Iran's New Weapons: Signs of Power or Insecurity?

Iran's New Weapons: Signs of Power or Insecurity?
Updated: 14 minutes ago
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Sarah A. Topol

Sarah A. Topol Contributor
AOL News
CAIRO, Egypt (Sept. 4) -- Iran's recent announcements of a raft of new weapons, including a 13-foot-long unmanned bomber aircraft that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called "the ambassador of death," contribute little to its defense and in fact may weaken it, according to U.S. officials and analysts.

A spate of new weapons systems were presented around Iran's National Defense Day on Aug. 22. A day after Ahmadinejad presented the unmanned bomber -- dubbed the Karrar (Farsi for "striker") -- officials presented two new models of high-speed naval vessels. And a week earlier, the Iranian military invited state-run television to film the firing of a new liquid-fueled surface-to-surface missile, called the Qiam.

The new weapons come as international sanctions aimed at getting Iran to prove it's not trying to build nuclear arms begin to bite.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaks during a ceremony inaugurating the Karrar drone aircraft.
Iranian Defense Ministry / AP
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaks during a ceremony inaugurating the Karrar drone aircraft on Aug. 22. He called the country's first domestically built, long-range, unmanned bomber aircraft an "ambassador of death" to Iran's enemies.

"By isolating itself and showing defiance, Iran increases the strength of the coalition against it," says Daniel Byman, professor at Georgetown University's Security Studies program in Washington. "The new announcements are part of a fairly consistent Iranian policy of saber rattling whenever it feels that its back is against the wall."

But Byman says the bluster is counterproductive. "By preaching defiance and showing how strong it is, Iran scares its neighbors into wanting to work with Washington more," he says.

Iran's new military capabilities are impossible to verify independently, but analysts say their significance is less related to war fighting than to placating the regime's domestic support base -- and sending not so subtle warnings to bordering countries against cooperating with the U.S.

"It is a mistake on our part to assume [these weapons] are really intended to sort of scare off the U.S. and the West in general," says Alex Vatanka, editor of the Jane's Islamic Affairs Analyst newsletter in Washington. "They're far more intended to change minds in the Arab states to the south of Iran" that are members of the Gulf Cooperation Council.

"What they're doing with these defense shows is to say in so many words that any country that is party to or is complicit in an attack on Iran will be hit," Vatanka says. "For Iranians, it's more like a Catch-22: If you don't do anything, then they say you're weak, you can't stand up for yourself. And if you do, then you're scaring the neighbors."

But Iran's choice of displaying military might may end up backfiring. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters in Washington last week the new weapons could reduce Iran's security as America increases ties with regional allies to counter Iran's threat. "This is one of the reasons why we believe that if Iran continues on the path that it's on, it actually might find itself less secure," he said.

For the past several years, the U.S. has been increasing regional military cooperation in the Middle East with the intention of countering Iran's growing threat. The U.S. maintains a military presence in Kuwait, Oman, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. The U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet is based in Bahrain, while military trainers work in Saudi Arabia.

"Iran has a right to provide for its self-defense, but the U.S. remains concerned about systems that could threaten stability in the region," a U.S. Defense Department spokesman told AOL News.

Indeed, military ties between Iran's neighbors and the U.S. appear to be strengthening. Saudi Arabia is set to make a major U.S. arms purchase this month, including Black Hawk and Apache helicopters, as well as F-15 planes estimated to cost between $30 billion and $60 billion. Officials interviewed by The Wall Street Journal said this would be the largest arms deal in history.

In addition, the United Arab Emirates may buy a $7 billion missile defense system next year. The Theater High Altitude Area Defense system would protect the UAE from short-, medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles, such as those Iran possesses. According to Reuters, the deal would be the first international sale of the high-tech system.

Some are skeptical that Iran's new arms will have any real role in fomenting closer ties to the U.S. in the region. "Irrespective of Iran, you would find a strong cooperation between the United States and Egypt, the United States and Saudi Arabia and most of the major Arab states," says Suzanne Maloney, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution's Saber Center for Middle East Policy and a former State Department adviser. "I don't know that the acquisition of any particular technology really alters or intensifies the relationship between Washington and its allies in the region all that significantly."

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Indeed, it's not clear that Iran's new weapons are all they're cracked up to be. When Ahmadinejad unveiled the drone on a stage in honor of Iran's National Defense Day, he said it could carry four cruise missiles for a distance of 620 miles. But Peter Singer, director of the 21st Century Defense Initiative and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, says the aircraft does not look capable of holding that much missile weight. The range of the weapon and how it would perform in a combat setting is also unclear.

"Displaying on a stage is a lot different than displaying its capabilities," says Singer, adding that he attaches more importance to what the weapons announcements say about Tehran.

"The approach of the regime that celebrates the development of a new weapon as if it's the launch of the iPad and uses propaganda to describe it as the 'ambassador of death' is sort of begging the question: Really, this is the way you're handling yourself in the 21st century?" he says. "That's my question."