Middle-east Arab News Opinion | Asharq Al-awsat

11,000 Rockets Per Minute | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
Select Page

It’s true that no significant response was given to the threats made by a brigadier general in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, declaring that if his country were attacked it would launch 11,000 rockets at enemy bases within the space of a minute.

Nobody blinked in a region that has grown accustomed to threats, missiles and deafening military propaganda; however the statement did complete a picture.

The US President warned that a nuclear-enabled Iran could set off World War III; this was a calculated statement and not another one of Bush’s infamous slips of the tongue.

It is unfortunate that Iran would push matters towards military conflict, however assuming that it were capable of launching such a significant military attack, it would have altered its policy by launching a war by itself, and entering the final stages of the conflict it started at the beginning of the Islamic revolution.

The secret behind the survival of the Iranian regime is that in the past, regardless of the hostility expressed against it by major powers, it always managed to avoid confrontation, despite continuing to produce its hostile propaganda.

Even during its war with Iraq, it did not expand the scale of its battles despite accusing Arab neighbors of funding the Iraqi side. Iran also gave a cold shoulder to the Taliban government, ignoring the harm it did in Afghanistan. It also ignored 30 years of harassment by the United States fleets in the Gulf waters. Previous Iranian governments have been careful not to get involved in military confrontations, preferring wars by proxy through Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Gaza’s Hamas.

On the day that the Iranian leadership decides to engage in a military war; firing ‘11,000 rockets per minute’ would not be sufficient for victory, since American military forces are capable of demolishing Iran in a battle even if it were to lose the war. Furthermore, the US military train in areas that are out the range of Iran’s missile capabilities, and besides, US military capacity is adequate enough to obliterate Iran.

Brigadier General Mahmoud Chaharbaghi is literally echoing the same line used by the deposed Iraqi regime; saying that Iran will destroy Americans’ pride and that the war will be a quick one; forgetting that Saddam’s regime was destroyed in two weeks.

America has the capability of setting Iran a hundred years back, so what is the use of entering a conflict if the price to pay will be a devastated country?

Today, were are familiar with Iran’s past strategy, which has spared its homeland from military confrontation and allowed it to influence the region through propaganda, politics and affiliated parties without ever needing to launch a single missile.

This strategy has been in effect for over 20 years, and has allowed Iran to successfully impose many of it designs for the region.

In President Ahmadinejad current term, his rhetoric has convinced many of the gravity of Tehran’s intentions towards numerous countries in the region, even those that don’t share a border with it. Even Europe, which has always opposed the United States stances towards Iran, is now convinced that preventing the completion of its nuclear program is paramount to Europe’s security.