Above: USAF aircraft lined up at the U.S. military base at Diego Garcia
According to Iranian armed forces media outlet Defa Press (06JUN14):
Advisor to the Representative of the Supreme Leader in the IRGC Mojtaba Zonnour states that “in the event of an irrational [military attack] by the United States, America’s military bases will not be safe from our missiles, whether in Bahrain or at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.”The advisor went on to state that such a policy was in response to the American policy of “all options are on the table,” where referring to the Iranian nuclear program.
It has been surmised by some military thinkers here in the West that Iranian efforts at increasing the range of their conventional ballistic missiles were not, as some alarmists had thought, to target population centers in Europe or even North America, but instead were aimed at targeting the United States strategic military base at Diego Garcia. The advisor’s statement appears to confirm this latter interpretation.
Moreover, while the advisor's statement may infer an Iranian strike capability, more likely it may serve to indicate an IRGC-ASF design intent for more capable ballistic missiles, in terms of enhanced range and accuracy.
In the event of war with the United States, disruptions--even temporary ones--as well as negatively impacting American military prestige, would no doubt form the crux of Iranian asymmetric warfare. It should be assumed military thinkers in Iran conceive of the base at Diego Garcia in terms of fulfilling such criteria, as a second-strike target of war.
more hilarious horsespit from Iranian regime stooges....
ReplyDeletein event of a military strike against Iranian soil, the Iranian military will soil itself before trying to attack US bases.
once it sends missiles to the US overseas bases, which will not really damage the US, the US ill respond by destroying ALL the Iranian military bases, equipment and personnel that don't run and hide.
but they will still be boastful right up until they're blown apart.
beware of these fools with their flapping mouths
AnonymousJune 9, 2014 at 10:39 AM
DeleteThe whole point of the article,if you in fact even bothered to read it,was that in the event of a us attack on iran iran will respond by destroying the us military infrastructure in the me and beyond,in the event that this happens it would then be very difficult for the us to prosecute any war against iran,the loss of Diego Garcia would adversely affect us logistics in the region and make carrier and long range bombing operations at best very difficult and with the destruction of its me bases that would be all the options it would have left for attacking iran,Diego Garcia is one of only three bases that the b2 can operate from
Iran can't destroy the US base at Diego Garcia, my friend. it's a hollow claim.
DeleteOn the other hand, the US CAN destroy any surface structure in Iran....and doesn't require Diego Garcia or any other land base near to Iran to do so.
Yes absolutely true, and President Putin can send a first strike with hundreds of Topol-M nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles and wipe out 80% of American land and render inhabitable for 25,000 years, then the latter can retort in a second strike and do the same to Russia, but what's the point in underlining the sheer firepower at their disposal exactly ?
DeleteThe same way, Israel can wipe out the whole of Lebanon, Hezbollah included, in a lightning nuclear onslaught as well. Yet, they lost 2 wars with that guerrilla paramilitary group already and had to relinquish their 18-year old hold on South Lebanon. And to this day, haven't gone further than a few cross-border skirmishes and blurry report of isolated air strikes against a couple of their interests in war-torn Syria. Is there anything I'm missing here that you saw better ?
That massive capability from the US, while true, is irrelevant in such discussion, my friend. And while reaching Diego Garcia seems hollow on paper considering official missile range from Iranian arsenal, there are quite a lot of highly vulnerable assets at direct missile range all around Iran, you see there are like 36 bases and significant concentration of US interests that fall within both short and medium range class of Iranian missile, and no amount of PAC-3 batteries are enough to protect them all, and the Pentagon knows that. And for your information, USN's main port in Bahrain is one of the closest to Iran, in range of literally thousands of different assets of all types, ranges, and accuracy. The US cannot bear the political, human and economic cost of such consequence, no matter how hard they ultimately hammer Iranian forces after a bitter was of unequal attrition. The Pentagon itself has repeatedly projected losses of at least a dozen major surface combatant ships in every hypothetical engagement on the long run, and this, America today cannot afford anymore. At least not for a long time.
If things were as simple as you imply, and an American first strike could be as effective as it would be without serious consequence, in other terms a piece of cake/walk in the park, we would have witnessed it a hundred times already. Same applies to Israel and Bibi bragging about an upcoming summer strike for like 5 summers already. If it was determined that it could serve them so much better than a long and painstaking diplomatic road, don't you think they would have opted for that path instead for many years now ? their military record doesn't exactly hints to voluntary restraint...
How US can destroy everything in Iran without using its airbases around (at most 2000 and in case for long range bombers 4000-5000 Km) Iran can easily deny access to American ship in Persian gulf and surrounding area. Even US simulations has proven that Iran can defeat US using swarm attacks. US choice is to use its long range bombers and curse missiles. As for long range bombers one of their main base is in diego garcia and therefore if Iran can make the base dysfunctional (not even destroy it) it makes it incredibly difficult for US to continue an air-campaign against Iran
DeleteIsn't Diego Garcia at about 4,000 km from Iran? How is Iran going to reach that far when their stated missile range is 2,000 km at max?
ReplyDeleteit is what Iran has already revealed going from 2000 to 4000 is not a great feat and Iran has had missiles with 2000 range for a almost a decade or more.
DeleteBuild bigger ballistic missiles + submarine launched cruise missiles...It will be a few years before they have this capability, but they eventually will.
DeleteIt has long been speculated that the official range stated by Iranian defense officials was carefully thought so that it does never explicitly cross the MRBM threshold, but many analysts including the father of IDF's Arrow system, Uzi Rubin, actually put the range of the Ghadr and Sejil missile somewhere between 2,500 to 3,000 km based on thorough comparative studies of the missile. Accuracy at such range then naturally becomes an issue for a country not known to be currently deploying a full-scale military GPS satellite constellations, hence a strong and years-long emphasis on developing more and more advanced terminal, optical guidance mechanisms, seekers and algorithms instead on the part of its defense community to evolve from the sole laser gyroscopes that are only enough for the cruising part of a missile's travel in general target zone, and not reliable for terminal accuracy specially in the long range anti-ship role or for targeting vital defense infrastructures, thus going beyond large industrial target in the league of hundreds of meters.
DeleteYea but they have also bragged about fictional state of the art mock up jets...so which is it?
DeleteThe ones that actually fly and get recognized as such by former Pentagon chief Leon Panetta or former Arrow program head Uzi Rubin, and get recorded at launch and during a portion of flight by NASA, NORAD and their Russian and European counterparts. The ones that make Iran's regional enemies brag about attacking its nuclear sites monthly without walking the walk. The ones that actually make a crater on full-scale mockup airbases in Iranian defense events. Not the ones never flying like their never-coming fighter jet that for now is used exclusively for propaganda purposes rather than representing any actual capability to produce anything further than a twin-tail F-5 derivative, there I couldn't agree more. Iran as of today is not known for being able to re-engineer fighter-class turbofans from scratch entirely but rather make them for cruise missiles. For a real jet most estimates put it at a decade away at best.
Deletehow about, put some missiles on a cargo ship and fire it off at them from a couple of hundred kilometers from there coasts.
ReplyDeleteThat could work!
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