Achaemenids, Sassanids, now ... Khomenids?

The Iranian mullahs are making their next overt move at creating an evil empire:

Last Thursday, Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani — while at the Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University in Indonesia — stated that Iran will use its missiles to defend other Muslim nations if threatened.


This is the first time that a high-ranking Iranian official has issued such a warning. In effect, Iran is expanding its defense strategy from protecting their own sovereignty to a “defensive umbrella” over other Islamic nations.
Larijani based his argument on what he called “the school of the late Ayatollah Khomeini,” the founder of the Islamic Republic: Muslims should possess enough defensive strength to use against other countries should one of those countries attack. Larijani further stated:

We do not hide our defensive advancement and (we) have designed advanced missile systems. … Israel and the U.S. should know that if they want to act violently toward Muslims, we will stand in their way.

Reza Kahlili continues:

I revealed recently that the Revolutionary Guards have now expanded the reach of their missiles to 2000 miles, which covers the capitals in Western Europe. These missiles are capable of carrying a nuclear payload. Also, through a secret pact with Venezuela which was signed by Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on October 19 in Tehran, the Guards are constructing a missile installation to be built inside Venezuela with missiles able to reach U.S. shores. The Guards are also actively arming Hezbollah, which now has over 40,000 rockets, and Hamas with over 10,000 rockets.
The Guards have stockpiled more than 1,000 ballistic missiles while constantly introducing more advanced models: the recently announced Qiyam 1 missile is difficult for air defense systems to detect. The Guards have also stockpiled hundreds of anti-ship missiles capable of disrupting the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf.
Most alarming is the Guards’ intent to arm their missiles with nuclear payloads, which they expect to accomplish within the next nine months.
This is occurring while the Iranians have expanded their naval presence by sending several submarines into the Red Sea to accompany its Navy’s 14th fleet there. The Iranian Navy has also widened its presence in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.

Not to make light of this, but the Iranian Navy has 14 fleets? You've got to be kidding.

The recent statements by the Iranian officials — such as Iran’s supreme leader’s claim that “the U.S. has been brought to its knees by the Islamic Revolution,” or Ahmadinejad’s claim that “Iran’s nuclear train has no brakes and no reverse gear” — are a continuation of their aggressive foreign policy. They have claimed victory for their nuclear program as the international community has been unable to stop it. They assert that the sanctions are not working as designed because many countries continue to trade with Iran. They also believe that the West lacks the courage to confront them.
Most importantly: Iran’s leaders believe that the time for a worldwide Islamic state is at hand.

Oh, joy.  J.E. Dyer has more analysis:

What Iran will protect under the missile umbrella is not peace, harmony, and light, but the nation-torturing activities of the paramilitary Qods Force and Iranian-backed terrorists like Hezbollah and Hamas.

This move puts Iran in the aspiring-nuclear-power category of the former USSR and China – not that of Britain, France, India, Pakistan, or North Korea.  Iran is still in the “aspiring” stage, but has already revealed the scope of her ambitions for deterrence.  The radical Islamic regime has no intention of merely deterring a single neighbor, maintaining its independence inside a foundational alliance, or even just brooding dementedly inside its borders.  Revolutionary Iran aims to achieve regional dominance, and sees deterring the West as the first step.
Just to be clear, when Iran offers a missile umbrella to the Muslim nations of the Middle East, she means she can, and under certain circumstances will, launch missiles at the non-Muslim nations she can reach with her arsenal, which right now include Israel, Southeastern Europe, and Russia.  When the joint missile base in Venezuela is completed, Iran will be able to reach the territory of the United States with her missiles.    A secondary meaning is that Iran can threaten with missiles those Muslim nations that collaborate with the West (e.g., by hosting military forces), like Bahrain, Kuwait, and UAE.
The missile umbrella propounded by Larijani is precisely the form of deterrence employed by the Soviet Union in the Cold War.  The Soviet deterrent – to which the Russians still, to this day, refer as their “strategic deterrent” – was used as an umbrella to give cover to the Soviet oppression of Eastern Europe, and to Soviet support of Marxist insurrections further abroad.  It was a very successful deterrent, because it changed the most fundamental calculations of the United States about what was possible.

This is a clear and present danger to the US.  Why aren't we doing something about it?

For that matter, why isn't Russia? Oh, that's right.  They are helping Iran's nuclear program.  Bad idea, says Daled Amos:

Despite the fact that they are helping Iran with their nuclear program, it should not come as a surprise that, as that last paragraph suggests, Russia is also in Iran's sites. Back in February, Lt. Colonel James Zumwalt, USMC (ret) wrote about the enormous mistake Putin and Russia were making regarding Iran:

In the end, it will prove to be Russian assistance given to the Iranians in building their nuclear facilities and Putin’s reluctance to work with the US and other nations to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapons capability that will come back to haunt Moscow. For as Russia’s Muslim population and the ranks of Islamist separatists grow in the future, the latter will be looking for a “game changing” means of imposing its influence over all Russia. That means may well come in the form of a nuclear weapon the Islamist separatists come to possess—courtesy of Iran.

Putin naively believes in a non-existent Russian/Iranian bond that places Moscow outside Iran’s crosshairs. But Iran eventually has in mind for Russia the same fate it has for other non-Islamic states—a fate shared by the Caucasus Emirate: i.e., to make the country subservient to shariah law.

Thirty years of the Iranian mullahs terrorist, Islamism and bullying have come to this.  How? Every president since Carter had a chance to do something about it.  Every president did not.

Now the threat looms ever larger.

When are we going to do something about it?