London’s International Institute for Strategic Studies has released a new “dossier”: “Iran’s Ballistic Missile Capabilities: A net assessment,” produced by “an international team of experts.”
IISS says that while Iran’s missile program has made impressive progress in recent years, it remains heavily dependent on foreign support and supply of key materials, equipment and components. Certain key technologies it can’t build: “There exists no evidence to date to suggest that Iran can, on its own, develop or produce the individual components of a strap-down navigation and guidance system for ballistic missiles.”
Tehran is still four or five years away from rigging some combination of liquid or solid fuel engines to build a longer range missile capable of ranging Western Europe, according to a IISS press release. As for a notional ICBM that could reach 9,000 kilometers and hit America’s east coast, Iran is still a decade away.
Iran is though to possess 200–300 Shahab-1 and –2 (Scud-B,C) with a maximum range of 500 kilometers. Iran has bought longer range Shahab-3 missiles from North Korea (No-dong) with a range of 900 kilometers. Iranian has been tinkering with the Shahab-3 to produce the Ghadr-1, with a longer range out to 1,600 kilometers, though with a smaller warhead of around 750 kilograms. Iran appears to be either very close or may already have developed a liquid fuel engine production line of its own.
Publicly available information indicates Iran has around six Shahab-3/Ghadr-1 transporter erector launcher (TEL) vehicles and between 12 and 18 TELs for the Shahab-1/-2.
Iran is also developing a solid fuel missile, the Sajjil-2 (pictured), potentially capable of carrying a 750 kilogram warhead to about 2,200 kilometers, threatening Israel, Turkey and most of the Arabian peninsula. IISS assess the Sajjil-2 as still two to three years from operational deployment. The Sajjil-2 was “possibly” designed because Iran realized it needs a bigger rocket to carry what would likely be a one ton nuclear payload.
Iran has built solid fuel rocket motors weighing up to 13 tons. Since Iran is most likely constrained by an inability to design and develop a new liquid fuel engine, versus copying those it already has, it would have to build a missile using existing liquid fuel engine clusters.
Using Scud and No-dong engines, Iran could potentially build an intercontinental liquid fuel ballistic missile, it would be very large (on the order of 120 tons) and cumbersome, something akin to Soviet missiles of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Such a large missile would make for an awfully appealing target for a pre-emptive attack.
The wiser route is solid-propellant. Test flights have shown the Sajjil-2 works. So, hypothetically speaking, Iran could combine and reconfigure existing Sajjil rocket motors to create a new three stage missile, IISS says. It would be a risky build and would require flight tests to prove it works.
If Iran is able to build a rocket motor that could range the U.S., two big obstacles remain to developing a true ICBM: Iran would have to acquire tracking and telemetry systems that could be deployed on sea based platforms to monitor future test flights; and, it would have to develop technologies to protect the warhead on its high-speed re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere.
Flight testing will pose a problem, since those can’t be hidden from probing electronic eyes. Rarely are fewer than a dozen flights performed before a missile is deployed, IISS writes. So, the intel community should have a pretty good handle on Iranian progress toward developing a true ICBM, we hope anyway.
{ 42 comments… read them below or add one }
They'll put it on a ship and blow New York from the harbor. Who needs a rocket? muslims are evil not stupid.
that's what I would do, especially since we are getting pretty good at shooting
ballistic missiles down
that's what I would do, especially since we are getting pretty good at shooting
ballistic missiles down
Muslims? MUSLIMS? How dare you encapsulate an entire religion made up of countless different communities into one entity.
Peter,
Easy boy. Settle down.
yeah but he sure as hell has a point. its like saying all christians are like those militant nutjobs that got busted in michigan (the hutaree, was it?) when as with the terrorists its just a bunch of violent whackos trying to use a culture/religion to justify their actions.
With all due respect to the experts, the missile guidance and navigation technology they are discussing is nearly fifty years old! How hard can it be? I think their threat assessment is a bit off.
Just as the experts predicted a couple of years ago that the Iranians were 10 years away from a nuke.
Take them out. Period. Who needs them? How many more American lives have to be lost?
Take out the whole country?
