Israel alarmed at news Russia to supply Iran
with advanced air defense system
Deal for S-300 batteries was blocked in 2007 amid opposition from US and Israel;
system could hamper strike on nuclear facilities
April 13, 2015, 5:10 pm
President Vladimir Putin on Monday lifted a ban on supplying
Iran with sophisticated S-300 air defense missile systems, the Kremlin said,
after Tehran struck a deal with the West over its nuclear program. Israeli officials denounced the decision as
proof of Tehran’s untenable newfound “legitimacy” following nuclear talks. “This is a direct result of the legitimacy
that Iran is receiving from the nuclear deal that is being prepared, and proof
that the Iranian economic growth which follows the lifting of sanctions will be
exploited for arming itself and not for the welfare of the Iranian people,”
Israeli Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz said in a statement. Israeli officials said supply of the system
to Iran could prevent any military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, Channel
2 news reported. The officials said the supply, if it goes ahead, would change
the balance of power in the region. The TV report also cited unnamed American
officials responding with concern to the news.
A decree signed by Putin removes a ban on “the shipment from
Russia to Iran” of the S-300 missiles, the Kremlin said in a statement. Russia signed a 2007 contract to sell Tehran
the S-300 system, but the weaponry was never delivered amid strong objections by
the United States and Israel. Moscow
blocked deliveries of the surface-to-air missiles to Tehran in 2010 after the
United Nations slapped sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program barring
hi-tech weapons sales. Iran then filed a
$4 billion suit against Moscow at an arbitration court in Geneva.
The decision to lift the delivery freeze comes after Tehran
and international powers including Russia made a major breakthrough this month
by agreeing an outline deal aimed at curbing Iran’s nuclear program. The Lausanne framework marked a crucial
advance in a 12-year standoff between Iran and the West, which disputes
Tehran’s denial that it is seeking to build a nuclear bomb. However, Israeli
officials, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have strongly condemned
the deal for placing inadequate limitations on Iran’s ability to research and
produce nuclear weapons. Global powers
must resolve a series of difficult technical issues by a June 30 deadline for a
final deal, including the steps for lifting global sanctions imposed on Iran,
and lingering questions over the possible military dimensions of its nuclear
program. Iran’s Supreme leader Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei, who will have the final say on any deal, has plunged the accord
into doubt suggesting that “nothing is binding” while President Hassan Rouhani
demanded that sanctions be immediately lifted when any deal is signed.
Global powers Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the
United States have said sanctions will only be gradually eased and want a
mechanism to ensure they can be swiftly reimposed if Iran breaks its word. Despite the dispute over the S-300 missiles,
Moscow and Iran have remained on good terms, with Russia agreeing to build new
nuclear reactors for Tehran and both sides supporting President Bashar al-Assad
in Syria. The S-300, developed by the
Soviet Union in 1979, is a series of Russian long-range surface-to-air missile
systems produced by NPO Almaz. The S-300 system was constructed for the Soviet
Air Defense Forces in order to defend against aircraft and cruise missiles.
Subsequent variations on the model were developed to intercept ballistic missiles.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
Read more: Israel alarmed at news Russia to supply Iran advanced air defense system | The Times of Israel http://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-alarmed-at-news-russia-to-supply-iran-advanced-air-defense-system/#ixzz3XIunx800
Follow us: @timesofisrael on Twitter | timesofisrael on Facebook
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
FOR YOUR INFORMATION....
The S-300 (NATO reporting name SA-10 Grumble) is a series of initially Soviet and later Russian long rangesurface-to-air missile systems produced by NPO Almaz, based on the initial S-300P version. The S-300 system was developed to defend against aircraft and cruise missiles for the Soviet Air Defence Forces. Subsequent variations were developed to intercept ballistic missiles. The S-300 system was first deployed by the Soviet Union in 1979, designed for the air defence of large industrial and administrative facilities, military bases, and control of airspace against enemy strike aircraft. The system is fully automated, though manual observation and operation are also possible.[3][5] Components may be near the central command post, or as distant as 40 km. Each radar provides target designation for the central command post. The command post compares the data received from the targeting radars up to 80 km apart, filtering false targets, a difficult task at such great distances.[6] The central command post features both active and passive target detection modes. The project-managing developer of the S-300 is Russian Almaz corporation (government owned, aka "KB-1") which is currently a part of "Almaz-Antei" Air Defence Concern. S-300 uses missiles developed by MKB "Fakel" design bureau (a separate government corporation, aka "OKB-2"). The S-300 is regarded as one of the most potent anti-aircraft missile systems currently fielded.[9] Its radars have the ability to simultaneously track up to 100 targets while engaging up to 12/24/36 targets. The S-300 deployment time is five minutes. The S-300 missiles are sealed rounds and require no maintenance over their lifetime. An evolved version of the S-300 system is the S-400 (NATO reporting name SA-21 Growler), which entered limited service in 2004.
