The Zolfaqar at War

Aaron Stein 0:02

That's a Zolfaqar. You are listening to the Arms Control One podcast, the leading podcast on arms control, disarmament, and nonproliferation. I'm Aaron Stein, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Refugee Career Center for the Middle East.

Jeffrey Lewis 0:18

I'm Jeffrey Lewis, the founding publisher of the Arms Control Wonk blog, a scholar at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, raconteur and babysitter broadcasting from home today.

Aaron 0:32

So you're, as I like to call it, you're on dad duty today. So the threat of child noise peeks into the podcast.

Jeffrey 0:40

It hangs above us like a sword of Damocles, Aaron.

Other voice 0:46

It's called a sort of Dadocles when it's children.

Aaron 0:52

I'm in D.C., of course, you know, wading through what is... I feel like we live in a tropical country, you know, on this part of the world, because we had a storm watch yesterday, where it was hail and weather coming down.

Jeffrey 1:09

Yeah, it's raining here, which is kind of like a thing for us. We almost never get rain, and so... Just a day to kind of hang out, let the kids play on the Xbox, and try to punch out a podcast. Do you know where else it's hot?

Aaron 1:30

Dire as Zor. Dire as Zor. The rule of the podcast, missile launch, you get a podcast and the Iranians decide to lob some missiles into a little town called Mayadin down in the Euphrates River Valley in Syria.

Jeffrey 1:44

Yeah, this is kind of fun because not only is this the first operational use of a ballistic missile by the Iranians since the Iran-Iraq war, they released all kinds of open source goodies that allow us to have a lot of fun with them.

Aaron 2:00

Yeah, including the appearance, I think you call him the Baghdad Bob of Iranian missiles on your Twitter feed. And the Shah had 129. He wears hipster glasses. And the Shah had 129, which we've now shot down to in the period of a week. Film the impact points. This must have been a fantastic thing for you and your team over there in Monterey.

Jeffrey 2:23

We are having a good time. I have to say the first time that we saw the launch video, because it's at night. There's this kind of terrible grainy video and they show the launch and they pan. I don't know what we should call him. Tayron Timmy sticks his face like right in the camera. He's like, I'm here at Kermanshah broadcasting.

Aaron 2:47

It's like – He flinches when the missile goes off because he's pretty close.

Jeffrey 2:53

Yeah, he is. But so we had both drone footage of the impact points. From which we were able to geolocate the two targets in – how do you say it? Mayadin?

Aaron 3:05

Mayadin. That's the way I pronounce it. I could be butchering that but that is how I pronounce it.

Jeffrey 3:10

Well, you speak Turkish and I speak Chinese and even though neither of those are Arabic, one of them is a heck of a lot closer.

Aaron 3:17

Well, I pronounce Arabic words like I would in Turkish and so that's why I end up having – usually butchering the words.

Jeffrey 3:24

Well, like I say, still closer than Chinese. Right. So we geolocated the two impact points, which we can talk about, using the drone footage, which was really fun. Right. We also have started to geolocate the launch locations, which had also some surprises for us. So that was a ton of fun. I was basically racing Dave Schmurler trying to remain relevant.

Who won the race? I think you did. I did. Every now and again, you got to slap Schmurler down, let him know who's his daddy.

Aaron 3:55

Right. But the first one was from Kermanshah. And that you were able to geolocate that from the first grainy video with Tehran to me.

Jeffrey 4:04

Yeah, well, that's where Schmurler, though, really distinguished himself. So in terms of the launch, there were two locations that were given. Kermanshah, which is a location of a known missile base that Dave and I had geolocated previously, and then another site which we can talk about. I did the half-assed thing, which is they said, yeah, that looks like Kermanshah.

But Dave actually figured out that the launch happened from a garrison that is kind of like a satellite to the main location, because the main location is east of the city. But this is a garrison that's northwest of the city. Yeah, I mean, Dave kicked some butt.

Aaron 4:47

Right, he did. When he put it out, he tweeted it, and I went to look at it, and it is separate from the facility, as you said. Maybe we'll put the pictures down there on the show notes so you can see. I mean, that's just an interesting thing to show that there's multiple launch points around this part of the missile base.

