Uzi Rubin

A comprehensive review of missile proliferation published in 1988 listed 20 nonindustrialized nations that were deploying various types of ballistic missiles at the time. Tucked toward the bottom of that list was one Middle Eastern country with just three types of missiles, two of which were actually simple, unguided rockets. That country was Iran.[1]

Today, the United States regards Iran as “the country with the largest and most active missile program in the Middle East.”[2] Tehran now fields an arsenal of hundreds of locally made ballistic missiles with a range of 2,000 kilometers.[3] It has successfully tested a 21-ton, two-stage, solid-propellant missile with a range of 2,200 kilometers[4] and twice has orbited its own satellites by an indigenous space launcher from its national spaceport. Further, it has converted unguided rockets into reasonably accurate guided missiles and then into anti-ship ballistic missiles.[5]

In retrospect, Iran managed to transform itself from a nonplayer to a significant missile power in less than one generation. For a country that never has had a world-class aerospace industry, this is quite remarkable. Even more remarkably, this was achieved in the face of continuous international and U.S. efforts to block Iran’s missile programs through legal, diplomatic, and financial measures. The ever-growing numbers of Iranian ballistic missiles rolling in Tehran’s main thoroughfare during the twice-yearly military parades testify to the apparent failure of these measures to stop or even stall Iran’s advances in rocket science.

As demonstrated by their latest tests, Iran’s deployed missiles might have the range to hit NATO member countries in eastern Europe. The capability to build even longer-range missiles was recently announced by a top Iranian general.[6] Whether Iran actually will build nuclear weapons remains controversial, but there is no doubt that once it decided to do so, the appropriate delivery systems would be mature, ready, and survivable against pre-emption and first strikes.

How did Iran manage to do it? Publicly available evidence indicates that this feat was accomplished partly through the usual route of technology transfer from established missile powers and partly by hiring non-Iranian specialists. It seems, however, that two other factors played a role: the extraordinary Iranian ingenuity in developing covert acquisition channels from outside suppliers, even in Western countries, and a deliberate and well-focused effort by Tehran to develop a cadre of Iranian scientists and engineers that eventually would replace the foreign specialists. The leap in global oil prices during the last few years helped to fund extensive infrastructure projects for building, testing, and deploying ballistic missiles and large space launchers.

The question of Iran’s proficiency is now threatening to unhinge President Barack Obama’s policy of “reset,” or rapprochement, with Russia.[7] The perceived long-range offensive capabilities of Iran are a source of concern to Washington and the entire Western alliance and have prompted NATO to adapt Obama’s European Phased Adaptive Approach as a cornerstone of a European missile shield. Russia strongly resents the European missile defense system and argues that Iran’s missile industry is not competent to threaten the West with missiles in the foreseeable future. Therefore, the issue of Iran’s technological competence is at the heart of a major controversy between the United States and Russia. This question and a related one, namely whether Iran’s missile programs are stoppable or at least postponable by blocking off outside support, have global implications.

This article examines the issue from several perspectives. The capability of any country to build and deploy long-range ballistic missiles and space launchers competently depends on several restrictive factors. Some, such as level of education or financial strength, can be influenced by government policies; others, such as geographical limitations, cannot. None of these restrictive factors can now stop Iran from developing missiles that could threaten the West, should the Iranians choose to do so.

Iran’s Ballistic Missile Proficiency

The U.S.-Russian controversy over missile defense in Europe generated numerous studies and papers on whether Iranian missiles are a threat that warrants the deployment of a European missile defense system. Perhaps the most influential study was published by the EastWest Institute in May 2009 and concluded that Iran is decades away from deploying any survivable missile that could threaten Europe because Iran’s indigenous proficiency is rudimentary, limited to 1950s-vintage SCUD-level technology.[8] According to this study, “Iran does not have the infrastructure of research institutes, industrial plants, or the scientists and engineers that are needed to make substantial improvements in the basic rocket components it has used from the start.”[9] This implies that Iran’s threat to Europe is insubstantial and does not warrant the political damage to U.S.-Russian relations that would be caused by deploying U.S. missile defenses there. Furthermore, the report concludes that more-stringent export controls could prevent Iran from obtaining more-advanced missile capabilities.

