2) Iran is the number one threat. Iran is an immediate national security threat. It is not only a terror state (terrorizing its own populace), but also the number one state sponsor of terrorism in the world. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard-Qods Force-Hezbollah axis is active worldwide, maintaining cells in the United States and Western Europe, bombing synagogues in South America, undermining the governments of Lebanon, Iraq and Egypt, and operating to seriously destabilize the government of Yemen, the importance of which was succinctly stated by Jonathan Paris of King's College: "If Yemen is set on fire, the gulf will burn."
One of the strange arguments that many make about the Iranians is that we lost some chance with them since they were fighting al-Qaida as well. Those in the counterterrorist field have known for years that Iran plays both sides against the middle. In the past, they have supported al-Qaida when they felt their interests have merited it, they have given some sanctuary in Iran, they have allowed transit of Iran, they back a Sunni extremist movement Hamas in Palestine and, as Amos Gilad of the Israeli Ministry of Defense stated, they "continue to support al-Qaida." It does not mean they are in control of al-Qaida or the reverse, but it means what is commons sense: when Sunni extremism and Shiite extremism mesh, namely to fight the United States, Europe and Israel, they will work together and are thus a combined threat.