Don’t Bail Out Iran’s Missile Program https://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/politics-current-affairs/2020/05/dont-bail-out-irans-missile-program/

May 20, 2020 | Jonathan Schanzer and Bradley Bowman
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Still reeling from the effects of COVID-19, Tehran is requesting relief from economic sanctions, although existing sanctions do not prevent the Islamic Republic from obtaining food or medical supplies. Jonathan Schanzer and Bradley Bowman urge the U.S., and other countries, to refuse Iran’s pleas, as it will inevitably use the benefits of sanctions relief to expand its arsenal of precision-guided missiles:

Tehran, along with its violent proxies in Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq, is now working assiduously, even during the coronavirus pandemic, to convert an arsenal of unguided rockets and missiles into smart ones. Unguided rockets often miss their targets. Missile-defense systems can easily knock them out of the sky. But Iran’s new precision-guided missiles can potentially maneuver in flight, evading air defenses. If enough are fired, they can also overwhelm current defenses.

Official sources suggest that Hizballah may be producing a guided missile or more each day, accruing an arsenal measured in the dozens or hundreds. That may not seem like many to readers, . . . but to Israel and its citizens, it could be a matter of life and death.

Combining a barrage of thousands of unguided missiles and rockets with hundreds of precision-guided missiles could enable Hizballah to penetrate Israeli defenses. The result could be a catastrophic attack on Israel’s chemical plant in Haifa or Ben Gurion International Airport with the relative impact of a tactical nuclear or chemical-weapons strike.

Sanctions relief would simply provide the world’s worst state sponsor of terrorism more money to fund its guided-missile project. . . . It’s also important to note that [this] project costs money—tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars. Tehran’s efforts to train engineers, purchase parts, and funnel [these] parts into Lebanon by way of Syria and Iraq all cost money. This is money the regime could have spent on its own people. This was money that the regime now cynically says it doesn’t have in order to fight the virus.

Read more on RealClear Defense: https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2020/05/15/dont_bailout_tehrans_precision_guided_munitions_project_115289.html