Why Iran Is Trying to Put a Satellite into Orbit

Tehran claims that last week it successfully launched a Simorgh rocket, designed for putting a satellite into space; according to the U.S. military, the launch was a failure. Even if so, writes Farzin Nadimi, the Islamic Republic, no doubt with help from North Korea, is growing close to mastering the technology for such launches—the same technology needed for an intercontinental ballistic missile:

Iranian officials . . . evidently have laid the groundwork for future Simorgh launches with satellites as heavy as 250 kilograms into a longer-lasting 500-kilometer low-earth orbit. Bearing this weight would mark a fivefold increase from the previous-generation Iranian Safir satellite launch vehicle (SLV), for which four successful launches—and several unsuccessful ones—are on record. . . .

An SLV [shares] many common technologies with intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), and a Simorgh-type ballistic missile is estimated by rocket engineers to have a 7,500-kilometer range with a 700-kilogram warhead. This range falls short of the continental United States but covers all of Europe and Asia. . . . Iran also has experience with reentry vehicles [which are also necessary for a working ICBM]. . . .

Depending on funding and launch capability, satellites even larger than the 250-kilogram examples (around the maximum weight a prospective Simorgh-2 could carry) might emerge in the longer term. . .

With this latest launch, Iran’s space program has emerged from a three-year dormancy initiated by President Hassan Rouhani, probably [in part due to] technical and budgetary constraints as well. Further launches can be expected in the near future. . . . Iran insists its military-run space program is for peaceful purposes only and that its ballistic missiles are for conventional deterrence at a range no greater than 2,000 kilometers. Such rhetoric and Iran’s technical limitations notwithstanding, the mere possibility of diverted know-how from an SLV to an ICBM program [should] unsettle many Western capitals. Previous close cooperation between Tehran and Pyongyang will provide no further solace.

Read more at Washington Institute for Near East Policy

More about: Iran, Iran nuclear program, Politics & Current Affairs

It’s Time for Haredi Jews to Become Part of Israel’s Story

Unless the Supreme Court grants an extension from a recent ruling, on Monday the Israeli government will be required to withhold state funds from all yeshivas whose students don’t enlist in the IDF. The issue of draft exemptions for Haredim was already becoming more contentious than ever last year; it grew even more urgent after the beginning of the war, as the army for the first time in decades found itself suffering from a manpower crunch. Yehoshua Pfeffer, a haredi rabbi and writer, argues that haredi opposition to army service has become entirely disconnected from its original rationale:

The old imperative of “those outside of full-time Torah study must go to the army” was all but forgotten. . . . The fact that we do not enlist, all of us, regardless of how deeply we might be immersed in the sea of Torah, brings the wrath of Israeli society upon us, gives a bad name to all of haredi society, and desecrates the Name of Heaven. It might still bring harsh decrees upon the yeshiva world. It is time for us to engage in damage limitation.

In Pfeffer’s analysis, today’s haredi leaders, by declaring that they will fight the draft tooth and nail, are violating the explicit teachings of the very rabbis who created and supported the exemptions. He finds the current attempts by haredi publications to justify the status quo not only unconvincing but insincere. At the heart of the matter, according to Pfeffer, is a lack of haredi identification with Israel as a whole, a lack of feeling that the Israeli story is also the haredi story:

Today, it is high time we changed our tune. The new response to the demand for enlistment needs to state, first and foremost to ourselves, that this is our story. On the one hand, it is crucial to maintain and even strengthen our isolation from secular values and culture. . . . On the other hand, this cultural isolationism must not create alienation from our shared story with our fellow brethren living in the Holy Land. Participation in the army is one crucial element of this belonging.

Read more at Tzarich Iyun

More about: Haredim, IDF, Israeli society