Jeffrey 5:05

Yeah, well, that Kermanshah site is really well known. And so the idea that they've gone ahead and they've sort of built that out and added another garrison is pretty interesting. We hadn't noticed it before, basically. I mean, we had spotted the other base and then kind of gotten lazy about it. So it's nice that they revealed an additional operational location.

It's also nice because you can then get the trajectory of the missile going into Mayadin. Yeah. Which is fun because when we talk about the drone footage, you can actually see the missiles come into the view of the drone before they hit.

Aaron 5:39

Yeah, and we talked about – it's sort of – you can learn a lot by the trajectory and how they fly and basically about how the missiles were flying through space, how they come back down through space. Right.

Jeffrey 5:49

And through the atmosphere, excuse me. Yeah. So we have some thoughts about guidance, but it was just nice that the angle of – or the – The trajectory from Kermanshah to Mayadin was consistent with the missiles that we saw come into the frame from the right angle and strike their target. The other thing, though, that was interesting to me is they said that they had launched from a base in Kurdistan.

Aaron 6:17

Right.

Jeffrey 6:18

And we had not seen such a base and had not been paying attention. And so Dave went and found what I think is a really good candidate. There's one bit of video showing the launch. That we think is from that location. And it's in a place called Sanandaj. Sorry for Persian speakers. I'm sure it's a beautiful language.

I just am going to like butcher it. But sadly we can't actually geolocate it. We, we, we have fallen short and I'm, I'm again, Dave given Dave a really hard time about it. It's a tough area.

Aaron 7:00

I mean, it's pretty mountainous up there.

Jeffrey 7:01

Yeah. And so just from where the base is located and the way the mountain is configured and the trajectory that the missile would have to travel to get to the target, we can sort of figure out where the person filming it would have to be. And we see some facilities that are sort of good conceptual matches. Like they have one of the signatures that says a lot of trucks parked around.

So they're like trucks parked there at night. It's not residential. It's clearly like a factory from which deliveries are made, but can't get a positive ID on the buildings yet. It's a little bit frustrating, but we think we have a pretty good guess about the location of the second launch site. That's nice because, as Scott knows, one of the reasons the Chinese don't launch from operational sites – Is because you give them away.

This is a case where there were two sites, a garrison of a known site and a wholly new base that we hadn't paid attention to before that we now know about thanks to their involvement in the strike.

Aaron 8:02

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Yeah. Even from the initial video, We were able to tell, or at least infer, the type of fuel that they had too, so that we began to, or at least had an idea about the class of missiles that they fired off. You have the range that it would take to get from Iran out into Mayadin, and then you had all the pictures that gave us an idea about the type of fuel.

Jeffrey 8:29

Yeah, I kind of find it funny because people act like this is like magic. But the thing is that the plume or the exhaust from a solid-fueled missile looks so unlike that of a liquid-fueled missile that once someone points out the difference, you can't help but notice.

Aaron 8:44

Yeah, I mean, we've talked about this in the pod before, but just explain to the listeners who maybe don't have the catalog of arms controlling podcasts under their belts about how you can tell the difference just by the pictures.

Jeffrey 8:54

Yeah, so solid fuel, because it's not unlike liquid fuel, right, which is a fuel and an oxidizer, two propellants that mix and then burn. Those burn pretty cleanly, and so you don't get like a big smoky cloud behind them. But solid fuel has all kinds of stuff in it so that the way it's manufactured, it burns really, really cloudy.

You have things like aluminum, and then you see like sparking. And so there are all these really – you get this really thick cloud of exhaust that lingers long after the missile has been there. And from the missile itself, you will see sparks kicking out. And so – They look totally different. And even though the images are shot at night, you can see very plainly that most of the missiles – well, the missiles I was able to identify definitely were solid-fueled.

And so as you say, Aaron, if it's solid-fueled and it goes more than 600 kilometers – It's a Zolfaqar.

Aaron 10:01

It's a Zolfaqar. Those things – I mean Iran told us that they were going to deploy those things last September.

