Iran and missiles

[JasonC]

I hope this doesn't count as politics...

I just saw a news report that Iran is building missile silos in Venezuela, on a northern land spit (conspicuously the bit of Venezuala closest to the southeastern United States), which runs to within about 20 miles of Aruba.

In an older news item, a year ago or so, I noticed a report that North Korea had transferred to Iranian control 19 BM-25 intermediate range ballistic missiles, with at least 3200 kilometers range (some reports estimate 4000), with sufficient payload to act as a nuclear delivery vehicle.

2 and 2 on the lower range estimate make roughly an arc from New York City to Houston Texas, including Washington DC.

Hope this is on somebody's radar screen...

[Affentitten]

It's a story from a few monthsago. Hasn't happened yet.

And I don't know if you realise, but Iran doesn't actually have any nuclear weapons.

[Magpie_Oz]

Well at the risk of things turning political I do wonder if the Iranians would be silly enough to threaten firing missiles at the United States given the response they would get to an unprovoked attack.

On the other hand of course one could point out that the stationing of a mere 19 missiles within range of the United States could be just a means of deterring an American strike on Iran itself, particularly when you consider that there are hundreds of cruise missiles arrayed around their country day and night on board the US 5th Fleet.

[Bigduke6]

I would take all this with a boulder, make that a mountain range of salt.

The source for this allegation is, wait for it, "Western security sources." That technically could be two dudes who took Spanish in high school, wear Hawaiian shirts and tin foil hats, and have a sign on their garage that says "security". I would believe a declaration from the Iranian government sooner, than a story sourced soly on "Western security sources."

Not least of the grounds for my suspicions is, that when the source is engaged in major CYA, and it's really a good juicy story, you have a serious probability that some Feds somewhere want that story in the media. When the story appears in a media of record - and Die Welt is one of Germany's most solid - then the odds go up that some Fed and some reporter or editor had a nice expensed lunch and the information was passed between the coffee and the cheese plate.

What's more, the presence of Iranians proves...what? Venezuela kicked out the foreigners, they nationalized their oil, Chavez has a big populist rep to follow, so Exxon and Shell and so on detest Venezuela which means official Washington thinks just the same thing, and being the corporate loyalists that they are official Washington will sanction just about any one they can, that does business with Venezuela. Which means if Chavez decides he needs to build something, anything, it's not like he can just go to the German chamber of commerce and ask for recommendations of engineering firms. He needs to find some one who doesn't really care about irritating Washington and NATO but has at least a moderate engineering base- there aren't that many countries that fit that description but Iran does.

Further, the story lists Venezuela lists by the head of an Iranian engineering company, and the Iranian air force as evidence Something is Up. Well duh. Chavez knows the Yankees are out to get him, he has a lot of money because oil is high right now, he needs to buy weapons to make things more difficult for the Yankees to attack him, or for projects to make the Venezuelan public love him. (More? Nah.)

And then what, 24 holes in the ground are automatically silos? Sez who? Got any pix we can look at on that? Or is this just another brilliant intell read by the same bright people who gave us Iraqi weapons of mass destruction? A concrete pad with a bunch of missle-sized holes in it could be a lot of things - I dunno what, maybe fuel storage, maybe grain storage, maybe a secret underground lab for Chavez' secret papaya juice-powered death ray to take over the world.

Now, maybe these "Western security analysts" are on the up and up, maybe they're sitting on some nice voice intercepts and pretty satellite imaging that just nails down that yes the Iranians are scheming with the Venezuelans to threaten mainland US with missile strikes.

But boy does that seem improbable to me, this story sets off pretty much every buyer beware warning I can think of.

[costard]

The logistics cost is far less than that for Afghanistan or Iraq, and Venezuela is an oil rich nation (with a mostly catholic populace?). Sounds like a good prize for the US military-industrial complex if they can get the front story right.... another ****ing war??!!??

[Wildman]

I would take all this with a boulder, make that a mountain range of salt.

The source for this allegation is, wait for it, "Western security sources." That technically could be two dudes who took Spanish in high school, wear Hawaiian shirts and tin foil hats, and have a sign on their garage that says "security". I would believe a declaration from the Iranian government sooner, than a story sourced soly on "Western security sources."