WikiLeaks cables reveal that Russian government officials hold a very similar view. For example, in an October 2007 meeting between U.S. and Russian teams on a so-called joint regional missile defense architecture, Vladimir Venevtsev of the SVR, Russia’s foreign intelligence service, stated, “Iran did not enjoy technical mastery of the design process…. [I]ts engineers were insufficient in number and not highly skilled…. Iran lacked solid fuel-propelled mid-range ballistic missiles and did not possess the necessary industrial chemicals to develop them.”[10] More than two years later, in a session of the U.S.-Russian Joint Threat Assessment talks on February 24, 2010, Vladimir Yermakov of the Russian delegation said, “Iran does not have the military-industrial capability to develop” a medium-range ballistic missile with a range of 3,000 kilometers and the capability to carry a one-ton warhead. “If Iran could gain access to foreign technology, it might develop such a program but this is unlikely due to export controls,” he said.[11]

The EastWest Institute report overlooked Iran’s solid-propellant capabilities. To correct this lacuna, one of its authors issued a technical addendum analyzing the recently unveiled Iranian Sajjil two-stage ballistic missile. His conclusions were that Iran’s solid-propellant capability was too rudimentary to produce a survivable long-range ballistic missile that could reach western Europe in the near future. The addendum was not endorsed by the other members of the original team of researchers.[12]

A group of technical experts from the United States and Israel rebutted the report and its addendum. The group, which includes the author of this article, criticized the assumption and methodology of the report and voiced its opinion that, “with the technology currently available to it, Iran could build solid-propellant [intermediate-range ballistic missiles] that would not be…cumbersome.” The authors said they were not very “sanguine” that diplomatic measures could prevent Iran from acquiring intermediate-range ballistic missiles and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs): “It may be too late. Nor is it clear that Iran is critically dependent on foreign sources for advancing its ballistic missile program.”[13]

The main conclusions of the next important study on Iran’s missile capabilities, published in May 2010 by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, were that Iran “has developed a robust and capable solid-propellant production industry, complete with facilities, equipment and most importantly indigenous technical know-how” and that “[n]o longer will the Islamic Republic be held hostage to foreign suppliers for its strategic delivery capabilities, except for the need to import navigation and guidance units for its missiles.”[14] The study forecasts that a three-stage version of the solid-propellant Sajjil missile capable of delivering a one-ton warhead a distance of 3,700 kilometers is “at least four or five years away from possible deployment”[15] and could therefore be expected as soon as 2015. The implications are that the prospects of a near-term Iranian missile threat to Europe cannot be dismissed and that tightening export controls may not be effective in diminishing those prospects.

This rather somber view was recently endorsed by Yuri Solomonov, Russia’s foremost missile expert and a former director of the Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology (Russia’s top ballistic missile producer). In a recent interview, Solomonov said that “both Iran and North Korea have the technology to produce a functioning ICBM.” Although such missiles could not match the quality of their U.S. and Russian counterparts, they will be adequate to reach the continental United States with nuclear warheads, Solomonov said.[16] He did not predict when such missiles might be ready. In his view, the important thing is that the Iranians are not facing any technological barriers if and when they decide to embark on such a program.

Thus, it seems that opinion on the future missile threat from Iran is sharply divided between groups that, for purposes of this article, can be called optimists and pessimists. The former holds that Iran’s missile capability is still rudimentary and that more-stringent export controls can choke it off. The latter maintains that Iran already is self-sufficient in most if not all technologies required to make adequate long-range ballistic missiles and that, consequently, it is less sensitive to export controls. This divergence of opinion between experts warrants a closer look at the building blocks of Iran’s missile capabilities.

