Reports that Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps test-fired two ballistic missiles it says were built to be able to hit Israel proves the Mideast nation will do whatever it wants, despite inking the historic deal to limit its nuclear-arms production, Gen. Michael Hayden, tells
Newsmax TV.
"It tells you that Iran, whatever we may or may not have accomplished with the nuclear deal, that all those other things that Iran had been doing that were very troubling and destabilizing, Iran continues to do," Hayden, former director of the CIA and NSA, said Monday to J.D. Hayworth on "Newsmax Prime."
"Ballistic missile tests, support for [Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad, support for Shiite militias in Iraq, all those things across the board so far, no change."
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The U.S. has strongly criticized the missile tests and says it will complain before the U.N. Security Council, where resolution 2231 bans the Islamic Republic from building missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons.
But Hayden — a retired four-star Air Force general and author of
"Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror," published by Penguin Press — says the missiles are not a threat to the United States for now.
"They aren't in any way going to threaten the United States. Their level of development — with apparently North Korean cooperation — allows them to threaten the region," Hayden said.
"But they're building in the direction not unlike North Korea to be able to reach out and touch anyone they feel they want to threaten."
Vice President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that if Iran breaks the terms of the nuclear deal "we will act."
Under a historic deal reached by United States and five other world powers to scale back Iran's nuclear program, financial sanctions imposed by the U.S., the European Union and United Nations were lifted. In return, Iran agreed to lengthy curbs on its nuclear program, which many believe aims at building a nuclear bomb.
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