Not least of the grounds for my suspicions is, that when the source is engaged in major CYA, and it's really a good juicy story, you have a serious probability that some Feds somewhere want that story in the media. When the story appears in a media of record - and Die Welt is one of Germany's most solid - then the odds go up that some Fed and some reporter or editor had a nice expensed lunch and the information was passed between the coffee and the cheese plate.

What's more, the presence of Iranians proves...what? Venezuela kicked out the foreigners, they nationalized their oil, Chavez has a big populist rep to follow, so Exxon and Shell and so on detest Venezuela which means official Washington thinks just the same thing, and being the corporate loyalists that they are official Washington will sanction just about any one they can, that does business with Venezuela. Which means if Chavez decides he needs to build something, anything, it's not like he can just go to the German chamber of commerce and ask for recommendations of engineering firms. He needs to find some one who doesn't really care about irritating Washington and NATO but has at least a moderate engineering base- there aren't that many countries that fit that description but Iran does.

Further, the story lists Venezuela lists by the head of an Iranian engineering company, and the Iranian air force as evidence Something is Up. Well duh. Chavez knows the Yankees are out to get him, he has a lot of money because oil is high right now, he needs to buy weapons to make things more difficult for the Yankees to attack him, or for projects to make the Venezuelan public love him. (More? Nah.)

And then what, 24 holes in the ground are automatically silos? Sez who? Got any pix we can look at on that? Or is this just another brilliant intell read by the same bright people who gave us Iraqi weapons of mass destruction? A concrete pad with a bunch of missle-sized holes in it could be a lot of things - I dunno what, maybe fuel storage, maybe grain storage, maybe a secret underground lab for Chavez' secret papaya juice-powered death ray to take over the world.

Now, maybe these "Western security analysts" are on the up and up, maybe they're sitting on some nice voice intercepts and pretty satellite imaging that just nails down that yes the Iranians are scheming with the Venezuelans to threaten mainland US with missile strikes.

But boy does that seem improbable to me, this story sets off pretty much every buyer beware warning I can think of.

Well then I guess that whole Cuban missile crisis was a mere reporters story as well.

Fact: DPRK has exported missile technology to Iran...Tapo Dong missiles, and Iran is working on improving them

Fact: DPRK has exploded a nuclear weapon

Fact: Tapo Dong's can carry a nuclear or chemical payload

Fact: Iran & China have both been cultivating their relationship with Venezula

Now, they may or may not be building missile silos...I would suspect NOT as Tapo Dongs are not launched from silos but mobile launch sites, but I would easily believe that Venezula and Iran have been or would transfer missile tech...I'm sure Chavez would love the ability to "counter Capitalistic" aggression.

[gunnergoz]

What, the Monroe Doctrine is dead? I'm sorry, I just can's see this happening with impunity. If it did, dollars to donuts says there would be an "unfortunate accident" in an ammo bunker quite soon thereafter.

[Bigduke6]

Wildman,

I think I have to disagree. The Cuban Missile Crisis was an attempt by the Soviet Union to place Soviet nuclear missile capacity in a position to deliver a debilitating first strike on the US, and that attempt was backed up by excellent intelligence, which spotted the missiles in Cuba.

There was absolutely no question that the Soviets had the technology and skill to put the weapons into operation, not least because five years earlier they had beaten the US in the race to space. As it happened the missiles, called R-12s, were as I understand it (Wiki) the first intermediate range intercontinental ballistic missiles built by any one. Take note of their range: about 2,000 km.

Further, six years previous they invaded Hungary killing tens of thousands and the West did jack. Seven years previously the detonated not an atomic bomb but their first hydrogen bomb. And almost one year exactly previous to the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Soviets detonated what wound up being the biggest nuclear device in history, 50 megatons.

What's more, in the two years previous to the Cuban crisis the Americans deployed their own missiles to Turkey, giving the Soviets grounds to call their deployment to Cuba a response not a provocation, and further giving them an incentive to do it, as if they didn't then they spot the Americans a strategic advantage, i.e. a first strike capacity to some extent.

Finally, the people making the decisions on the US side were sure enough of their intelligence to present it directly to the voters. It is worth pointing out, history and the Soviets themselves confirmed the US intelligence was pretty much dead on.