The capability to build, maintain, and field a strategic missile force depends on at least four factors: the availability of the appropriate human resources, the existence of the appropriate industrial infrastructure, the availability of appropriate test ranges, and the ability to base the missile force in a survivable manner. A fifth factor and, in most cases, the most crucial one is the availability of financial resources. In the case of oil-rich Iran, however, this factor should be taken for granted. The other four factors will be examined in terms of their applicability to the Iranian case.

Industrial Infrastructure

Although Iran tends to be surprisingly transparent about its missile programs, it is much less so with regard to its industrial infrastructure. Yet, the very existence and the frequently televised testing of two families of large ballistic missiles—one of SCUD-era technology but the other of a considerably more modern, composite solid-propellant technology—are incontestable evidence of the existence of an extensive industrial infrastructure, without which no more than static mockups, as opposed to live flight tests, could be displayed. Indeed, two of those flights successfully put Iranian-made satellites into earth orbit, indicating that some if not all of those flights were successful.

In the rare instances when the Iranians unveil some missile-related industrial infrastructure, they label it as space oriented. Thus, the few video clips released with footage of the missile industry in action are supposed to show the manufacturing of their Safir liquid-propellant space launcher. The more modern and much more significant production facilities for solid-propellant rockets, where the real growth potential lies, remain hidden. Yet to make a large solid-propellant rocket motor such as the Sajjil’s first stage, an array of specialized production facilities is mandatory, including blenders, propellant mixers, and powerful x-ray machines.[17] Although the production complex remains covert, each televised flight test of the Sajjil testifies to its existence. To a large extent, solid-propellant rocket motors can be scaled up much more easily than liquid-propellant ones. In all likelihood, the already existing machinery could be used to double the size of the Sajjil first-stage rocket motor, which is a fairly straightforward venture. Such a double-size rocket motor, if used with the existing second stage of the original Sajjil, would make a missile that could hit targets all the way to the English Channel. Needless to say, the export of this machinery is prohibited by the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) and in a more perfect world never should have reached Iran.

Although most of the sinews of Iran’s rocket industry remain hidden from view, the regime recently has allowed some selective peeks. On January 30, 2011, Iran inaugurated a “space test laboratory,” an ultramodern structural and environmental test lab for complete rocket systems, whether ballistic or space launchers.[18] This new facility is filled with huge testing rigs for rocket sections, a thermal test rig for heat shields, and fixtures for aeroelasticity testing of complete multistage rockets—all MTCR-controlled items. It even features hard-to-get shaking tables for testing the ability of components to withstand vibrations. Significantly, 12 such units were illegally sold to Iran by a German company in the early 2000s.[19] An even more alarming peek was offered by Iran on August 27, 2011, when a new production facility for making carbon fibers was unveiled. Carbon fiber is a strategic material for building uranium-enrichment centrifuges as well as for producing lightweight casings of large solid-propellant rocket motors.[20] Such a production facility is a banned item under the MTCR, and its recent surfacing in Iran is an outstanding indication of Iran’s continuing access to the market of rocket production facilities.

Whether implied or explicitly displayed, Iran’s industrial infrastructure seems to be adequate not only for its present generation of missiles, but also for bigger and more threatening weapons. It tests rockets that it should not have been able to manufacture and unveils new facilities for strategic materials that by rights should not be available to it. Iran not only possesses the necessary industrial facilities for its current generation of missiles, but also seems to continue to enjoy access to more-modern missile-related machinery. It can be reasonably assumed that the industrial infrastructure factor is not an impediment to the further growth of Iran’s missile capabilities.

Testing and Test Ranges

Because the wear and tear during the re-entry phase of ballistic missiles grows exponentially with range, it is necessary to flight-test them to full or near-full range. This requires not only a fully instrumented test range, but also the geographical space for safely shooting missiles at distant impact points hundreds or thousands of kilometers away from the launch point.

