Iran is a case in point. Iran is run by nutcase mullahs intent on getting nuclear weapons and long-range missiles to deliver them. Their well-known hatred of America, Israel, and the West in general makes their nuclear objectives intolerable, as far as I'm concerned. That's the big picture, here. I don't need to know the voting record of Mullah Y on goat herder subsidies to see this.
Well, the experts have lost sight of this big picture to argue Iranian missile characteristics:
Yes, Iran has medium-range ballistic missiles that could reach American air and naval bases in the Persian Gulf and possibly hit Israel or southern Europe.
No, there's no proof Iran is developing— or has— nuclear warheads for its missiles.
The Iranians may have some longer-range missiles. Or maybe their arsenal contains little more than faulty North Korean, Russian and Chinese knockoffs, some of which are descendants of Germany's World War II V-2.
The yes, no and maybes are about all international defense analysts can offer when it comes to separating proven capabilities from propaganda in the debate over Iran's ballistic missiles— weapons with ranges from a few miles to thousands that travel into outer space before falling back to earth to strike a target.
Yeah, lots of the missiles are descendants of Germany's V-2. That would be the Scud and its derivatives. But Iran fired 600 of these descendants in the Iran-Iraq War, as the article notes. They seem to work. And nobody seems to ridicule the AK-47 used by insurgents--a weapon that is also a descendant of a World War II German assault rifle.
And this complaint is misleading:
Making matters more confusing, analysts say, are Iranian officials' statements that they've developed missile systems that could strike U.S. facilities in Iraq, Afghanistan and throughout the Gulf region. Military analysts think many of Iran's claims are exaggerated and that much of Tehran's hardware is unreliable and ineffective.
Sure, I've noted that Iran's conventional military is a sham. Their scary announcements about weapons and exercises are farcical. We'd shred their conventional military in combat.
But remember that these missiles are based on 1945 technology. They'll get it down eventually. Indeed, their conventional weakness is one reason they want nuclear weapons. The big picture is that eventually, whether sooner or later, insane mullahs will have long-range missiles with chemical, biological, or even nuclear weapons. If the Iranians fire a volley of those at Europe, they'll hit Europe. That's all the Iranians will care about, and arguing Circular Error Probable is for chumps.
Will an expert really feel good about himself if he says Iran couldn't possibly field a nuclear warhead until 2015 and the mullahs drop one in 2016?
Will experts feel justified if Iran gets nuclear missiles and doesn't use one but instead uses their nukes as a shield to expand their support of terrorism?
Will experts feel good if Iran neither uses nuclear weapons, expands terrorism, but uses nukes as a shield to simply slaughter and terrorize internal opponents of the regime to create a Shia paradise in Persia?
Nobody asks why Iran even needs long-range ballistic missiles. They just focus on whether they have them, how many, and their reliability. Are these experts dense?
And no, it isn't to deter us from invading them. We haven't invade and aren't likely to invade and try to occupy a country three times as populous as Iraq. And nobody else around them--not since the Soviet Union fragmented and disappeared--can invade them. If Iran was truly worried about being invaded, they'd make nice with the international community to get sanctions lifted and use their oil revenue to buy conventional weapons. Plenty of Europeans and Americans have gone bearing gifts on a quest for the Fabled Moderate of Tehran seeking dialog and a warming of relations. They all have squat to show for their efforts.
The experts are debating how many angels can stand on the head of a pin. Iran used 600 shorter-ranged ballistic missiles in their long war with Iraq, shooting them at Iraqi cities. I think we have a fairly accurate understanding of why Iran wants long-range missiles.
Arguing exactly where Iran is on the development path to having long-range nuclear missiles ignores the bloody obvious that they don't have them yet and it would be a really good idea to stop them now while they don't have them.
If a mullah regime survives long enough to have atomic weapons, we won't like the world we allowed to develop on Earth while engaging in essentially theological debates.
