Tensions with Iran
26
January 2005
One of my readers has sent me a translation of a text issued
regarding Iran's planned response.
Hatching: countries hosting U.S. air bases
Iranian nuclear program
How Iran will respond. What an Iranian political science specialist writes from Tehran.
By Kaveh L. Afrasiabi, Professor of Political Science at the University of Tehran.
From ASIA TIMES. December 16, 2004.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FL16Ak01.html
TEHERAN
- The United States and Israel may be planning military operations against Iran, according to recent media reports, but Iran is not wasting time preparing its own counteroperations in case an attack materializes.
A lengthy week-long combined land and air exercise has just concluded in five western and southern provinces of Iran, captivating foreign observers who described it as "spectacular"—a massive display of high-tech, mobile operations involving rapid deployment forces equipped with helicopter squadrons, aerial maneuvers, missiles, as well as hundreds of tanks and tens of thousands of well-coordinated soldiers using real ammunition. Simultaneously, approximately 25,000 volunteers have so far registered at newly established recruitment centers for "suicide attacks" against any potential invaders, in what is commonly referred to as "asymmetric warfare."
Behind the strategy regarding a hypothetical U.S. invasion, Iran will likely recycle the scenario of the war against Iraq, where a dominant force—particularly the U.S. Air Force—achieved rapid victory against a much weaker power. Iran has learned much from the 2003 Iraq War, as well as from its own valuable experiences during its war with Iraq from 1980–88 and its confrontation with U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf from 1987–88. Iranians have focused on the merits of a fluid and complex defensive strategy designed to exploit certain weaknesses of American military superpower while maximizing the limited areas where they can gain advantage—such as numerical superiority in ground forces, guerrilla tactics, terrain, etc.
According to a widely circulated article in the U.S.-based Atlantic Monthly on Iran’s "war game," the estimated cost of an attack on Iran is merely tens of millions of miserable dollars. This figure is based on a single "surgical" strike (...) combining missile attacks, aerial bombings, and covert operations, without accounting for Iran’s strategy, which precisely aims to "expand the theater of operations" to impose escalating costs on the invader—such as targeting the U.S. military command structure in the Persian Gulf.
Following this Iranian version of a "follow-up" counter-strategy, the U.S. intention to conduct a limited war aimed at neutralizing Iran’s command system as a prelude to a systematic attack on key military targets would be countered by "bringing the war to them," according to the words of an Iranian military strategist who emphasized the fragility of the American command structure in the southern Persian Gulf region. (Over the past few months, U.S. fighter jets have violated Iranian airspace over the Khuzestan province several times, assessing Iran’s air defense system, according to Iranian military officials.)
Iran’s proliferation of an extremely sophisticated and mobile ballistic missile system plays a crucial role in its strategy, once again drawing on lessons learned from the Iraq wars of 1991 and 2003: in the first war over Kuwait, Iraq’s missiles played a significant role in expanding the conflict to Israel, despite the U.S. Patriot missiles failing to intercept most of the missiles launched from Iraq raining down on Israel, and to a lesser extent on U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia. Moreover, as admitted by the U.S. commander-in-chief of the Kuwait conflict, General Norman Schwarzkopf, tracking down Iraq’s mobile missiles consumed much of the coalition’s air strategy resources and was as difficult as "finding needles in a haystack."
Today, in the evolution of Iran’s military doctrine, the country relies increasingly on long-range, highly accurate missiles, such as the Shahab-3 and Fateh-110, capable of "hitting Tel Aviv," echoing Iran’s Foreign Minister at the time, Kamal Kharrazi.
Chronologically, Iran produced the 50-kilometer-range Oghab artillery rocket in 1985 and developed the 120-km and 160-km range Mushak artillery rockets in 1986–87 and 1988, respectively. Iran began assembling (licensed) Scud-Bs in 1988, and North Korean technical advisors converted a missile maintenance facility into a production plant in 1991. It does not appear, however, that Iran has begun producing Scuds. Instead, Iran has sought to build the Shahab-3 and Shahab-4, with ranges of 1,300 km (carrying a 1,600-pound warhead) and 2,000 km (carrying a 220-pound warhead), respectively; the Shahab-3 was tested in July 1998 and may soon be upgraded to over 2,000 km, enabling it to reach central Europe.
Thanks to additional revenues from high oil prices, which constitute over 80% of the government’s annual budget, Iran does not face the budgetary constraints of the early and mid-1990s, when its military spending was nearly tenfold surpassed by its Arab Gulf neighbors, members of the Gulf Cooperation Council; almost all Arab states possess another type of advanced missile system, such as Saudi Arabia’s CSS-2/DF, Yemen’s SS-21, and Iraq’s Scud-B and Frogs-7.
There are several advantages to Iran possessing a ballistic arsenal: first, it is relatively inexpensive and domestically produced with little external dependence and minimal pressure from U.S.-imposed "missile export controls." Second, missiles are mobile and can be hidden from enemies and third parties, offering advantages over jet fighters requiring fixed air bases. Fourth, missiles are considered highly effective weapons that can be launched with little warning, particularly the solid-fuel Fateh-110 missiles, which require only a few short minutes for setup before firing. Fifth, missiles are weapons of confusion and one-shot capability that can disrupt even the best military plans, as seen when Iraqi missile attacks in March 2003 targeted U.S. military formations...