There is sufficient evidence to indicate that Iran is not firing its missiles “blind” and that its test missiles are fully instrumented to collect and transmit flight-test data to telemetry ground stations. On February 7, 2011, an exhibit in Tehran displayed some of Iran’s test-range instrumentation under the guise of “space launch capability.” Some crucial test-range instruments can be seen clearly on YouTube: cinetheodolites, track mounts, large telemetry-receiving antennae, and what looks like a homemade phased-array tracking radar.[21] Most of the equipment is modern and obviously foreign made. Because such equipment is controlled under the MTCR and banned for sale if used to develop large ballistic missiles and space launchers,[22] its presence is a testimony to Iran’s possession of modern test equipment as well as to its continuing access to the missile technology market.

In geographical terms, Iran is a medium-sized country, and its dimensions are too small for testing ICBMs or the longer-range types of intermediate-range ballistic missiles within its borders. Its main ballistic missile test range (and spaceport) in Semnan, east of Tehran, is just 1,400 kilometers away from the country’s furthest point on the shores of the Indian Ocean. Thus, if Iran would have been restricted to this testing limitation, it would not be able to develop missiles with much longer ranges. On July 9, 2011, however, Iran announced that in February it had flight-tested two types of long-range ballistic missiles into the Indian Ocean and that the ranges of those missiles were 1,900 kilometers.[23] Testing ballistic missiles into the sea is quite routine elsewhere: France, a country one-third the size of Iran, has successfully developed global-range submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) by testing them from its territory to the South Atlantic. Even the United States, with its large land area, is testing its ICBMs and SLBMs into distant oceans.

Unlike ground-to-ground testing, however, where the impact point can be precisely measured at leisure to check the accuracy of the missile, testing into the sea requires real-time location of the impact point because all traces of a sea impact vanish after few seconds. Also, some instrumentation, mainly telemetry reception, is essential near the impact point to obtain data on the behavior of the missile toward the end of its flight. It is thus mandatory for sea testing for the deployment of instrumented ships or aircraft near the impact point for precise location and telemetry reception. It is reasonable to assume that Iran did not fire blindly into the sea and that it did deploy such instrumented aircraft or ships near the impact points of the February 2011 tests. Once available, such instrumented platforms could be positioned further downrange for testing longer-range missiles. In fact, they could be deployed deeper and deeper into the Indian Ocean, all the way to the equator and beyond. Practically speaking the February 2011 tests imply that Iran has now achieved the capability to test ballistic missiles to any range that it wants.

With the availability of up-to-date flight-test instrumentation and the capability to test to any range, it can be reasonably concluded that flight testing will not put any restriction on the further growth of Iran’s missile capability.

Survivable Basing

Missiles deployed in the open are vulnerable to preventive strikes, so a viable strategic missile force must be made immune to preemption. In the case of ground-launched missiles, two strategies of survivability are feasible: mobility and hardening. Basing missiles on launchers that can be readily moved around makes pre-emption quite impracticable unless real-time information on the whereabouts of each launcher is obtained—a formidable task in general but even more so in the case of a country such as Iran, which has a larger land area than France and Germany combined. Alternatively, the missiles can be based in protected shelters, preferably in underground “silos.”

Since the early days of Iran’s missile programs, all the longer-range missiles that were Shahab-3 variants and, later, the two-stage, solid-propellant Sajjil have been displayed on mobile transporter erector launchers (TELs) built from heavy-duty semitrailers pulled by Mercedes tow trucks. The message was clear: Iran’s missile force is fully mobile, hence not pre-emptable. Ballistic missiles fueled by nonstorable liquid propellant have a window of vulnerability when fueled shortly before firing, a relatively lengthy process that must take place in the open. Solid-propellant missiles such as the Sajjil have no such weakness and can be fired within seconds of reaching their presurveyed launch points. The current type of Iran’s mobile solid-propellant missile, the 22-ton Sajjil, can reach no further than eastern Europe. Could a bigger and heavier Iranian solid-propellant missile that could reach western Europe be mobile?

