One of the false rationales for the expanded missile deployments dutifully retailed by major American and British newspapers of late is that they are intended in part to prevent rather than encourage attacks on Iran by Israel. That argument is contrary to logic and fact alike. By assuring the second nation and Gulf states Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia which host U.S. infantry, air and naval forces that they are invulnerable to retaliation after attacks on Iran is to increase the risk of unprovoked Israeli and U.S. assaults.
Compared to 1991 and 2003, though, the groundwork for a much broader conflict is being laid, one which will include interceptor missiles several stages more advanced than the Patriot and SM-3.
Last August it was reported that "Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. [United Arab Emirates]...want a wide range of military platforms, with particular interest in missile defense systems such as the U.S. Theater High Altitude Air Defense system [THAAD]. Approval was recently given for the Pentagon to sell this to the U.A.E., THAAD's first foreign customer." [8]
THAAD picks up where the SM-3 (which is being transitioned for ground deployment in Europe and the Middle East as part of new - post-September 17, 2009 - U.S. and NATO interceptor missile plans) leaves off and after THAAD comes the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense system to intercept missiles in space (the exoatmosphere).
On January 31 the U.S. Missile Defense Agency launched a ground-based interceptor missile from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California in what proved to be an unsuccessful test.
Four days before a local newspaper wrote that "A missile-defense system test set for Sunday at Vandenberg Air Force Base will involve a different scenario, this time gauging how the system would react to an Iran-like attack, officials said."
The report further detailed "a target weapon set to take off from the Kwajalein Atoll, about 4,200 miles southwest of Vandenberg" and that "the launch will be followed about 20 minutes later by a ground-based interceptor launched from an underground silo on north Vandenberg." [9]
The last such test occurred in 2008 "when [a] target launched from Kodiak, Alaska, was successfully hit by a Vandenberg interceptor." [10] Staging long-range missile interception tests from Alaska, including from the Aleutian Islands near Russia's eastern coast, are not limited to plans for Iran.
In mid-January head of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency Lieutenant General Patrick O'Reilly visited Fort Greely, Alaska, "the first line in America's missile defense" and home to ground-based midcourse missiles, and his comments included: "In a time of war we would launch." [11] Missiles launched from Fort Greely would have to pass over Russia, China or both to reach Iran, incidentally.
News that the U.S. is to deploy a Patriot missile battery in Poland close to its border led to Russia's ambassador to NATO Dmitry Rogozin stating recently: "Do they really think that we will calmly watch the location of a rocket system, at a distance of 60 km from Kaliningrad?" [12] The deployment of Standard Missile-3s, with several times the reach of the Patriot, on land and sea in the same neighborhood will only makes matters more dangerous.
The official authorization of Patriot transfers to Taiwan - the missiles are produced by Raytheon Company, whose former vice president of Government Operations and Strategy William Lynn is now Deputy Secretary of Defense - resulted in China's vice foreign minister, He Yafei, saying "We believe this move endangers China's national security" [13] and to Luo Yuan, senior researcher with the Academy of Military Science, adding "The US action gives China a justified cause to increase its national defense expenditure, to enhance the development and purchase of weapons, and to accelerate its modernization process in national defense....China did nothing to threaten the US, why should the US challenge our core strategic interests?" [14]
China and Russia, by not capitulating to U.S. and Western European pressure to enforce further, even more onerous sanctions against Iran of the type that have in recent years been followed by all-our war against other nations, have frequently been chastised by U.S. leaders, with China lately being dressed down by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, about whom it cannot be said as President John Quincey Adams claimed of the early American republic that "she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy."
China has suspended military contacts with Washington and threatened sanctions against American arms firms involved in the completion of the $6.5 billion deal with Taiwan.
With the release of the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review which calls for a record $708 billion in Pentagon spending next year, Bloomberg News ran a feature titled "China, Iran Prompt U.S. Air-Sea Battle Plan in Strategy Review" which stated "The U.S. military is drawing up a new air-sea battle plan in response to threats such as China's persistent military build-up and Iran's possession of advanced weapons." Pentagon chief Robert Gates was quoted as alluding to - in an obvious reference to China - "the military modernization programs of other countries" and of the Quadrennial Defense Review in general that "This is truly a wartime QDR." [15]
"The budget underscored the administration's commitment to a 'robust defense against emerging missile threats,' saying it would pay for use of increasingly capable sea- and land-based missile interceptors and a range of sensors in Europe." [16]
The blatant provocations against Russia and China of late last month are being repeated against Iran.
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