Iran’s hypersonic missiles – are they real?

In the Gulf region and the Middle East, we may not care much about the controversy over Iran’s announcement that it has developed a hypersonic missile capable of penetrating all defense systems. The reason is simple: the nearby neighbor Iran was already threatening regional stability before announcing the development of this advanced type of missile.

The Iranian announcement, which worried Western circles, came against the backdrop of already existing concerns about the role of Iranian drones in the war in Ukraine, and added further complications to the West’s calculations regarding the Iranian case.

Amir Ali Haji, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) air force, said the new missile has five times the speed of conventional ballistic missiles. Haji said he believes it will take decades to develop defense systems capable of intercepting the missile, and that this is a “great leap forward” in Iran’s missile arsenal.

Some Western military experts say that “the Iranians sometimes overestimate their military power.” It may have some degree of validity or be completely true. But experience has taught us to be careful,

A copy of North Korea in the Middle East. This level of threat escalation is largely due to the disastrous US strategic mistake of ignoring Iran’s missile program…

Without exaggeration or trivialization, what the Iranian side announces.

Western suspicions continued to be low, despite the involvement of these drones in the bombing of oil facilities in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, until the world was surprised that the aircraft played an influential role in the war in Ukraine and were used by Russia, the leading country in the arms industry, regardless of the motives for using them, whether economic , production or others. The reality is that there are Iranian planes fighting under the Russian flag in a war whose consequences constitute a crisis for the whole world.

It is interesting that Iran’s announcement about developing a hypersonic missile came right after Tehran admitted its involvement in the war in Ukraine. There is a message the Iranians want to send – to whom it may be of interest…

In this case, it is several regional and international parties, and some of the goals of this message are related to trying to prevent regional parties from thinking about a military goal in Iran. Others are related to maximizing pressure on Western countries that Tehran claims are behind the internal protests against the Iranian regime.

Iran is playing a dangerous game of deliberate intervention in the crisis in Ukraine. A report published by Washington Post On October 16 indicates that Iran is preparing to send missiles to Russia. This was denied by Tehran, but experience has taught us that Iranian denial does not mean much.

Tehran certainly wants to flood Russia with the support it needs or doesn’t need, it doesn’t matter, given that this gives the Iranians an implicit right to receive Russian support in exchange for other files (a recent CNN report stated that Iran asked Russia to help it develop its nuclear program), or at least To neutralize Russia’s position in any potential crisis that Iran may create regionally.

In addition, there is a rare opportunity to test Iranian weapons on real battlefields, learn about their operational capabilities, work on their development and address any gaps in their characteristics and combat effectiveness.

What is intriguing is whether the announcement of the development of the hypersonic missile is real or just a primitive version of the Iranian thinking model. Iran is not happy with all the equipment, weapons, underground missile cities, drone depots and its nuclear program.

A copy of North Korea in the Middle East. This level of threat escalation is mainly due to the disastrous US strategic mistake of ignoring Iran’s missile program when negotiations began to revive the nuclear deal with Iran, following the mistake of former US President Barack Obama’s administration, which eventually signed the 2015 deal.

The ignoring of Iran’s missile program was due to a lack of appreciation of the seriousness of this program, which Western countries believe does not pose a real threat to their security. According to the Obama administration’s assessment, Iran will not be able to build intercontinental ballistic missiles in the near future.

The main Iranian threat stems from its nuclear program, which gave Iran an important opportunity to continue its missile tests until it recently reached the point of announcing the development of a hypersonic missile, having now achieved qualitative breakthroughs in its strategy to move the battle beyond. its borders, either through missiles or through a network of militias and sectarian arms deployed throughout the region, or both.

As a result, everyone is now paying the bill for the West’s miscalculations, for underestimating the Iranian threat and for neglecting to take into account the views of Iran’s neighbors and their assessments of the consequences of what is happening.

Dr. Salem Elkatbi He is a political analyst in the United Arab Emirates