None. 'Cause no Americans have died at the hands of Iran! Listen you've fallen to the propoganda you bought the myth. Iran is no military danger to our homeland and if they really wanted to hurt us it would be easier to just shut of the Gulf. Which is why we will not take them out, we need them.
Shutting down the Gulf would harm them. The only true solution is to kill all there scientist and engineers who are working on there missle systems.Facilities can be easily re-built, knowledge and experienced people takes time to develope.
All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.
while wouldnt advocate vaporising a whole country, i do think those iranian Nuke bunkers would make a perfect first combat test for the 15 ton MOP when it comes online this december. if they do whipe those bunkers off the face of the earth i just hope theres a camera around to catch the look on Ahmedinijads face.
The only valuable piece on the chessboard that Iran could conceivably (in years) target is the State of Israel; which reportedly possesses 200 nukes mounted on missiles and artillery. I'm sure both parties are familiar with the concept of "Mutual Assured Destruction." I hope, for their sake, that they use small warheads. In that tiny region they might find themselves inside their own blast area. Wasn't that the drawback of the Korean-era, nuclear-tipped, Davey Crockett??? Which leaves with Israel's only real option – the Preemptive Strike. The jury is still out on that.
The trouble is, Mutually Assured Destruction is no deterrent to a leadership that is functionally Insane!
He may be a bit of a hardliner but I'm not convinced that Benjamin Netanyahu is functionally Insane.
I figured he was talking about Amjdadkfhakfdh or whatever the fuck that weird ass name is.
I know. Just a little jab to show that there are two sides to this coin.
Take out their missle production sites now instead of waiting till they're operational then there won't be a problem
Ahmidinajad and his revolutionary guard aren't nearly as crazy as they would like us to believe. His rhetoric, like that of Venezuela's Hugo Chaves, plays well to the masses, and keeps us focused on a perceived threat.
well his rhetoric seems to have stopped working somewhat as of late and the bastards just fallen back on that old dictator standby, brute force. as for his mental state, hes managed to advance through the iranian political system, so there has to be something deeply wrong with him.
A hint to all those countries who desire intercontinental missile capability. Don't call it a "Missile" program. Instead, call it a SPACE program. Send a couple of monkeys into orbit and you'll be good to go!
On what basis do you assume that the Iranian government is insane?
Here's a little bit of advice. Don't believe everything you read. Unless you can read farsi, you are reading politically motivated and edited translations, which are by their very nature completely inaccurate.
The West, and Israel in particular needs a bogeyman, they killed the last one, this is the new one. Here's a tip; Neither were, are or will be a threat, but it pays to keep the plebs frightened. Look up plebian when you have a spare moment.
i do not advocate all out war with iran and im no great supporter of israels political leadership. however, for a start i know what plebian means thankyou. also your argument lacks substance. you can build up a pretty accurate picture of the iranian leadership without ever seeing one of those "politically motivated and edited translations" and just basing your opinion on the actions of the iranian government over the past thirty or so years, eg the iranian hostage crisis, the iran iraq war, persistent attempts to create nuclear weapons, with only rudimentary attempts to conceal their actions, and the list goes on. if the iranians really had politically intelligent leaders, i dont think theyd be an international puriyah.
Gee Iran is only ten years away from building an ICBM that will reach New York and they are less than thirty minutes from Israel to reach them and we don't have to wait ten years or ten minutes to to end this discussion in the first place. Well I never really understood why we are in such a big mess any way with any of these countries as so many of them migrate to America and bring the same kind of rhetoric and wars while at the same seeking the protection of our flag and country in the first place like when Ice Tea used to rap songs like Cop Killer to LAPD and now plays a cop for NYPD on TV instead, or how like the Armenians in LA make a big protest against Turkey and America using it as an air base against the terrorist who 9/11nd US in the first place as American citizens using our constitution and bill of rights when most of them as well as most other countries who could not wait for the due process of naturalization to become tax paying citizens chose to enter illegally and pay no taxes while at the same time complaining about not making enough money under the table tax free and getting free health care as well as religious protection under the church as well as a mob. Then to use these same tactics against the church and government under the state welfare and social services is the same type of mentality as Al Pachino played as " Scarface," when he refused to pay more on the dollar to launder his money from his bank after he shot his boss and took his old lady as Montana Properties. You know I get the same kind of complaints from some of the younger individuals who like Montana have the same three dots tattooed on their hands signifying their gang relations of Latin America while old Californian's like me are called a chump for standing up for the red,white,and blue ? So if you ask me how I feel about Turkey I'll respond with " Well the white meat is tender ! " Oh and don't think I've noticed the same mentalities from those of African and other nationalities as well as where in national geographic it is not uncommon to wed a young 12 year old in trade for an ox and some goats instead of the money they use in places like Thailand and Asia. Then with countries like Germany helping out the Greeks in hopes of saving the Euro and their sex industry I often wonder why we as American's even worry about countries like Iran and it's industry of making missiles and bombs as I don't see anyone rushing over there to date their women as is the case for all those other gals who come over hear and run our health care the same way their over populated and over burden countries have done in theirs, and I am no rocket scientist, but just an old manure spreader and ditch digger myself ?
