In The News: Iranian Missile Launchers Can Overwhelm Israeli Defense

Report: New Iranian Missile Launchers Could Overwhelm Israeli Defenses

Iran could have enough launchers to send a salvo of medium range ballistic missiles that would overwhelm Israeli ballistic missile defense systems, according to a Wednesday report from IHS Jane’s.

A May, 26 broadcast on Iranian television showcased a collection of transporter erector launchers (TELs) capable of launching the Iranian Shahab-3 guided ballistic missiles.

“Iranian television footage showed at least 26 TELs lined up in two rows for the event, which marked their purported delivery to the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Aerospace Force, which operates the country’s ballistic missiles,” according to the report.

The Shahab-3 is based on a North Korean design and is capable striking Israel from Iranian territory.

“The delivery of such a large number of missile launchers demonstrates the Islamic Republic of Iran’s self-sufficiency in designing and building the strategic system and shows the Iranian Armed Forces’ massive firepower and their ability to give a crushing response to the enemy,” Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi said in a report carried by Iranian state news.

The more missiles Iran can launch at once, “the greater its chances of overwhelming defensive systems, such as Israel’s Arrow, which only have a limited number of interceptors ready to launch at incoming targets,” according to the Jane’s report

Brazen Iranian Campaign Stirs Echoes Of Ahmadinejad

Iranians have seen it before: A youngish presidential candidate firing up crowds with fist-waving rants against the West, then displaying his Islamist bona fides with courtesy calls to hard-line clerics.

Saeed Jalili, familiar to outsiders because of his prominence as a nuclear negotiator, has tried to distance himself from outgoing president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has fallen out with the clerical leadership that controls Iran. But he is employing the same strategy that worked for Ahmadinejad eight years ago — and in the murky world of Iranian politics, where there are no credible polls and elections are a highly controlled affair, it has made him, for many, the presumed front-runner.

“No compromise! No submission!” shouted supporters at rallies this week that had men in front and women segregated in the back.

Iran has no credible voter polling to handicap the candidates, but there is a sense of momentum behind Jalili. He is clearly popular with the ruling clerics who hand-pick the ballot list and faced widespread accusations of vote rigging four years ago to keep Ahmadinejad in power.

Iran Election Unlikely To Alter Nuke Policy

Secretary of State John Kerry said Friday he is not optimistic that Iran’s upcoming election will produce any change in the country’s nuclear ambitions, which the US and others believe are aimed at developing atomic weapons. He also reiterated the long-standing US position that it would be “unacceptable” for Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon.

Kerry’s comments came as the Obama administration again ramped up sanctions against Iran to try to force it to prove that its nuclear intentions are peaceful by cutting off much-needed outside state revenue. The sanctions target Iran’s petrochemicals industry, the largest source of funding for Iran’s nuclear program after oil.

Moscow's Smoke Screen Obscures Assad's Next Syrian War

On minute, Russian spokesmen declare that Moscow is only filling standing contracts with Syria for the sale of weapons, i.e. – S-300 anti-air missiles; the next, that delivery will take place only in the second quarter of 2014 (ahead of Syria’s presidential election). Then, after those spokesmen previously declared that Russia would only fill outstanding arms contracts, Serge Korotkov, head of the MiG company came out with the news Friday, May 31, that a Syrian delegation was in Moscow to discuss “a new contract” for the sale of “more than 10” MiG-29 M/M2 fighters.

Russian fighter-bomber is designed to operate in complex electronic jamming environments. It is therefore just what the Syrian army lacks for overcoming the Israeli Air Force’s ability to disable Syria’s Russian-made electronic warfare systems.

Moscow is therefore offering to provide Bashar Assad and his air force with a key resource for delivering on the statement he made in a TV interview Thursday, May 30: “We have informed all foreign parties that we will retaliate against any future Israeli attack.”

Our military and Russian sources say that the conflicting Russian statements on weapons sales to Damascus have two motives:

1.  To lay down a smoke screen for concealing the true nature and volume of the military equipment Moscow is shipping to Assad and his army by airlift. Its transports land and unload their freight at various Syrian airfields, including Aleppo and Latakia. Without the Russian and Iranian air corridors, the Syrian army would soon run out of the ammunition, spare parts and fuel, needed day to day for keeping up its war on the rebels.

2. To spread a fog fraught with Russian menace for scaring Israel, the United States, Britain, France and Turkey off any thought of military intervention in the Syrian conflict. 

President Vladimir Putin and his advisers feel they can safely turn up the heat in the belief that President Barack Obama will have no choice in the final reckoning but to accept the Russian-Iranian proposals for ending the Syrian war, starting with leaving Assad in power. Otherwise, Moscow is indicating that the war will escalate, fueled by the swelling input of Russian arms, and the United States will sink further in Middle East estimation.

Implicit in the Russian stance is that the Syrian war which has already spread to Lebanon thanks to Hizballah’s participation in the fighting will next spill over into Israel. Moscow is playing the S-300 missiles and MiG-29 M/M2 warplanes as pieces in its game against Israel too on the Syrian chessboard.