Jeffrey 10:09

In large numbers, they said.

Aaron 10:11

In large numbers, right. And so there's a lot of propaganda in what they did here.

Jeffrey 10:19

Yes. Wait, you mean because they filmed the launch and released both the launch footage and the drone footage and they brought old K-Ron Timmy in to broadcast the thing? You think there might be a little bit of a propaganda thing going on?

Aaron 10:33

Just a little bit. Just a little bit. Sorry. Somebody keeps texting me and I have to turn my phone off because I can hear it in my earphones. Apologies. Are you a baby daddy, Aaron? Yes. It's Adam Ronsley. Adam trying to geolocate the Iranian drone base.

Jeffrey 10:59

Sorry. We should, of course, say that no one knows more about Iranian drones than Adam. I mean, Adam, the minute he saw the feed was like, oh, that's a Shahid. How do you say it? Shahid 129? Yeah, Shahid 129. Shahid, yeah.

Aaron 11:17

So as somebody who was, you know, Adam with Galen Wright from the Arkenstone blog, you know, have open source imagery of what the camera feed looks like at a different Iranian drones. And so as soon as he saw the video of the impact points, he said that was a Shahab 129. Which happens to match up with the two drones that the U.S. just shot down in Syria close to Mayadin.

So all these three threads, or four threads, I should say, of open source come together. And then Tehran Timi had the color of the missile burn over his right shoulder as he flinches in his hipster glasses.

Jeffrey 11:55

Yeah.

Aaron 11:57

But there was a discrepancy and maybe we should talk about that, you know, in terms of the, we saw two impact points in Mayadin, but I think they said that there were seven missiles or six missiles.

Jeffrey 12:11

Yeah, I have seen differing numbers and I just don't feel good right now about and I, that is a piece of the analysis I don't feel good about because we only have very We only have super convincing video from the Kermanshah location and not from the Sanandaj launch site. And, you know, it looks like it's, I think they've said six, but there were earlier reports it might be seven.

And then there's this question, they weren't all Zulfikars. There was something else. And the Iranians have now said it was a Chiam, which is basically a scud. Right. I'm actually now pausing. Like, is it a Scud or is it a Nodong? I always forget these damn things.

Aaron 13:01

No, I was actually, I have it open on my computer.

Jeffrey 13:05

Because it's got the funny, it's got the funny nose.

Other voice 13:08

It's also silo-based, if I remember correctly, sometimes.

Jeffrey 13:12

Oh yeah, the Cham1, it's a Nodong. It's a Shahab 3.

Aaron 13:16

Yeah, with a slightly different nose.

Jeffrey 13:18

I guess that makes sense, because I remember thinking it had too much range. You know, there's something – the Iranians have said they fired this additional missile called the Cham, which is a liquid fuel variant of the Shahab-3, which is really just a no-dong. There were some other reports. I think Lucas Tomlinson at Fox got someone to tell him it was a Fatah-110, which just is not possible because it doesn't have the range.

Aaron 13:46

Yeah, I think where they get screwed up is the Zolfaqar is sort of in that family.

Jeffrey 13:50

Yeah, I think that's right. And there is a blurry shot at Kermanshah of a missile that is pointed straight up, which is not how you would launch a Zolfaqar. And it looks big, and it's blurry, and it's dark. But I think that is probably the best evidence that's consistent with the idea that – At the very least, they trotted out a jam to launch it.

Whether it got up, whether it crashed on the way, I don't know. But I think the two things that hit, and we can talk about this from the drone footage, I think those were probably Zolfikars.

Aaron 14:27

Yeah, well, let's talk about that, because you were able to get some open source imagery, and then it fit with what we know about how the Zolfikar flies, the trajectory of the Zolfikar.

Jeffrey 14:40

Yeah, I've seen people noting that there's something weird about the test footage that they that the angle at which the Zolfaqar reenters is really shallow, like doing a little bit of gliding, which makes sense because it has a little control fins on the front.

Aaron 14:56

Right. Scott pointed that out on Twitter.