In all likelihood, the answer is affirmative. As noted above, doubling the weight of the Sajjil’s first stage will give it a range of 3,700 kilometers. Such a “Super Sajjil” will weigh about 34 to 35 tons[24] and will not be significantly longer than the current version. The same heavy-duty semitrailers that are used by Iran as mobile launchers for the Sajjil are modified from tank transporters, implying that they are built for carrying loads of more than 50 tons. Hence, there is no reason why a putative Super Sajjil could not be transported on and launched from a similar, somewhat beefed-up mobile TEL.

Iran’s construction of hardened silos for its missiles was first revealed in 2008 when Google Earth images of a missile silo farm near Tabriz were published in the media.[25] Three years later, Iran opened this site or a similar one to the world’s view and televised a video clip showing its insides, including a Shahab-3 missile ready to launch.[26] The missile looks a bit undersized for that silo. From this missile’s well-known dimensions, the diameter of the silo can be estimated, and the silos seem to be sufficiently large to shelter bigger missiles, including the Super Sajjil mentioned above. It is difficult to avoid the impression that the Iranians sized their silo with growth potential in mind.

Thus, Iran is covering all bases in pursuit of the survivability of its missile force. Both its mobile TELs and its static hardened silos offer growth potential for larger and longer-range missiles. The optimists forecast that any Iranian missile that could threaten Europe and the United States will be so large and cumbersome that it could be launched only from static, above-ground, and easily pre-emptible launching towers. This is not necessarily realistic. With their already proven mastery of solid-propellant technology, Iran’s putative intermediate-range ballistic missiles and ICBMs could be compact enough for ground mobility. In any case, Iranian civil engineers already have demonstrated the capacity to design and construct huge, heavily reinforced, underground complexes in Natanz and Qom for their uranium-enrichment program. There is no reason to believe that they would be unable to build larger, hardened, underground silos for any size of missile, if so required. In conclusion, it can be reasonably assumed that survivability will not put any restriction on the further growth of Iran’s missile capability.

Human Resources

The question as to whether Iran has human capital with the technological savvy for designing, testing, and building longer-range missiles is perhaps the most crucial one. As noted above, the EastWest Institute report states that “Iran does not have the infrastructure of research institutes, industrial plants, or the scientists and engineers that are needed to make substantial improvements in the basic rocket components it has used from the start.” The evidence, however, is not supportive of this optimism. Rather, it seems that Iran has already made considerable strides toward assembling a competent workforce of scientists, engineers, and managers to embark on indigenous designs of its own.

Technology transfer is almost invariably linked to expert assistance from providers to recipients, and Iran’s case is not much different from that of the United States, the Soviet Union, India, or Pakistan. In nearly all previous cases, acquiring indigenous missile proficiency initially relied on foreign expertise. (In the case of the United States and the Soviet Union, it came from teams of German scientists and engineers.) The foreign support from China, North Korea, and Russia that started Iran’s missile industry is well documented; the question is whether the Iranians now can pick up from that point and continue on their own. This depends on the quality and extent of higher technological education in Iran.

According to an unpublished report from 2005 by the United Nations, “Iran is today a middle-income developing country, with a significant industrial base, a relatively well-developed science and technology infrastructure and good human development.”[27] Iran boasts 10 academic institutes that offer technical education, with a body of more than 250,000 students in technology and science programs.[28] The Iranian authorities allow Iranian youth to receive technological and scientific education abroad, including in the United States and Canada.[29] Over the decades that have passed since Iran embarked on its missile programs, this should have provided it with a cadre of proficient scientists, engineers, and technicians to break free from reliance on foreign expertise.

There is significant indirect evidence that Iran now possesses a body of experienced technical cadres that can take over from foreigners, if it has not done so already. All types of ballistic missiles and space launchers unveiled by Iran since 2007 are unique designs, seen nowhere else. Some of those new designs, such as the two-stage space launcher Safir, are quite ingenious. Of course, they could have been designed to order by foreign teams from, say, North Korea. Yet, the fact the North Korea itself does not deploy a desirable solid-propellant intermediate-range ballistic missile like the Iranian Sajjil may indicate that it is a proprietary Iranian design.

