Are Iran's Missiles A Threat To Europe?

Kaveh L. Afrasiabi
Monday, May 7, 2007
SFGate

The Bush administration's plan to station interceptor missiles in Poland and a corresponding X-band radar system in the Czech Republic has triggered a major controversy. Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, has warned that Moscow may pull out of an arms agreement with Europe if the United States doesn't scrap this plan.

The U.S. government has justified this move primarily as a response to an Iranian missile threat to Europe, claiming, in the words of Robert Joseph, the U.S. Special Envoy For Nuclear Non-Proliferation, that Iran is capable of developing long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles by 2015.

Certainly, Iran has an active missile program and its military leaders have been publicly boasting of steady progress in the range, precision and sophistication of their missiles. Iran's missile arsenal consists of artillery rockets and short-and medium-range missiles with a range of up to 1,300 kilometers, too short to reach middle Europe.

This does not mean, however, as the United States claims, that Europe is at risk of a missile attack from Iran.

Here Is Why:

First, Iran's missile program began during the Iran-Iraq war (1980-88), in response to the horrific onslaught of Saddam Hussein's missiles raining down on Tehran and other cities; a U.N. study indicates that Iraq fired some 516 Scud-B missiles against Iran, which had a limited inventory and retaliated with 88 to 100 missiles during the course of the war.

Since then, in light of a regional arms race, with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states' acquisition of sophisticated jet fighters from the United States and Europe, Iran has relied on the relatively cheap alternative of missiles.

These missiles offer an important deterrent in the event of a showdown with Uncle Sam because they are capable of hitting the nearby U.S. targets in Iraq and other parts of the Persian Gulf.

Second, Iran's medium-range Shahab-3 missiles are modeled after the North Korean Nodong missiles which are, in turn, based on an early Soviet model.

Most experts agree that the Iranian missile system has reached its maximum potential and cannot be stretched into developing longer range missiles.

Iran would need to master the extremely complex "multistage" missile technology in order to build them.

So far, only a few countries have been able to reach this advanced stage of missile development and some of them, i.e., India and Israel, reportedly have had significant difficulty manufacturing reliable long-range missiles.

Third, Iran's other option of importing the long-range missiles from abroad, e.g., North Korea, is limited and unlikely in light of the U.N. sanctions against Iran and North Korea, which prohibit the export of missile technology to Iran. There is no evidence of missile cooperation between Iran and India or Pakistan, either.

Fourth, Iranian missiles are not serious threats until they carry nuclear warheads. But, so far there is no "smoking gun" to confirm the United States' allegations that Iran is working toward deployable nuclear weapons.

In the words of the IAEA chief, Mohammad El Baradei, the "jury is still out" on this question.

The United States' move to install the anti-missile system in parts of Europe is seemingly predicated, rather prematurely, on the failure of European-led efforts to steer Iran away from the proliferation path by means of sanctions and carrots.

Iran may, after all, follow the "Japan model," that is, mastering the nuclear fuel cycle and thus become potentially nuclear-ready, i.e., turning into a quasi-nuclear weapon state without actually proliferating the weapons (due to their regional destabilization).

Fifth, assuming that Iran manages to defy the sanctions and assemble a few nuclear bombs, that does not mean that it would have the advanced capability to develop nuclear warheads. Simple nuclear explosives are generally far too heavy and large for such purposes.

Sixth, the net of economic, trade and energy relations that bind together Iran and Europe, reflected in the multibillion dollar gas deal Austria signed with Tehran last month, undermines the United States' projection of a Europe-unfriendly Iran.

Finally, in addition to alternative countermeasures, such as strengthening the global export control measures, the United States must consider Europe's own deterrent capability, e.g., France and England's nuclear arsenal, that would likely exact a heavy toll on Iran if it ever attacked any part of the European Union.

Together, these make Iran's missile threat to Europe a remote possibility and the Bush administration's defense shield in Eastern Europe an unnecessary overreaction.

Kaveh L. Afrasiabi is a political scientist and the author of books on Iran's foreign and nuclear policies.

This article appeared on page D - 5 of the San Francisco Chronicle