The ink on the Iran nuclear deal wasn’t even dry yet when Tehran tested a next generation, surface-to-surface ballistic missile with the range to hit archrival Israel.
The Emad, as the new weapon is called, expands upon Iran’s already impressive arsenal of missiles which the IRGC insists are paramount to securing the country against regional threats. The country’s missile program, Tehran says, is purely defensive in nature.
Be that as it may, October’s Emad launch ruffled more than a few feathers in Washington and Jerusalem. As we wrote at the time, it violated the spirit of the nuclear accord if not the letter and subsequently, there were questions as to whether the new missile also ran afoul of a UN Security Council resolution governing the test-firing of missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads.
Fast forward to March and Iran once again moved to show off its fire power, this time by test-firing a handful of medium-range Qiam-1s from silos across the country.
(an image from the March 9 exercises)
The missiles hit targets some 700 km away. “Our main enemies are imposing new sanctions on Iran to weaken our missile capabilities,” Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the IRGC’s aerospace arm said, in a statement. “But they should know that the children of the Iranian nation in the Revolutionary Guards and other armed forces refuse to bow to their excessive demands,” he added, for emphasis.
Washington has run into problems when it comes to applying new sanctions to the Iranian government in connection with the missiles program. “The U.S. Treasury Department blacklisted [last week] two Iranian companies, cutting them off from international finance over their connection to the missile program,” Reuters writes, before reminding us that “Washington imposed similar sanctions on 11 businesses and individuals in January over” last October’s Emad launch.
Hajizadeh was ready with more bombast: “Even if they build a wall around Iran, our missile program will not stop. They are trying to frighten our officials with sanctions and invasion. This fear is our biggest threat.”
Meanwhile, Russia is set to block any further efforts to impose UN sanctions on Tehran in connection with the missile program. “The White House insists it has all the unilateral authorities it needs to slap new sanctions on Iran for defying the spirit — if perhaps not the letter — of the UN Security Council resolution implementing the nuclear deal which ‘called upon’ Iran ‘not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons,'” Al-Monitor writes. “Russia insists that language is not a legal prohibition, in effect ruling out more missile-related UN sanctions.”
“You may like it or not that Iran launches ballistic missiles – but that is a different story,” said Mikhail Ulyanov, head of the Russian ministry’s department for non-proliferation and arms control. “The truth is that in the 2231 resolution there are no such bans.”
And it wouldn’t matter if there were, because as the Ayatollah made abundantly clear on Wednesday, any moderate Iranian politicians who believe that Iran’s future will rely more on diplomacy and less on “defensive” weapons are sorely mistaken.
In an apparent response to former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani who last week tweeted that Iran’s “future is in dialogue, not missiles,” Khamenei said the following today: “Those who say the future is in negotiations, not in missiles, are either ignorant or traitors. If the Islamic Republic seeks negotiations but has no defensive power, it would have to back down against threats from any weak country.”
Islamic Republic must use all means. I support political talks in global issues, but not with everyone. Today is era of both missile & talk.
— Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) March 30, 2016
Clear enough Mr. Rafsanjani? You are either stupid or hell bent on treason and either way, the Ayatollah doesn’t have any patience for it.
All humor aside, it’s hard to blame Khamenei and the IRGC for their hard line stance on Tehran’s missile program. Yes, the Ayatollah takes great pleasure in trolling Washington and he very often uses his own special brand of absurd hyperbole to intentionally whip the masses into an anti-American frenzy. But when it comes to Iran’s right as a sovereign country to defend itself, it’s not at all clear why Tehran should be held to a different standard than the Israelis or the Saudis -both states that are heavily armed and pose a very real threat to Iran and its people.
Indeed, Israel and Saudi Arabia have proven time and again that they aren’t interested in having any kind of honest “dialogue” with Iran whatsoever and there are plenty of people on Capitol Hill who take the same approach. Given that, it seems entirely reasonable for Khamenei to suggest that as long as the current geopolitical dynamic persists, Iran’s future will indeed be tied more closely to missiles than to negotiations.
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