Iran’s first space launch in August 2008 was a failure. Recovery from missile and space launcher failures invariably taxes the capability and proficiency of the development teams. In most cases, there are no physical remains to examine, and only recordings of telemetered data can be used for fault analysis. To give one example, the failure report of the U.S. ground-based interceptor test in December 2010 was released only in October 2011, a full 10 months after the event. Yet less than six months after its first botched flight, the Safir space launch vehicle performed faultlessly and put Iran’s first satellite into earth orbit. This impressive feat could not be achieved without teams of competent experts deciphering reams of telemetered data, capable designers pinpointing and fixing the flaws, and an effective management team coordinating the entire process. Such an effort is too vast to rely entirely on outside talent. It stands to reason that it was the Iranian cadres themselves that bore the brunt of it.

From the available evidence, it seems that Iran is on the threshold of moving from reliance on foreign expertise to self-sufficiency in missile and space engineering, if it has not done so already. It can be reasonably assumed that Iran’s human resources will be adequate to expedite the further growth of its missile capability with diminishing reliance on foreign support.

Conclusions

Iran is a veritable showcase of missile proliferation. From a starting point of no missile capability whatsoever, it has ratcheted itself up to become a regional missile powerhouse within one generation. It did so without any pre-existing industrial base and in the face of international restrictions that included general export control measures and specific sanctions. Yet, today it faces no major impediment to expanding its regional missile clout to a global level. Iran does not threaten central and western Europe yet, although the recent occupation of the British embassy in Tehran might be a harbinger of the future. If and when Iran decides to do so, it will have no major difficulty in producing and deploying longer-range missiles in short order. The view that Iran’s proficiency is not up to the job hinges on measuring proficiency by industrialized world standards, but this is the wrong yardstick. For power projection on a global scale, Iran’s missiles need not be more advanced than the early generations of Soviet and U.S. missiles. As Solomonov said, Iran faces no technological hurdle to making adequate ICBMs.

From this perspective, nonproliferation seems to have exhausted itself as far as Iran’s missile capabilities are concerned. Denial by the existing nonproliferation tools, such as the MTCR, may have slowed Iran’s programs, but evidently did not stop them; neither did the more specific sanctions mandated by UN decisions. Whatever Iranian vulnerability to export controls remains, in the field of special materials and components, might well be overcome by the combination of greedy sellers, Iran’s boundless oil money, and the country’s experienced covert acquisition network. This is not to say the nonproliferation measures against Iran should be relaxed—on the contrary, they should be tightened even further—but it does means that Western alliance policies should be based on soberly realistic premises.

Uzi Rubin is president of Rubincon Defense Technology Consultancy. He was the first director of the Israel Missile Defense Organization, serving in that position from 1991 to 1999.

ENDNOTES

1. Aaron Karp, “The Frantic Third World Quest for Ballistic Missiles,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, June 1988, pp. 14-20.

2. “Missile Technology Control Regime: Iran’s Ballistic Missile Program,” September 23, 2009, 09STATE98727, www.wikileaks.ch/cable/2009/09/09STATE98727.html (cable obtained by WikiLeaks).

3. In a 2009 closed meeting, Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi disclosed that Iran has had already fielded 300 Shahab-3 missiles. See “WikiLeaks: Iran Can Attack Israel Within Less Than 12 Minutes,” Voice Of America, January 3, 2011. Iran officially claims a range of 2,000 kilometers for its Shahab-3 variants.

4. International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), “Iran’s Ballistic Missile Capabilities: A Net Assessment,” 2010. The figure is considered by this author to be a low estimate. Other authorities suspect that the potential range of this missile could be as much as 2,500 kilometers.

5. This new capability has been widely reported in Iranian and the international media. See “‘Persian Gulf’ Anti-Ship Ballistic Missile,” Uskowi on Iran, February 7, 2011, www.uskowioniran.com/2011/02/persian-gulf-asbm.html.

