The West Australian January 27, 2007
Iran's satellite launch sparks new missile fear
Iran is poised to launch a satellite — a step that could herald a new dimension to Tehran’s strategic abilities.
A recently assembled 30-tonne ballistic missile-turned space launcher could also be used to test long-range missile technologies, Aviation Week and Space Technology magazine said.
The Iranian space rocket “will lift off soon” with an Iranian satellite, said Alaoddin Boroujerdi, chairman of the Iranian National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, according to the magazine.
Mr Boroujerdi made the announcement in a speech to religious students and clerics in Qom, where Iran conducts missile tests.
There is concern a launch could lead to an Iranian intercontinental ballistic missile with a range of nearly 4000km, putting central Europe, Russia, China and India within range.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also has an aggressive approach to nuclear diplomacy with his fiery, anti-US speeches but has been criticised in Iran recently for focusing too much on his anti-US agenda.
Iran’s new capabilities come at a time of heightened Western concern over nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea and weeks after China destroyed a satellite with a missile.
Iran’s new launcher also highlights close technological ties between it and North Korean missile programs, the magazine said, citing US intelligence agencies.
US intelligence agencies believe the launcher is a derivation of Iran’s Shahab 3 missile, which has a range up to 1600km. Analysts with think tank GlobalSecurity.org believe it could be a stepping stone to an Iranian clone of the North Korean Taepodong 2C/3 missile that failed in a launch last July.
The US Defence Intelligence Agency has said Iran could have the capability of developing a 4800km missile by 2015.
“But ultimately, their space program aims to orbit reconnaissance satellites like Israel’s,” Uzi Rubin, former head of the Israel Missile Defence Organisation, was quoted saying in the magazine.
The planned launch would show off Iran’s technical prowess and “be a potent political and emotional weapon in the Middle East”. “Orbiting its own satellite would send a powerful message throughout the Muslim world about the Shi’ite regime in Tehran,” the article said.
The report coincides with the planned US deployment in Poland and the Czech Republic of a system designed to intercept missile attacks from Iran and North Korea. It already has monitoring satellites and detection radar and missile interceptors in Alaska and California but wants 10 more in Europe by 2011.
Iran is under fierce international criticism for its uranium enrichment, which critics suspect masks a nuclear weapons program, and the United Nations Security Council has approved sanctions over it.
© Copyright 2007, West Australian Newspapers Pty Ltd