God willing the Muslims strike first with a nuclear weapon, so our vengeance will be righteous and unrelenting. We can dispose of our nukes cheaply if they inflict the first blow.
If they want martyrdom, they'll get it in spades. Of course, I imagine they won't nuke us, they'll nuke Israel. Allegedly Jerusalem is a holy site to Muslims (Al-Quds); but I don't know if that will enter into Iranian thinking when they plan out the nukes. Of course, the nukes will irradiate the Palestinians too, but when did any of the Arabs ever give a damn about the poor Palestinians? Nobody pressed for their cause after the invasion. Nobody gave them a home, nobody sent them money, or equipment, or goods to make new lives for themselves after the 1948 war. Maybe only Jordan cares about what happens to Palestine, and Iran certainly won't if they seek to drop nukes on Tel Aviv.
For that matter, Jordan and Lebanon might get hit by nuclear fallout too. The entire Middle East has a vested interest in ensuring a nuclear exchange does not happen, and I hope someone gets their head out of the sand quickly.
A few thoughts:
(1) "our vengeance will be righteous and unrelenting"? No, it won't. You fail to factor in our leadership's level of moral weakness. The current creeps are not made of steel but of talcum powder.
(2) Current Israelis are not the Moshe Dayan kind. They have changed, too.
(3) As the iranians go, called them "insane" or whatever. They are deluded fanatics who live in a world of fantasy. They might actually involve themselves in a mutual destruction with another country to bring about the coming of their messiah or whatever leprechaun they are currently waiting for. We used to be like that during our Dark Ages. These maggots live in the world of the Inquisition. They have the moral outlook of Torquemada.
(4) How dare I? It's easy, muslims are the most encapsulatable people on the planet. They are either murdering others or dancing in the streets and distributing candy in celebration of the murders others of their kind carried out like after 9/11. Where's the mulsim movement opposing islamo-fascism? It’s easier to find a Sasquatch.
Nobody will come out and say it, for fear of being labled anti-semite, but severing ties with Israel and letting them stand on there own would be a great step in diffusing all tensions throughout Middleeast.
Regardless of your being an anti-Semite or not (I would pose you probably are) that is simply not true. Israel is just the West's canary in the mine. Let Israel go and the next throat in line is ours. Why are eurabian women being raped on the streets of Europe by muslims? Because of Israel? You don't know a thing about islam, do you? What's with the muslim 5th column in America? Because of Israel? Or because of the muslim imperative of a) convert, b) be our slave or c) be dead? Go educate yourself.
muslims will never cease to pursue their own values that are contrary to human life and liberty. There’s only one way to deal with them. There’s only one kind of good muslim.
And we share quite a lot of moral values with Israel that is our natural ally. Israel is the only civilized country in the Middle East.
Abandon Israel (as we most likely will) and nobody will ever trust America as an ally again. What will America’s word be worth after that? How about nothing?
I've had my fair share of Muslim friends and peers and they don't froth at the mouth every time they see a Victoria's Secret commercial. It's that reductive attitude that exists in the Middle East too:
"America loves the Jews and hates Muslims. Don't you hear what Jorge Banner says about Muslims?"
