WASHINGTON, Sept. 30 (UPI) -- It is highly significant that Iran's missile program is under the control of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard -- Pasdaran -- the most loyal element of the regime, which combines internal secret police and external intelligence and shock troop functions. It is not controlled by civilians; not even by the regular military.

Historical parallels to a national security organization involvement in missile production and space launches include the German use of slave labor, coordinated with Heinrich Himmler's SS. Incidentally, Himmler had an abiding interest in space travel and even space colonization.

Lavrenti Beria, Stalin's omnipotent secret police chief, presided over the Soviet nuclear bomb program and an empire of technological research institutes, such as the one described in Alexander Solzhenitsyn's novel "The First Circle."

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has announced its forthcoming space launch, which may likely be disguising a new intermediate-range ballistic missile or an attempt to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile.

Potential Iranian long-range and intermediate-range ballistic missile or intercontinental ballistic missile capabilities make a deployment of a U.S. anti-ballistic missile system in Central Europe -- Poland and the Czech Republic -- particularly timely and necessary.