On August 4, 1998, Iran launched the Shihab-3, a
17-ton medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM), capable of carrying a
1.2-ton payload an estimated 1,300 kilometers. Only eighteen months
before, a senior US intelligence official had told Congress that Iran
might take as long as ten years to acquire a missile with such a long
range. After the test launch, the US government recognized that “the
Shihab-3 significantly alters the military equation in the Middle East by
giving Tehran the capability to strike targets in Israel, Saudi Arabia,
and most of Turkey.”
The Shihab-3 became operational in early 2000. Iran’s
development of the Shihab-3 is significant for two reasons. First, it
gives Iran a delivery system capable of striking every important US ally
in the region, including Egypt, Israel, and Turkey. Second, the system was
clearly designed to deliver weapons of mass destruction. Iran currently
has active programs to develop nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC)
weapons. Although many of these programs began in the early 1980s, during
Iran’s long war with Iraq, the pace of development significantly
accelerated in the early 1990s.
Iran’s efforts to develop these weapons are having a
significant impact on the strategic environment in the entire Middle East.
In addition to undermining international nonproliferation norms, these
programs pose a direct military threat to US friends and allies in the
region and to US military forces deployed there. Significantly, the
Iranians appear to have accelerated their work on NBC weapons and
associated delivery systems in recent years. Some analysts appear to
believe that Iran would use its NBC weapons and missiles only if the
survival of the regime were in question. Unfortunately, the limited
available evidence calls into question that thesis. Iran’s storage of
chemical weapons on Abu Musa, an island in the Persian Gulf off the coast
of Dubai, suggests that Tehran would use such weapons long before the
regime’s security was in doubt.
The development of NBC weapons and associated
delivery systems has significant support in Iran. George Tenet, director
of Central Intelligence, noted this in testimony to Congress earlier this
year: “[Iran’s] reformists and conservatives agree on at least one thing:
weapons of mass destruction are a necessary component of defense and a
high priority.”
NBC Weapons Programs
Iran’s progress in developing NBC capabilities varies
considerably from program to program. Lack of money, difficulties in
integrating complex programs, and constraints imposed by Western
technology-transfer controls have slowed the programs. The chemical
weapons program appears considerably more advanced than the nuclear and
biological programs. Although Iran has made considerable progress in
developing ballistic missiles, it is less clear that it has developed
missile delivery systems for its existing chemical or biological agents.
Nevertheless, unless significant changes occur in Iran, it is only a
matter of time before Iran has an effective arsenal with deliverable
nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons capable of reaching Israel and
other US allies in the region.