6. See “Iran ‘Will Not Make Longer-Range Missiles as Israel Is Already Within Reach,’” The Guardian, June 28, 2011.

7. Alexei Fenenko, “It Is Dangerous for Russia and the USA to Ignore the Looming Conflicts,” Valdai International Discussion Club, November 21, 2011, http://valdaiclub.com/usa/35080.html. There are numerous similar warnings from Russian officials and analysts.

8. EastWest Institute, “Iran’s Nuclear and Missile Potential,” May 2009, para. 3.15.

9. Ibid.

10. “Russia-U.S. Missile Defense Negotiations,” MOSCOW 005057, October 10, 2007, www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wikileaks-files/iran-wikileaks/8301419/RUSSIA-U.S.-MISSILE-DEFENSE-NEGOTIATIONS-OCTOBER-10-2007.html (cable obtained by WikiLeaks).

11. “U.S.–Russia Joint Threat Assessment Talks,” 10STATE17263, February 24, 2010,  http://statelogs.owni.fr/index.php/memo/2010/11/29/u-s-russia-joint-threat-assessment-talks (cable obtained by WikiLeaks).

12. Theodore Postol, “A Technical Assessment of Iran’s Ballistic Missile Program,”  May 6, 2009, http://docs.ewi.info/JTA_TA_Program.pdf.

13. David Montague, Uzi Rubin, and Dean Wilkening, “Iran’s Ballistic Missile Potential,” n.d., http://www.ewi.info/system/files/IransBallisticMissilePotential.pdf.

14. IISS, “Iran’s Ballistic Missile Capabilities,” p. 63.

15. Ibid., p. 143.

16. “North Korea Can Make ICBMs: Russian Expert,” The Korea Times, July 7, 2011 (translation from Kommersant interview in Russian).

17. For a comprehensive description of the industrial infrastructure for solid-propellant rocket motors, see Federation of American Scientists (FAS), “Missile Technology Control Regime Annex Handbook,” ch. 5, www.fas.org/nuke/control/mtcr/text/mtcr_handbook.pdf.

18. “Photos: Iran Inaugurates Largest Space Test Laboratory Center,” Payvand Iran News Agency, January 30, 2011.

19. “Supplier: Volker Stumpf,” Iran Watch, October 18, 2007, www.iranwatch.org/suppliers/records/volker.html.

20. “Inauguration of Carbon Fiber Plant,” Persia Digest, September 2, 2011, www.persiadigest.com/journal/tpl/set_thejournal/article.tpl?IdLanguage=1&NrIssue=16&NrSection=4&NrArticle=523.

21. “Inauguration Ceremony of Iran’s Aerospace Capabilities,” YouTube, February 7, 2011, www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEM8d3twF8w.

22. For a comprehensive description of MTCR-controlled test equipment, see FAS,
“Missile Technology Control Regime Annex Handbook,” ch. 12.

23. Robin Pomeroy, “Iran Says It Fires Missiles Into the Indian Ocean for the First Time,” Reuters, July 9, 2011.

24. See Montague, Rubin, and Wilkening, “Iran’s Ballistic Missile Potential.”

25. See “Iran’s Military and Strategic Discussion Forum,” IranDefense.net, February 26, 2008, www.irandefence.net/showthread.php?t=29952.

26. For the Iranian-released video clip with an English translation in subtitles, see “Iranian TV Report on Underground Missile Silos,” YouTube, July 30, 2011, www.youtube.com/watch?v=96b02CW-nZE.

27. UN Conference on Trade and Development, “Science, Technology and Innovation Policy Review: The Islamic Republic of Iran,” UNCTAD/ITE/IPC/2005/7, February 2005, www.unctad.org/en/docs/iteipc20057_en.pdf.

28. Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran-Copenhagen, “Education in the Islamic Republic of Iran,” n.d., www.iran-embassy.dk/fa/culteral/education%20en.pdf.

29. Mohammad Hafezi, “Fact Sheet on the Iranian Students in the U.S. and Canada,” July 2006, http://isgmit.org/research/?id=340&cat=iran&stat=full#ISG report.