Iran's Game-changer
Long-Range Missile Test Challenges Obama
By UZI RUBIN
Published: 24 November 2008
Published: 24 November 2008
The very appearance of this new missile is a living testimony to the failure of the world community to curb the trade in missile technology, not to speak of curbing the malicious ambitions of Iran's mullahs.
The Iranians dubbed the missile launched on Nov. 12 "Sajeel," but its general layout was indistinguishable from the description of the "Ashura," which was flight-tested about one year ago, apparently without success.
To the uninformed eye, the Sajeel/Ashura resembles the familiar Shahab-3, an evolved clone of the North Korean 1,300-kilometer No Dong single-stage, liquid propelled ballistic missile. In fact, some commentators pooh-pooh'd the new missile as another manifestation of the ever-evolving Shahab-3 design. Nothing is further from the truth.
Perhaps the most striking feature of the new missile is its very newness. This is not another permutation of the No Dong formula - this is a brand-new missile, an original design more advanced than anything available to the North Koreans themselves.
While still lagging behind the latest in the United States or Russia, the Sajeel/Ashura displays several mature features and signifies Iran's graduation into world-level missilery.
This new design shares some features and subassemblies with the older Shahab-3, such as its diameter, its tri-conic re-entry vehicle, its aerodynamic fins, its mobile launcher and probably some of its flight instrumentation. Other than these, the Sajeel/Ashura, with its two-stage solid-propellant missile, is radically different from the single-stage liquid propellant Shahab.
Its range is longer than the Shahab-3. Iranian and international statements hint at a range of 2,400 kilometers, which makes the new missile capable of reaching - besides every capital city of the Middle East - Moscow, Warsaw, and the outskirts of Vienna and St. Petersburg.
The appearance of the Sajeel/Ashura signals three things:
■ It highlights Iran's single-minded pursuit of ballistic missile capability in every conceivable technology. This is the second multistage Iranian rocket program to surface, following the two-stage Safir space launcher that first flew last August. Within four short months, we have witnessed Iran's employment of three different rocket technologies: the legacy Scud liquid technology in the Safir's first stage, a new storable liquid propulsion technology in the Safir's second stage and now the composite solid propulsion technology in the Sajeel/Ashura.
This diversity and tempo of development is almost unparalleled. All this for conventional warheads?
■ Nonproliferation may have reached its limits. Large-diameter solid propulsion requires a host of special technologies and machines whose export is strictly controlled by the Missile Technology Control Regime - for example, the tough materials for durable jet vanes capable of withstanding the ferocious erosion of solid propellant flames, or high-power radiography machines to inspect large solid propellant grains.
It is inconceivable that Iran developed such technologies on its own. In spite of all export controls, someone was greedy enough to take the risk and sell them to Iran. Further tightening of export controls is bound to yield diminishing returns. It is time to move from nonproliferation to counterproliferation, including missile defense.
■ Perhaps most important: By mastering the art of rocket staging, Iran now has the wherewithal for global-range missiles, if it so chooses. Multistage liquid and solid propellant ballistic missiles can be made to reach any corner of the globe as well as space itself.
The new Sajeel/Ashura can already reach important parts of Europe, and it needs but little beefing up to reach all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. By flaunting its new multistage missile in front of the entire world community at this time, Iran is testing the mettle of the newly elected U.S. president and his forthcoming administration. The best response would be to continue unflinchingly with the erection of the West's missile shield with its European third site. ■
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Uzi Rubin is president of the Rubincon consulting firm and founder of the Israel Missile Defense Organization.
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