Bill Shingleton, "Defence: Khatemi's Military Buildup Continues," (Original draft)
Jane's Pointer October 1998
The recent Iranian test of the Shahab-3 missile has brought a new focus on the military and political situation in the Islamic Republic under Mohammed Khatemi. While Western governments are attempting to dissuade their publics about the potential threat, information trickling out of Iran indicates that the Iranian regime is more of a danger now than ever before. Whatever Iran's leadership, the Iranian military will get the hard-line policy that it wants.
On August 1 IRNA, the Iranian News Agency, reported that Khatemi "called on the Iranian armed forces to focus on beefing up," a common call in post-Khomeni Iran. The Iranian build-up is apparently an unintended result of the Gulf War, when the Iranians viewed with alarm the ease with which the West defeated the Iraqi force that had fought Iran to a standstill in the mid-1980s. Since then, weapons programs in neighboring Pakistan and Iraq have provided more than enough incentive to spur Iran's weapons procurement and development. Clearly, the Iranians have added to their conventional military capabilities. Over the last few years, the Iranians have purchased everything from Russian submarines to Chinese technology. Indeed, Chinese rockets purchased by the Iranians have the capacity to destroy any shipping traversing the Strait of Hormuz. Iran is now attempting to integrate their acquisitions into its existing defense structure, a process highlighted by its live-fire exercises in the Persian Gulf in April.
In terms of ballistic missile design, the Iranians have purchased weapons and designs from North Korea that were critical to the Shahab-3 design. US officials have claimed in the New York Times that 'ability to develop, produce and deploy a large-scale force could take years for Iran." The truth is that last year these officials thought it would be 2000 before Iran had Shahab-type capabilities. The recent Iranian attempt to purchase 22 tons of steel designed for missile construction from Russia indicates that Iran believes its mass-production capacity to be far more advanced than the West suspects. Foreign help is also critical to the Iranian nuclear program. Reports of Iranian attempts to purchase weapons components and expertise from the former Soviet Union have been leaking out since 1991. However, an unnamed source in the Kazakh government indicates that, considering the fallout from a 1994 US action to purchase Kazakh highly enriched uranium (HEU), Kazakh officials may be willing to provide any further HEU to the highest bidder. Given the indications that Iran had tried to purchase HEU from Kazakhstan before, the threat of a nuclear leak to Iran is worse than ever before. Since generating HEU is the trickiest part of a secret weapons program, such a purchase would make Iran a crude nuclear power by the end of the decade, far ahead of current intelligence estimates.
The clear advances in Iranian weapons capacity raise new questions about the intent of the Iranian leadership. Despite recent press in the West about a kinder and gentler Iranian regime, the actions of Mohammed Khatemi's government leave much to be desired. The press on Khatemi, particularly in the USA, has been overwhelmingly positive. In a January interview with CNN, edited versions of Khatemi's remarks stressed his call for "an Islam which seeks democracy, progress, and development." However, in the same breath Khatemi condemned the USA's "flawed policy of domination" in which "certain policy decisions are in fact made in Tel Aviv." Thus, Tehran's true colours must be examined via actions. Inside Iran, the regime continues to persecute its opponents. Dissidents such as the editor of the Iran News have been condemned to death, while religious activists for the Bahai and Jewish communities simply disappear. Iranian moderation has been confined to Culture Minister Mohajerani's comments that stonings should now be performed "by a limited number of people in a confined area." As a result, Shiites who voted for Khatemi hoping for reform now refer to him as the "smiling nun." It is certainly not intended as a compliment.