Iran missile tests seen more as theater

Tehran's war games, which have included the rocket launches, are downplayed by officials and experts as more propaganda than peril.

By Ramin Mostaghim and Borzou Daragahi
Special to The Times

July 11, 2008

TEHRAN — A two-day show of force by Iran through the launching of medium- and long-range test missiles was meant to strike fear in the hearts of the country's rivals.

Instead, many officials and experts Thursday downplayed the Iranian war games near the Persian Gulf as more propaganda than peril. News reports emerged indicating that Tehran doctored a photo of the launches, and analysts questioned whether the tests revealed any new Iranian capability to strike Israel or other U.S. allies and interests in the Middle East.

Iran is at odds with the West over its nuclear program, which it insists is meant for peaceful power generation. The U.S., Israel and most arms control experts suspect that the nuclear capability is meant as a potential cornerstone of an eventual weapons program.

Iran launched missiles near the Persian Gulf on Wednesday after reports that Israel had staged a major dry run of a possible attack on Iranian nuclear sites last month and that U.S. warships this week had begun practicing a scenario to stop Iran's military from closing off the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world's oil supply passes.

State media reported that Iran had set off a second set of missiles Thursday night. State-controlled television showed grainy images of missiles being fired skyward.

Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, commander of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard, said Thursday that the rocket launches "contributed to the authority of the Islamic Republic of Iran and at the same time gave an admonishing lesson to our enemies."

The missile tests spooked oil markets and raised fears of further escalation of the confrontation between Iran and the United States. Washington urged Tehran to halt the "provocative" missile tests after Iran claimed to have launched three missiles early Thursday that it said were impervious to sophisticated radar.

A U.S. intelligence official said the missile launches appeared to be in response to recent Israeli military exercises.

"When the Iranians see exercises in the region, this is their way of saying, 'Look, we have capabilities too,' " said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity when discussing intelligence assessments. "There does seem to be at a minimum a great deal of signaling going on here. But in terms of dramatic new capabilities from the Iranians, that hasn't been seen to this point."

The U.S. is leading the international effort to impose sanctions on Iran over its refusal to halt its production of enriched uranium, a material used for power plants and nuclear weapons.

"We want to see them stop enriching uranium and we would like to see them stop these provocative tests that only further isolate the Iranian people," White House spokesman Tony Fratto said.

In an apparent response to Iran's muscle-flexing, Israel displayed its newest spy plane Thursday and said that diplomatic pressure must be exerted on Iran, but the Jewish state would not be cowed.

"Israel is the strongest country in the region and has proved in the past it is not afraid to take action when its vital security interests are at stake," Defense Minister Ehud Barak said in a speech to members of his Labor Party.

But some arms control experts said the missile barrages may have been just for show and not intended to reveal any new strategic capacity. Iran's conventional arsenal is little match for the sophisticated U.S. and Israeli precision weapons, antimissile batteries and air power, analysts said, and Tehran apparently unveiled no new weapons during the testing.

"This event is the latest scene in regional theatrics and represents Iranian chest-thumping," Graham Allison, director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, said in an e-mail message. "There is no evidence of a significant advance in previously known missile capabilities of Iran's medium- and long-range missiles."

He added, "The net increase in the threat to U.S. interests in the region, including Israel, is approximately zero."

Allison and others also questioned the range of Iran's improved Shahab-3 missiles. The missiles, based on a North Korean design, theoretically could hit Israel with a 1-ton conventional warhead, but have yet to demonstrate such reach.

"The Iranians have a tendency to exaggerate to a certain extent the capabilities of their missiles," Uzi Rubin, who headed the program that developed Israel's Arrow antimissile system, told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

An apparently doctored handout photo of missiles launched Wednesday, published on the front page of the Los Angeles Times and other major newspapers, fueled further doubts about the significance of the testing. The picture, which was distributed by the Revolutionary Guard, showed four rockets in the air. It later became clear that the original photo had showed only three rockets, and that a fourth had been digitally added, according to Agence France-Presse, the French news agency. Manipulating an image in this manner is not consistent with Times photo policy.

There was no official Iranian reaction to news of the doctored photo, which remained on Iranian news websites Thursday night.

The missile tests and blustery rhetoric come amid a minor flowering of diplomatic relations between Tehran and world powers, the latter represented by European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana.

Though Tehran has publicly refused to give in on the hot-button issue of uranium enrichment, Iran and the West are considering proposals to start negotiations, and Iranian diplomats in recent weeks have softened their rhetoric and voiced optimism about a solution to the crisis.

Tensions eased further after a visit to Israel last month by Navy Adm. Michael G. Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, after which he described any Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities as a bad idea.

On Monday, Anthony Cordesman, a well-connected military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, reportedly said Mullen had gone even further, telling Israelis the U.S. would not green-light an attack by the Jewish state on Iran.

But analysts said the latest round of tests served a number of Iranian strategic purposes, mostly defensive. The show of force underscored Tehran's long-standing contention that it is willing to quickly escalate any strike on its nuclear facilities into a major war with global repercussions.

"Iran has kind of a hedgehog strategy," Thomas Fingar, deputy director of national intelligence for analysis and head of the National Intelligence Council, told an audience Wednesday at the Center for National Policy in Washington. "It's 'Mess with me and you get stuck.' They're saying, 'I have the capacity to inflict pain.' "

Observers noted that Iranian officials may have thought the tests would bolster diplomatic efforts in a "carrot-and-stick" gambit mimicking U.S. strategy, which many Iranians consider patronizing.

"They are thinking that we are on two tracks," said Hamid Reza Jalaeepour, a Tehran University social scientist in the camp of the liberal-minded reformists who are now out of power in Iran. "One is diplomacy, which continues. On the other hand, we show teeth as they show teeth."

Iranian leaders "argue that the Western powers talk of dialogue and at the same time threaten us," he said. "Why should we not do the same? We can threaten and talk softly too."