wrong, should move immediately to address the dangers of their recklessness.