Tomorrow it'll be China. I will probably find myself being called a "Fifth Column" member, even though I have yet to leave the country (though maybe Chinese spies communicate with me here). It'll be Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly squawking about "deporting those Chinese", and they'll be talking about me (or my parents) in the gunsights.
It must be a privilege to be white, because nobody is going to single you out on the grounds of the color of your skin or your religion and call you a "enemy of the state". At least you aren't "foreign" anymore, because the guys who were here first have been outpopulated and shoehorned into insignificance.
Caucasian males represent only about 30 percent of the current U.S. population. We are a minority that is getting smaller everyday. I guess we're not sittin' on the Catbird seat anymore.
1) considering the attitude towards the whole of islam you just espoused, the thought of you telling anyone else to educate themselves is laughable.
2) The Israeli government has done so many morally objectionable things in the middle east as of the last 10-20 years that the thought of leaving them on their own would have lost its repugnance were it not for the threat of massive loss of innocent israeli life.
3) as a citizen of a country allied to America, i can tell you that most of Australias political leadership would indeed continue to trust the US.
4) israel is far from the "only civilised country in the middle east" (read Turkey, Jordan, Dubai, Kuwait all of whom enjoy the support of both the current and previous US governments, if you remember, there was a war fought (at least in part) over one of them in which the US was the dominant power).
5) to say that the USG has a lot in common with the Israeli government is needlessly and undeservedly insulting to you own government.
I used to think putting some distance between the US and Israel would help; but it really won't. Addressing right of return for Palestinians would theoretically be more decisive, as the alleged crux of the entire argument is that Palestinians were dispossessed.
My problem with Israel is that it is basically a Jew-favoring nation. I don't think it's as bad as apartheid when it comes to Israeli Arabs though, but I cannot imagine what would happen if they opened the gates and let in a slow trickle of Palestinians. Certainly letting a few families, especially those who still have living members who lived in the disposessed areas is not a bad idea when it comes to olive branches. For those who are too young and might easily be radicals in disguise, I'd say it's too early.
Of course, if Iran really wants to bring out the nukes, the fallout would probably affect the entire Middle East. Nobody has a vested interest in any sort of nuclear exchange. I think the Russians would gladly sit out a nuclear exchange just to watch America and the Middle East weaken themselves so they can walk in, so at least we can count on the Russians being content to watch us kill ourselves.
When will you people realize that Ahmadinejad is not the leader of Iran?
The Supreme Leader is called the Supreme Leader for a reason.
Until the Ayatollah repudiates a word that comes out of Ahmadinejad's mouth, one can assume that he operates with their implicit consent.
Just to set you straight, Ahmadinejad has no constitutional control over the military, he couldn't launch an attack on anyone even if he wanted to. The Ayatollah you refer to does, but has reprimanded Ahmadinejad on several occasions. He has also publicly stated that nuclear weapons are evil and has issued a fatwa against them and their use. Your ignorance of this is understandable, it's quite hard to get actual news without propaganda (active or passive) in the US. The Media just ignores the facts on the ground and reports what AIPAC tells them to.
true id be interested to find the extent ahmedinijads power. i always just figured the "supreme leader" was something akin to the british queen, theoretically powerful, but in reality just a figurehead.
Obama has too much on his plate now to worry about Iran having an ICBM in ten years. He can play kick the can to let a future American President confront the problem. OR Obama can have CIA agents in the Iranian government implement American military procurement practices. That way it will take 30 years to develop and Iranian ICBM with a 300% rise in cost.
You better not make a bet on them not getting a ICBM before ten years. If they got money and are runniung slow then some of their good friends will help them. I don't take much stock in these people that go around saying that they can't do this and can't do that. To much bad info goes out every day.
yeah, and this one is potentially to big to risk.
I am reminded very much of the 1997 CIA report about North Korean's not being able to produce an ICBM for 10 years.
The Republican Congress's competing Rumsfeld report that said two-three years at the outside for a Nork ICBM in, effect saying the CIA was full of it. And then the August 1998 Taepo Dong-1 missile launch that flew over northern Japan and restarted SDI in the Clinton Administration.
The Obama Administration CIA seems set to repeat that performance in 2010-2011 with Iran.