Jeffrey 14:58

Yeah, and there were people who said, like, oh, well, I don't think the Zolfikar is really a ballistic missile. And I'm not sure I buy that. I mean, I think it is a ballistic missile. I just think that it glides a little bit when it comes back in, because they've talked about it having a maneuvering reentry vehicle.

And, I mean, the thing that really struck me about the drone footage is you see the missile streaking in. For a couple hundred meters before it hits the target in both cases. And it just doesn't seem like that. It's really hard to imagine that the drone was so high up in the air that if this had been a normal ballistic trajectory that you would have seen such a long entryway.

It really did look like it was gliding into me.

Aaron 15:56

Yeah. And then you were able to get, I think through Planet Labs You need a resolution photographer to, to, to look at the impact points.

Jeffrey 16:08

God, God love them. They're very close now to taking a picture of the earth every day. So we've got one the morning the morning right before the strike, I guess the strike happened at night, but I mean the day of the strike in the morning before, and then we've got one the next morning right after. And Dave thinks he can see burn marks.

You know, I'm always a little leery that we might be Might be engaging in a little confirmation bias, and maybe they're burn marks. I mean, there definitely is some discoloration.

Aaron 16:43

Why do we care if they're burn marks?

Jeffrey 16:46

Well, I mean, I want to know if they hit what they were aiming at. You know, I mean, from the look of the drone feeds, you know, I mean, it's hard to know what they're aiming at. They said they were hitting a command and control center and a car bomb operation.

Aaron 17:03

Yeah. Just a side tangent. They did the, what we've talked about in previous podcasts before, they sort of mimic sitcom press releases and how they put this stuff out to look professional.

Jeffrey 17:17

Yeah, I think that's right.

Aaron 17:18

They use American terminology. So you never know what they're really aiming at.

Jeffrey 17:22

Right. So, you know, I think... You know, the first one we were able to geolocate, which is like on the outskirts of the city, looks like a big parking lot. You know, it doesn't really look like a particular building. But it's hard to know what they're aiming at. Like the drone is clearly not looking at where the missile impacts, but maybe the drone just knew the general area to look.

You know, maybe the drone wasn't focused on exactly the impact point. But if it's a car bomb operation, then, you know, You're going to be hitting a parking lot. And I guess I presume trying to detonate the explosives. The other location, which is sort of on the river, closer to the city center, which really looks like a mist to me.

I mean, it looks like it exploded before it hit any buildings. The two big communications towers. And so that's kind of, I mean, that's not the world's greatest inference, but my guess is that must be the command center because it's downtown and Which would sort of probably not be where I'd put my suicide car bomb operation. And yeah, two big communications towers, which is probably where I would put my command and control operation.

But, you know, the drone shows actual images of the two towers and there's burning around them. But, you know, like knocking down communication towers is hard and maybe not even their goal, but they were still standing. So, you know, I'm not sure they did all that much damage.

Aaron 18:53

I mean, it should be... Mayadin is actually the quote-unquote capital of the Islamic State. In the U.S., in the media presence, we call it Raqqa, but they've long left Raqqa, and they're down in Mayadin. So we're going to start to hear this town a lot more as Raqqa wraps up in the next couple of months. So they're aiming at the right place if they wanted to respond to...

I mean, this was in response, we should have said, to the Islamic State's attack on their parliament a couple of weeks ago. But... When I was looking at the footage, and the more and more you dig into it, you know, they didn't do much damage whatsoever. And I do not know if the press release was written basically after they were able to see the drone footage rather than the other way around.

Does that make sense?

Jeffrey 19:42

Yeah, that's – yes. So that is one question I have, which is the drone footage, as far as I can tell, shows only two missiles striking.

Aaron 19:51

I don't mean to denigrate or to sort of infantilize the Iranians. It takes some doing to get a ballistic missile through space and even in the right vicinity over 600 kilometers. But the whole thing seems more like it was geared up for their own domestic audience rather than just seriously inflict a blow on Islamic State. I mean, they're fighting a war on behalf of Bashar al-Assad.

They already have troops on the ground.

