Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

America's drone in Iran's neighborhood

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • America's drone in Iran's neighborhood

    BLANK: America's drone in Iran's neighborhood
    Lost military asset could jeopardize U.S. allies in region

    By Stephen Blank

    -

    The Washington Times

    Friday, January 6, 2012


    Iran
    's
    capture of an American drone compels us to revisit some difficult,
    unwelcome but fundamental security issues. If
    Irandowned
    a sophisticated U.S. drone, as it claims, that would represent a
    monumental Iranian
    intelligencecoup
    in learning how to override the drone's command-and-control system and
    then guide it safely down to earth. That conclusion, if true, would
    force a rethinking of the U.S.
    intelligencecampaign
    against Iran
    and,
    quite possibly, in
    Afghanistan, as it
    is likely
    Iranwould
    share the secret with the Taliban
    , whom it has
    helped in the past.

    If, however, the drone malfunctioned, as the Obama
    administrationmaintains
    and is more likely, Iran
    probably
    will learn those secrets with the help of Russian and Chinese
    technicians. Pakistan
    already, against U.S.
    objections, has transferred a stealth helicopter that crashed during
    the raid on Osama bin Laden. We should expect no less of
    Iran.
    Then those countries, too, probably will learn how to override our
    drones and force us to rethink our use of drones for intelligence and
    as strike platforms.

    Once Iran
    learns
    how to master these systems, it probably will have an improved
    capability with which to challenge foreign intelligence monitoring of
    its nuclear programs.
    Iranwill
    have obtained a marvelous tool with which to enhance its
    reconnaissance and surveillance capabilities throughout the Gulf and
    Middle East. But beyond those negative outcomes for the United States,
    Israel, our allies in
    the Gulf and, potentially, the International Security Assistance Force
    in
    Afghanistan,
    this event also will have profoundly negative consequences in the
    Caspian basin and particularly
    Azerbaijan .

    Every Central Asian state, as well as
    Azerbaijan, harbors
    suspicions about
    Iran.
    Tajikistan called
    home its students in Iranian religious establishments out of fear that
    they were being infected with a revolutionary Islamist
    indoctrination. None of the other Central Asian states wants
    Iranto
    be a member of the Shanghai Cooperation
    Organization,
    nor do they support its nuclear program. They all suspect
    Iran's
    potential for inciting insurgents and terrorists in their countries.
    Iranalso
    has regularly thwarted efforts by Azerbaijan
    , Kazakhstan and
    Turkmenistan to expand energy production into the Caspian Sea.

    But the most overt displays of Iranian power and threats have been
    employed against neighboring
    Azerbaijan, not
    least because Tehran suspects Baku of being pro-American and
    pro-Israeli, but also because it fears that
    Azerbaijanmay seek
    to exploit the ethnic grievances of Iranian Azerbaijanis in
    northwestern
    Iranand
    detach the area from Iran
    with
    great power support. This is not a groundless fear, as the Soviet
    Union sought to do so in 1920-21 and 1945-46. Nevertheless, this fear
    of the Azerbaijani minority is more a pretext for
    Iran's
    current threats against
    Azerbaijanthan a
    rational basis for Iranian policy. Iran
    's
    real fear is Azerbaijan
    's support for the
    United States and
    Israeland its
    apprehension that Azerbaijan
    might become a
    platform for a U.S. operation against it.

    In fact,
    Iranhas
    been threatening Azerbaijan
    for more than a
    decade. Iranhas
    staunchly supported Armenia's conquest of undisputed Azerbaijani
    territory in the Nagorno-Karabakh crisis to the point that Armenia
    regularly votes against sanctions on
    Iranin
    the United Nations. In 2001, Iran
    shot
    up an Azerbaijani oil-exploration platform in the Caspian Sea. Apart
    from blocking the legal resolution of that sea's status,
    Iranregularly
    threatens Azerbaijan
    with invasion and
    other unspecified military action if it supports a U.S. base in its
    country and because of its close ties with
    Israel .

    More recently, Iranian incitement is clearly behind the
    anti-government campaign by religiously inclined Shiites, who are
    protesting the government's `anti-religious' policies. Whatever the
    merits of those policies and resistance to it, the evidence of
    Iran's
    support for agitation and propaganda, its regular efforts to
    delegitimize the Azerbaijani government and continuing overt military
    threats against the regime are indisputable.

    As Iran
    's
    missile and satellite capabilities grow, and should it get a nuclear
    weapon, these threats become all the more frightening, whatever
    Tehran's intentions may be.
    Iran's
    acquisition of the reconnaissance, surveillance and potential strike
    capabilities that this drone and others like it possess adds
    immeasurably to its capabilities to threaten not only its Middle
    Eastern neighbors but its Central Asian and Caucasian neighbors.

    The current assessment of the damage caused by the loss of this drone
    reminds policymakers and analysts that the threat posed by
    Iranis
    not just to the Middle East, Israel
    , Saudi Arabia and the
    other Gulf states but also to
    Iran's
    northern neighbors and international security in
    general. Proliferation of this technology might not be as great a
    threat as an Iranian nuclear weapon, but it is hardly a small
    threat. Consequently,
    Iran's
    likely mastery of this system would intensify significantly the threat
    in the Middle East, the Caucasus and Central Asia. The United States
    and those governments, too, must take that threat into account and
    respond to a visibly more dangerous situation.

    Stephen Blank is a professor for the Strategic Studies Institute at
    the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pa. The views expressed here do
    not represent those of the U.S. Army, Defense Department or the
    U.S. government.




    From: A. Papazian
Working...
X