The Washington Times:
An Iranian official recently boasted thatIran’s ballistic missiles can reach American military bases. This is not news. But it does remind U.S. policymakers why the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) will increase the threats facing our armed forces, especially since the agreement will provide Iran with greater opportunities to advance its missile program. This is reason enough for the United States to walk away from the deal. But since it looks certain that it will not, it must adapt its ballistic missile defense strategy to mitigate the increased risk brought about by the deal.
The JCPOA will lift conventional arms and ballistic missile embargoes that the United Nations has long imposed onIran. Iran’s ballistic missiles pose a significant threat to U.S. allies and military personnel in the Middle East. This is why Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army Gen. Martin Dempsey told a Senate panel in July that, “Under no circumstances should we relieve pressure on Iran relative to ballistic missile capabilities and arms trafficking.” Defense Secretary Ashton Carter similarly told a Senate panel, “We want [the Iranians] to continue to be isolated as a military, and limited in terms of the kind of equipment materiel they are able to get.”
The growing threat from Iran’s ballistic missiles is one of the primary reasons the Obama administration said it changed the missile defense architecture for Europe. In 2009, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy told a congressional panel, “In the near term, what this means is that the greatest missile threats from Iran will be to U.S. allies and partners, as well as to our deployed personnel, military and civilian, and their families in the Middle East and in Europe.” She added, “I just want to underscore, this is the key change in the intelligence assessment that drove our action: the very real threat of short-range and medium-range ballistic missiles that is developing faster and must be dealt with sooner.”
Although the administration’s strategy for missile defense wrongly prioritized regional missile defense abroad at the expense of defense of the U.S. homeland and investments in cutting-edge technologies, Ms. Flournoy’s assessment that Iran’s current missile arsenal is an immediate and growing threat is absolutely right. And it will continue to grow bigger and more capable. As Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said in the wake of the deal, “We will buy, sell and develop any weapons that we need, and we will not ask for permission or abide by any [U.N.] resolution for that…”
