Last month, the Islamic Republic fired seven of its newest model of Zulfikar ballistic missiles at Islamic State positions in Syria, not far from the U.S. zone of operations. Official Iranian media covered the missile launch with enthusiasm, although it seems that only one of the projectiles hit its target. Despite this apparently poor performance, argues Uzi Rubin, the fact that Tehran possesses such long-range, high-precision weapons should arouse serious concern:
To hit a single house from more than 6oo kilometers away, [as one of the missiles probably did], is far from trivial. In fact, it is a very significant development. As a military operation, Iran’s missile strike may have been a dud, but as a technical demonstration of the Zulfikar’s inherent capability, it may have been a step forward. . . . In any case, poor reliability can probably be cured by design refinements and further testing. If its basic design is sound, the Zulfikar can still become an awesome weapon.
While Israel is threatened by Iranian missiles from Lebanon and from Iran itself, it is not the intended target of the Zulfikar, which lacks the range to reach Israel from Iranian territory. Its intended target is probably Saudi Arabia, whose capital city, Riyadh, is about 700 km away from the Iranian shores of the Persian Gulf—well within [its] claimed range.
Iranian officials continue to cite Israel as its chief enemy in the region, but their missiles indicate that this is not exactly the case. A drizzle of Iranian-made missiles is currently hitting Saudi towns along the Yemenite border and spreading to the Saudi interior. Houthi rebels in Yemen have already launched Iranian-supplied ballistic missiles at Saudi Arabia’s largest port city of Jeddah, its summer capital of Taif, and Riyadh itself at least twice.
But if Iran succeeds in setting up platforms for these missiles in the territories it controls in Syria, Lebanon, or even western Iraq, the danger to Israel will become that much greater.
Read more on BESA Center: https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/iran-syria-missiles/