Western attempts to curb Iran’s ballistic missile development will fail, a senior Russian ambassador said amid U.S. warnings that Tehran’s arsenal poses a threat.
“Attempts to impose from outside restrictions and prohibitions on national missile programs, like Western countries try to do with regard to Iran, have very little chance to succeed because they totally ignore regional context,” Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s ambassador to the international organizations in Vienna, Austria, tweeted on Sunday.
Ulyanov maintained that “the only way to curb and limit missile proliferation” is to shift the negotiations away from the United Nations and other major international meetings, with a new emphasis on regional neighbors. That argument, aired just days after Iran fired short-range ballistic missiles at U.S. military positions in Iraq, offers diplomatic cover for a missile program “designed to overwhelm U.S. forces” in the Middle East, according to Pentagon analysts.
“The idea of a regional missile negotiation is not new. It’s an Iranian ploy to deflect attention and pressure from its own illicit missile program and instead advance the argument that Iran’s development of nuclear-capable missiles somehow addresses a rational and legitimate security concern,” Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser at Foundations for Defense of Democracies, told the Washington Examiner.
“But no other country in the region threatens to annihilate other countries on a daily basis. No other country transfers its missiles to terrorists throughout the region, and no other country continues to build longer and longer [range] missiles to reach far beyond the Middle East,” Goldberg said.
Ulyanov maintained that such programs are not illegal, noting that the relevant U.N. Security Council resolution merely ‘calls upon’ countries not to develop ballistic missiles.
“‘Calls upon’ doesn’t mean ‘are obliged,’” he wrote. “Unfortunately there are no prohibitions or limitations on [missiles] in the world.”
He made that comment while discussing a recent missile test by India, but the argument applies to Iran as well because the U.N. Security Council resolution governing the Iran deal also uses the “called upon” formulation.
“Personal view: The only way to curb and limit missile proliferation, as well as dangerous development of missile programs, is to intensify consideration of these topics in regional formats with a view to look for hypothetical arrangements freely arrived at by states concerned,” Ulyanov said before mentioning Iran.
Iranian military strategists rely on ballistic missiles to deter the United States and other adversaries from launching major attacks, according to Defense Department analysts, while supporting terrorist groups throughout the Middle East.
“Iran’s ‘way of war’ emphasizes the need to avoid or deter conventional conflict while advancing its security objectives in the region, particularly through propaganda, psychological warfare, and proxy operations,” reads the Defense Intelligence Agency’s report on Iranian military power. “Iran’s deterrence is largely based on three core capabilities: ballistic missiles capable of long-range strikes, naval forces capable of threatening navigation in the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz, and unconventional operations using partners and proxies abroad.”
That pattern makes Iran’s ballistic missiles program a unique threat within the region, Goldberg said. “The Iranian missile threat, in light of Iran’s terror sponsorship, past illicit nuclear weapons-related activities and ongoing concealment of nuclear materials and activities, stands as its own case that must be addressed head on,” he told the Washington Examiner.