Jeffrey 20:15

Oh, yeah. I mean, I don't know what the closest government forces are, but my guess is that It would have made more sense to deploy. I mean, Hezbollah has Fatah 110s, right? I mean, one of the big stories of the last decade was the Iranians transferring a production capability. And so, you know, it wouldn't be surprising for the Iranians to have shorter range missiles that would just because they are shorter range have better accuracy.

Again, I don't know how close regime forces are, but I mean, if you really wanted to use missiles to target these things, my guess is you would use shorter range missiles that are more likely that you can use more of them. And you can use them closer where you're likely to get better accuracy. But I agree with you.

I think this is about saying, That Iran has this missile capability and it can reach across Iraq into Syria and strike these things at a distance. And again, you've had a terrorist attack in your country. I mean, it's not infantilizing the Iranians. George Bush stood at ground zero with the bullhorn and did the George Bush thing, right?

So I'm not at all surprised that they would want to do something showy I mean, this is a constant observation I make about governments, right? What government ever says, nah, not much we can do. That sucked, right? Like every government, even if it's only a symbolic act, wants to show that they have the ability to respond. And by doing so, even if they're not making a huge difference in terms of harming the Islamic State, they are conveying to their populace that they take their security seriously.

So it's, you know, security theater is a thing. I'm cool with it.

Aaron 22:06

Yeah, I mean, the regime is 120-ish kilometers away. You know, probably their biggest concentration is embedded with the Russians around Palmyra. And that's reports about, came out today in NBC News, but that's where the drone base is located. The drone probably flew from that base about 120 kilometers away to watch the missile drop.

Jeffrey 22:32

Yeah. So, yeah, I think if you really were just purely concerned about military effectiveness, I'd probably have hit them from closer in. But I think they were worried about acting quickly and doing something showing. And they did. I mean, it was showing. I mean, I spent all day staring at their drone video. Mission accomplished. Well, we also learned stuff.

Aaron 22:53

I mean, we were talking this before we got a little off track. I mean, we learned about I mean, I think the effectiveness or at least the capabilities of the Zolfakar and that it's – that they chose to use solid-fueled missiles.

Jeffrey 23:09

Yeah. I mean, I definitely – I think when all is said and done, we'll have a – I don't know that we'll have a proper estimate of the accuracy of the Zolfakar, but I think we'll have a sense of its overall – Reliability, and, and what's the opposite? It's not, it's not quite. If I just said we're not going to have an estimate, but we'll have something else, right? We'll have a, we'll have some data or an informed perspective on its accuracy. A small end study on its accuracy, right? Which you know, frankly, is all the Iranians have, because they've everything they have done has been you know, tests. And tests are always scripted and, and ideal. And so this is They have the same small N of real-world data that we do, and that'll be interesting.

But then, yeah, the big point, as you say, Aaron, is that the Iranians at the end of the day used a mixture of liquid and solid-fueled missiles, and it seems like the solid-fueled missiles performed better.

Aaron 24:11

When I was a grad student at then the Monterey Institute of International Studies and a – what did they call it? A GRA graduate research assistant. That's right. Or I wrote the NTI Iran missile profile, which has since been updated many, many, many times. The Sejil was just sort of making its appearance. You know, the jump from the Shahab, sort of Nodong, Scud missiles into the solid fuel was the hot tub.

Jeffrey 24:45

Right.

Aaron 24:47

And now, seven years later, it's being used. I mean, would you call the Cedgels sort of in the same family? I mean, they're different missiles, obviously, but they're both solid fuel. That's what I'm saying.

Jeffrey 25:01

Yeah, I wouldn't say they're in the same family. I'm well, let's talk about that. I think finish your thought. I think this is kind of an interesting difference. But go ahead.

Aaron 25:12

My point is now, seven years later, they still have all the Shahabs. The Shahabs have the range to get there, but they chose to use the solid-fueled missiles. That shows, I think, a preference on their part and more towards solid fuels.