I THINK THIS IS GOING TO BE THE...
"OCTOBER MISSILE CRISIS, PART 2"
Iran’s apparently imminent acquisition of S-300 missiles is a significant development, disturbing on several levels, but it is not a game changer. If Russia sends the air-defense missiles to Iran, it’ll hinder Israel’s ability to collect low-altitude intelligence over Iran and attack its military installations, experts said Tuesday, but it wouldn’t hermetically shut Iran’s skies to Israeli aircraft or spell the end of Israel’s military option against Iran’s nuclear program. “If the Israeli Air Force had the ability to act against Iran’s nuclear facilities before the S-300, then it will have it afterward, too,” said retired IAF general Asaf Agmon, head of the Fischer Institute for Air and Space Strategic Studies.
The acquisition, however, would force Israel to devote vast amounts of electronic warfare capacity against such a system and to invest in weapons that could combat it, further complicating any strike against Iran and, potentially, raising the toll in human life if such a strike were to be ordered. Agmon said Iranian air-defense teams have been training on the Russian system since the deal was initially made in 2007 and that, if it is delivered to Iran, it would take only weeks for it to be made operational. Another concern, he said, is that once such a system has been passed on to Iran, it might be transferred to Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces or those of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon, eroding a central pillar of Israel’s deterrence.
An additional variable — and one that will become an intelligence priority if the sale goes through — is to determine which system Russia has agreed to provide. There are roughly two dozen versions available, equipped with different sorts of radars and different sorts of missiles. “That’s the biggest question of all,” said Yiftach Shapir, a former IAF officer, who heads the INSS think tank’s Middle East Military Balance project. “It determines everything.” He said Russia was unlikely to reveal, in the event of a sale, which system it had provided and that it was Israeli intelligence that would have to deliver that information to the IAF. The S-300 PMU, for example, was sold to Cyprus in January 1997 and, amid Turkish threats of a preemptive strike and even war, transferred to Greece in 2007. Israel, since the deployment of the system in Crete, has conducted several joint operations with the Greek air force. Asked whether Israel had trained against that version of the S-300, he said, “I’d put my money on Yes.” A more advanced system, with, say, a 300-km (186-mile) range and an altitude ceiling of over 48 km (30 miles), would pose a more significant obstacle. It would be less known, perhaps, and it could engage planes from a further distance, tracking and targeting several aircraft simultaneously.
A senior IAF officer, in charge of the acquisition and integration of the F-35 into Israel’s air force, sa
Former ambassador to Russia, Zvi Magen, who is also a fellow at the INSS — the Institute for National Security Studies — and a former head of the semi-clandestine Nativ organization, said the sale “has significance, but is not dramatic.” He said the air force has technological and operational solutions and that “if Israel reaches the decision that it needs to act, the mission will be accomplished with it, too.” Magen, who viewed the system up close during his term as ambassador in Moscow, said the deal is part of a long history of using arms sales — or the threat of arms sales — as leverage in the region. In recent years, Russia has announced deals with Syria, Iran, and Egypt for the S-300; it has promised MiG-31s to Syria and MiG-35s to Egypt; but none has arrived.
“Russia is worried because Iran has escaped to the West,” Magen said, referring to the multilateral nuclear talks and the slight warming of relations between Washington and Tehran. “It is fighting for its spot in the region.” The other lens through which the announcement should be viewed, he said, was Ukraine. Russia is losing its campaign there. The West has imposed sanctions against Russia. “In order to soften that blow, [Russia] started playing on a parallel field.” Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz, a long-standing opponent of the nuclear framework deal reached with Iran earlier this month, said that the sale is inextricably linked to the Lausanne agreement. “This is the direct result of the legitimacy granted to Iran from the nuclear deal that is being forged,” he said Monday in a written statement, “and it is proof that the Iranian economic momentum, to come in the wake of sanctions removal, will be exploited for arms buildup and not the welfare of the Iranian people. “The advanced weaponry,” he added, “will only heighten its aggression.”
“It will make things more difficult for the ISRAELI air force, but not in an unsolvable way,” he said. “The air force knows how to attack it if necessary and to get by if necessary.”
No comments:
Post a Comment