BLANK: America’s drone in Iran’s neighborhood
Lost military asset could jeopardize U.S. allies in region
By Stephen Blank
–
The Washington Times
Friday, January 6, 2012
Iran
‘s
capture of an American drone compels us to revisit some difficult,
unwelcome but fundamental security issues. If
Irandowned
a sophisticated U.S. drone, as it claims, that would represent a
monumental Iranian
intelligencecoup
in learning how to override the drone’s command-and-control system and
then guide it safely down to earth. That conclusion, if true, would
force a rethinking of the U.S.
intelligencecampaign
against Iran
and,
quite possibly, in
Afghanistan, as it
is likely
Iranwould
share the secret with the Taliban
, whom it has
helped in the past.
If, however, the drone malfunctioned, as the Obama
administrationmaintains
and is more likely, Iran
probably
will learn those secrets with the help of Russian and Chinese
technicians. Pakistan
already, against U.S.
objections, has transferred a stealth helicopter that crashed during
the raid on Osama bin Laden. We should expect no less of
Iran.
Then those countries, too, probably will learn how to override our
drones and force us to rethink our use of drones for intelligence and
as strike platforms.
Once Iran
learns
how to master these systems, it probably will have an improved
capability with which to challenge foreign intelligence monitoring of
its nuclear programs.
Iranwill
have obtained a marvelous tool with which to enhance its
reconnaissance and surveillance capabilities throughout the Gulf and
Middle East. But beyond those negative outcomes for the United States,
Israel, our allies in
the Gulf and, potentially, the International Security Assistance Force
in
Afghanistan,
this event also will have profoundly negative consequences in the
Caspian basin and particularly
Azerbaijan .
Every Central Asian state, as well as
Azerbaijan, harbors
suspicions about
Iran.
Tajikistan called
home its students in Iranian religious establishments out of fear that
they were being infected with a revolutionary Islamist
indoctrination. None of the other Central Asian states wants
Iranto
be a member of the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization,
nor do they support its nuclear program. They all suspect
Iran’s
potential for inciting insurgents and terrorists in their countries.
Iranalso
has regularly thwarted efforts by Azerbaijan
, Kazakhstan and
Turkmenistan to expand energy production into the Caspian Sea.
But the most overt displays of Iranian power and threats have been
employed against neighboring
Azerbaijan, not
least because Tehran suspects Baku of being pro-American and
pro-Israeli, but also because it fears that
Azerbaijanmay seek
to exploit the ethnic grievances of Iranian Azerbaijanis in
northwestern
Iranand
detach the area from Iran
with
great power support. This is not a groundless fear, as the Soviet
Union sought to do so in 1920-21 and 1945-46. Nevertheless, this fear
of the Azerbaijani minority is more a pretext for
Iran’s
current threats against
Azerbaijanthan a
rational basis for Iranian policy. Iran
‘s
real fear is Azerbaijan
‘s support for the
United States and
Israeland its
apprehension that Azerbaijan
might become a
platform for a U.S. operation against it.
In fact,
Iranhas
been threatening Azerbaijan
for more than a
decade. Iranhas
staunchly supported Armenia’s conquest of undisputed Azerbaijani
territory in the Nagorno-Karabakh crisis to the point that Armenia
regularly votes against sanctions on
Iranin
the United Nations. In 2001, Iran
shot
up an Azerbaijani oil-exploration platform in the Caspian Sea. Apart
from blocking the legal resolution of that sea’s status,
Iranregularly
threatens Azerbaijan
with invasion and
other unspecified military action if it supports a U.S. base in its
country and because of its close ties with
Israel .
More recently, Iranian incitement is clearly behind the
anti-government campaign by religiously inclined Shiites, who are
protesting the government’s `anti-religious’ policies. Whatever the
merits of those policies and resistance to it, the evidence of
Iran’s
support for agitation and propaganda, its regular efforts to
delegitimize the Azerbaijani government and continuing overt military
threats against the regime are indisputable.
As Iran
‘s
missile and satellite capabilities grow, and should it get a nuclear
weapon, these threats become all the more frightening, whatever
Tehran’s intentions may be.
Iran’s
acquisition of the reconnaissance, surveillance and potential strike
capabilities that this drone and others like it possess adds
immeasurably to its capabilities to threaten not only its Middle
Eastern neighbors but its Central Asian and Caucasian neighbors.
The current assessment of the damage caused by the loss of this drone
reminds policymakers and analysts that the threat posed by
Iranis
not just to the Middle East, Israel
, Saudi Arabia and the
other Gulf states but also to
Iran’s
northern neighbors and international security in
general. Proliferation of this technology might not be as great a
threat as an Iranian nuclear weapon, but it is hardly a small
threat. Consequently,
Iran’s
likely mastery of this system would intensify significantly the threat
in the Middle East, the Caucasus and Central Asia. The United States
and those governments, too, must take that threat into account and
respond to a visibly more dangerous situation.
Stephen Blank is a professor for the Strategic Studies Institute at
the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pa. The views expressed here do
not represent those of the U.S. Army, Defense Department or the
U.S. government.
From: A. Papazian