Jeffrey 25:26

Yeah, well, as we've discussed, solid-fueled missiles are preferable because they are simply – Just operationally more flexible. yes. In some cases, you can fuel liquid field missiles in advance. but there are disadvantages to doing so, and there's a certain logistics tail that's kind of inconvenient. And so all things considered, virtually every military I know would prefer solid field missiles to liquid ones. And so I, it's not surprising to me that they've shifted over. I think In a strange way, we've been a little bit slow to pick up on the spread of solid fueled missiles, even though the Iranians and the North Koreans have demonstrated them.

I think in our, in our mind, we had this idea that they were kind of, you know, sort of a little bit backwards and we patted them on the head. And You know, kind of a fancy scud is the best you can do. And I think that's wrong, right? And it's kind of interesting because, you know, in the 1980s, we saw a bunch of solid fuel missile proliferation, right?

The Israelis were selling – were building their own solid fuel missiles based on French help and they were turning around and selling that to South Africa and they offered it to Iran before the Shah fell. We think they were selling it to Taiwan. And we know that Argentina and Egypt and Iraq had a joint program to develop solid fuel missiles.

And we know that the South Korean missile program, which now has borne fruit, was a solid fuel program. So there's this weird thing that like we got distracted by the North Korean proliferation of liquid fuel missiles and kind of like forgot that there was this like other better technology that sooner or later was going to get out.

And, you know, like it's out, you know, I think both the Iranians and the North Koreans now have really big solid fuel missile programs that are just starting to bear fruit. And, you know, here we go. We've got an operational use of you know, some number of them.

Aaron 27:26

Yeah. And you were going to talk about the schedule.

Jeffrey 27:29

Oh yeah. So the schedule is much larger, right? Like that's the, that's the big challenge is can you, as Scott knows, Scott wrote a really nice article in NK news where he looked at how quickly States go from moderately large size motors to ICBMs. Cause the, the challenge is going from the kind of smaller solid fueled engines in terms of their diameter to much larger ones.

And the Iraqis, for example, had real problems with that. And we know that the Taiwanese felt a little bit constrained just in terms of getting the equipment. And so the schedule was noticeable because it was big. It's not like ICBM big, but like much bigger than the Zolfaqar and more in diameter, more like the things we've seen in North Korea, although not the same, but big.

And so the question is, we saw the schedule briefly.

Aaron 28:31

Yeah.

Jeffrey 28:31

And then it kind of went away. And now one of the big questions has been like, are we going to see it again, or are we going to see something like it again? and, and I, it looks to me like the Iranians are just progressively scaling up the technologies associated with the Fatah 110 into the Zolfikar. And my guess is they're just going to try to keep making them bigger.

Other voice 28:56

Could I posit another example for people who've been keeping up with our other podcast episodes? We just talked about with Turkey's Bora and the proliferation of Chinese short and tactical solid propellant rocket artillery and SRBMs and sort of the increasingly blurred line between a short, like a very short range ballistic missile and a very long range rocket artillery.

And this may fall into the same category of like Looking at these very complex, like a complex web of short range systems that are all very related.

Jeffrey 29:33

Yeah, because I don't think the, you know, the way I think of it is the, with liquid fueled missiles, there are these really specific markers that you have to cross to scale. You just can't keep making things bigger. But with solid-fueled missiles, you kind of can, right? And it becomes harder, and there are challenges that get introduced.

But it isn't – they're just – they're not the same, right? And so, I mean, one thing – now I'm just rambling. Scott, you'll have to make some sense of this. The North Korean solid-fueled missile program and the Iranian solid-fueled missile programs do not look alike. Those missiles do not resemble one another, which is really interesting because we saw so much cooperation on the liquid fueled side, right?

We've got the dudes from the Shig who are sanctioned for being in Pyongyang all the time. And you know, Shahab three, which is the jam is just a no dong with you know, a, a little bit of improvement. But I don't think the Iranian solid-fueled program looks anything like the North Korean solid-fueled program. And that, to me, is a really, really interesting difference.

Aaron 30:51

I totally agree. And I totally agree with Scott's position as well. The Fatah 110 series are – That's why I think Fox News made a mistake when they reported it. They kind of blur it. There's an anti-ship ballistic missile that peels off this. You have the Zolfaqar, and then you have the Fatah 110. I mean, all of these are related programs or related missiles, I should say.

