CIAO DATE: 02/2014
December 2013
Center for Strategic and International Studies
The report shows that Iran’s current missile and rocket forces help compensate for its lack of effective air power and allow it to pose a threat to its neighbors and U.S. forces that could affect their willingness to strike Iran should Iran use its capabilities for asymmetric warfare in the Gulf or against any of its neighbors.At another level, Iran’s steady increase in the number, range, and capability of its rocket and missile forces has increased the level of tension in the Gulf, and in other regional states like Turkey, Jordan, and Israel. Iran has also shown that it will transfer long-range rockets to “friendly” or “proxy” forces like the Hezbollah and Hamas. At a far more threatening level, the report shows that Iran has acquired virtually every element of a nuclear breakout capability before the recently minted interim agreement was reached in Geneva, except the fissile material needed to make a weapon. This threat led to a growing “war of sanctions,” and Israeli and U.S. threats of preventive strikes. Concurrently, the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear programs cannot be separated from the threat posed by Iran’s growing capabilities for asymmetric warfare in the Gulf and along all of its borders.
Resource link: Iran and The Gulf Military Balance II: The Nuclear and Missile Dimensions [PDF] - 5.5M