So if the point to the game is guess the will and capacity of the potential adversary, I think it's reasonable to say that during the Cuban Missile Crisis the US faced as top a league an opponent as there was out there. Nothing more dangerous, anywhere, and that opponent had plenty of incentive to turn capacity into real danger for the US.

That is what is called a salient threat. Which rightfully was taken very seriously.

Now let's compare Cuban Missile apples with Iranian/Chavez oranges. Who knows, maybe history is repeating itself?

OK, for starters the North Koreans sent some 1970s tech Soviet submarine missiles to the Iranians. Maybe the missiles were updated to North Korean technology - meaning they now have the roughly the same range and and accuracy as the Soviet missiles placed in Cuba nearly a half-century previously. That is theoretical of course, as this North Korean missile has flown exactly twice and once it failed. So right at the get go, we are not exactly talking top-of-the-line technology built into this potential threat we are comparing to the Cuban missile crisis.

The next leap of faith is that the Iranians, would turn these missiles over to the Venezuelans. Sure they could decide to do it, but even if they could sneak the missiles into Venezuela consider, the Iranians have the Americans with air bases on either side of them. The Iraqis hate the Iranians and are next door, and during the last war with the Iraqis the main weapon of air bombardment was the SSM. Also next door are the Pakistanis who have missiles and are nuclear-armed, as are the Israelis. That to me is a pretty strong argument for Iran to accumulate SSM in its own territory, not send them to catch rays on the Caribbean.

As it happens, interestingly enough, the Iranians actually are pretty advanced missile-wise. As I understand it (Wiki again) they caught up with the Chinese about 15 years ago and they've been making their own medium-range missiles and testing them for a while. So, unless the Koreans figured out some secret way to turn kimchee into a super rocket fuel, and further decided not to apply their advanced missile technologies to North Korean missiles launched in Korea, and only to North Korean missiles exported to Iran, odds are very good the Iranians have nothing to gain technologically from the North Koreans.

An good indicator, as they say in the intell biz, is the nationality of North Korea's foreign technicians assisting with missile shots - the Iranians.

This to me undermines the argument that if the North Koreans ship the Iranians missiles, suddenly the Iranians make the world SSM first team.

If they had wanted to, the Iranians could have shipped the Cubans or the Venezuelans or the Haitians or the Bermudans or Berkley University or whomever in the Western Hempisphere willing to pick a fight with the US SSM missiles capable of hitting the US the missiles a good 5, maybe 10 years ago. The Iranians have had intermediate range SSM for a while.

Since the Iranians have not, I deduce the delivery of 17 outdated North Korean launch vehicles to Iranian control is not a good logical basis for an assumption suddenly the Iranians will want to ship missiles to Venezuela.

OK, so for the next leap of faith we have to believe that the Iranians and the Venezuelans start digging concrete-lined holes somewhere next to the Gulf of Maricabo, or more exactly, people who have a vested interest in a high level of perceived military threat to the US, tell us that these holes are being dug. Chavez hasn't talked about them, the NYT hasn't published the photos after the Pentagon hands them over over lunch, the UN and all the arms proliferation NGOs are just silent. Kind of strange if there really was something afoot.

But even worse, all we have is some "Western security sources" telling us the holes are there, that they are silos, and that since the head of the Iranian Air Force drinks mojitas with Chavez that proves capacity and intent to base Iranian intermediate range missiles in Venezuela.

What the Soviets were doing in Cuba, that was a real, salient threat. It could have touched off WW3.

I would use a different term to describe what I think of the suggestion the Venezuelan goof ball Hugo Chavez might really be on track to command his very own strategic missile wing installed and doubtless operated by Islamic Republic of Iran technicians, assisted by nefarious North Korean nuclear engineers - and all of this depending on the world of "unnamed Western intelligence sources."

"Preposterous" and "horse hockey" and "Boy they really are hurting for ways to justify more defense spending aren't they?" and "Either those "Western security sources" are monumental idiots, or they must think we are" are some of the descriptives that spring to mind.

So anyway, I beg to differ. I would say the Cuban Missile Crisis was not really comparable with the missiles-to-Chavez scenario.

[costard]

Possibly (more likely, anyway) Chavez is looking at building a big oil terminal and is getting engineering help from Iran.

[Pešadija]

Yes, costard, probs. People want something to get riled up about after America's most beloved fugitive bumped uglies with death.