And so the line gets blurred about what exactly they're intended to be used for.

Jeffrey 31:20

Yeah, I think it's much more likely that someone somewhere said the Zolfakar is a variant of the Fatah 110 or an evolution of the Fatah 110 or some kind of correct phrase. And somewhere between that person who knew what they were talking about and either the person who decided to leak the information or I mean, the natural game of telephone, it's really hard to convey information correctly.

At some point along the way, it went from Zolfikar is a Fatah to it was Zolfikar's and Fatah's, but I don't think that's the case. Do we want to talk about the – oh, go ahead. Go ahead. Oh, I was going to ask if you wanted to talk about the politics of it.

Aaron 32:04

On the Iranian side?

Jeffrey 32:06

Yeah, because there's this report that I'm not sure I put all that much stock in, but there are people who are speculating that because the IRGC has played such a central role in the propaganda and because they've described the impetus for the strike as being the supreme leader, There are people who are speculating that that's some evidence that maybe Rohani, Hassan Rohani, the president, didn't approve of the strike or didn't want the strike or is worried that the strike is going to undermine him or there's some rift between him and the IRGC, all of which I admit I am pretty skeptical of, but I just thought it was worth Mentioning that some people are speculating about that and seeing what an informed Middle Eastern observer in the form of Aaron Stein thinks about such claims.

Aaron 32:56

I mean, I think in general, you know, Syria as a conflict space is the realm of the IRGC and the civilian oversight over that conflict is not very robust. And, you know, it is siloed. But I think of the missile strikes as sort of like an independent event. It is not interrelated to the ground war that's going on inside of Syria that's being run on behalf of the IRGC.

And the missile strike is largely political theater. To respond to the parliament's attack, the ISIS parliament's attack, in ways that will play out well back home, to help with the rally around the flag and all that sorts of stuff, to prop up the civilian government. And the IRGC. And so in this case, they are symbiotic organisms within the context of domestic Iranian politics.

And people are reading far too much into this than is necessary or that is warranted. What I find more interesting is perhaps the propaganda shows the line of control, sort of the chain of command, I should say. It's just another data point into who really actually controls Iranian missile forces.

Jeffrey 34:27

Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, I think this is less of a riff than it is a demonstration of the reality of decision-making in the Islamic Republic.

Aaron 34:39

There's political overtones to this. I mean, without a doubt, I mean, Iran is telling the world That it can overfly Iraq and put missiles on target might, you know, anybody who's been following Iran's missile program knows that they've always had, not always, they have had this capability, but they chose to use it. And so there is policy implications for this, and there is some flexing.

But it's not exactly as if they proved to the world something that we didn't already know. It actually just gives us more data points to know where they're struggling or to infer some data points about how the limitations, I would say, of some of their missile programs.

Jeffrey 35:25

And you know what I'm looking forward to?

Aaron 35:27

What?

Jeffrey 35:28

More data.

Aaron 35:30

Me too. You know, I was going to say...

Jeffrey 35:34

The the Iranians, one of the. An Iranian official said the terrorists will be confronted with more serious measures and stronger slaps in the face if they continue their devilish acts. And I just want more slaps in the face so I can I can look at drone footage.

Aaron 35:52

Jeffrey. Yes. Thank you for joining the podcast today.

Jeffrey 35:58

It's a pleasure. I'm so glad you drove.

Aaron 36:00

Right. And Scott, do you want to jump over and tell the listeners about the benefits of the Patreon page and what we're talking about over on the Slack channel?

Other voice 36:07

Yeah, we're talking about a ton of things on the Slack channel. For $3 a month, you too can join the Arms Control Wonk Slack channel and growing community where we talk about things such as ballistic missile defenses. This morning we were talking about the benefits of blast frag versus nuclear anti-ballistic missiles versus hit to kill. And I feel like we have that discussion a lot, but it never gets boring.

So if that sounds like it's up your alley or you're an enthusiast for this type of thing or a professional, kick us $3 a month and we'll see you in the Slack channel.

Aaron 36:39

Hey, Scott, Jeffrey, thanks for joining me. And to the listeners, thanks for joining.