New Iranian missile

Top Iranian officials are claiming that the country has developed a hypersonic missile, raising eyebrows across the world. Hypersonic missiles are mostly similar to traditional ballistic missiles, with the key difference being that they can fly at over five times the speed of sound, which is significantly faster than anything in most countries’ defensive arsenals, making them almost impossible to shoot down. Only a handful of countries have even begun developing hypersonic weapons, and only the US, China and Russia have developed usable weapons in their arsenals, although India and a few other allies of the US and Russia do have some usable weapons in their arsenals.

Part of the concern is because of international media claims that Iran was about to send missiles to Russia for use against Ukraine. Iran calls these claims “completely false”, and says that Iranian-made drones being used by Russia were delivered before the war in Ukraine began. The commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps aerospace unit was quoted by Iranian media as saying the indigenous hypersonic weapons is meant to target “enemy anti-missile systems” and will be unstoppable for decades to come. Although ‘enemies’ in the Iranian context is generally believed to mean Israel, the long-running proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia has also drawn increasing attention due to recent comments by Iranian federal ministers.

And while few details are known about the Iranian missile, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi was among those concerned by the increasing deployment of cutting-edge weapons, although he did note that he does not see an overlap between Iran developing such missiles and its controversial nuclear programme, or multilateral negotiations related to reviving the Iran nuclear deal. The deal collapsed after former US president Donald Trump pulled Washington out in violation of the agreement. Iran, which has consistently denied having a nuclear weapons programme, soon began thumbing its nose at the West by enriching uranium well beyond the levels needed for civilian use, though still short of weapons grade.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 12^th, 2022.

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