"Iran’s Defense Program Needs the Revolutionary Guards"

Iranian-born scientist Shervin Taghavi Larigani is the lead scientist of a unique precision measurement application that will affect a range of disciplines, including astronomy, homeland security and defense. 

Taghavi began his career as an inventor at any early age: while living in France, at just 16 years old he received praise from then president Jacques Chirac for his work and was invited to present his invention at an international exhibition in Geneva. Despite being the youngest among 1,000 participants, his work was awarded the exhibition’s top prize. 

After finishing his Master’s degree in France, he went on to study for a Ph.D at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), where his dissertation was nominated for the Clauzer Doctoral prize, which is awarded to the thesis judged to have the greatest potential for opening up entirely new lines of research. He went on to conduct advanced research at NASA. His research culminated in the development and demonstration of a new 201 Hg+ atomic ion clock, with the nuclear spectroscopy of this new isotope attaining a precision 100 million times better than that of any previous application.  

How did a pre-revolutionary Iran perceive its role in the region, and how has a post-revolution government shaped the country’s military capability?  How important is the Revolutionary Guards Corp to Iran’s military project? IranWire talked to Shervin Taghavi in Persian about the foundations of Iran’s space and missile programs, and where the country is today. 

When did the Iranian missile program begin? How does the missile program fit into Iran’s larger defense program? 

The Iranian missile defense program started before the 1979 revolution, with the aim of creating a very advanced missile defense shield. At the time, Iran had one of the most powerful and modern air forces in the world. Its defense missile program was intended to become a shield program with two components. One was the advanced state-of-the-art tracking systems with surface-to-air missile capability, which was under the supervision of Air Defense Command. It included sophisticated radar sites alongside advanced communication systems throughout the entire network. The system was built over 15 years and had 19 fixed and mobile sites. It was equipped with “Hawk” medium-range ground-to-air missile systems for high altitudes and “Rapier” short-range ground-to-air missiles for low altitude targets. The plan was to enhance Iran’s air defense capability with the famous Airborne Early Warning and Control (AWACS).  

The second component that many people don’t know about was the Aegis Combat System, which Iran seriously wanted to deploy. The American military designed this system to track enemy (meaning Soviet) missiles and destroy them before they could re-enter the atmosphere.

This complex system incorporates a very advanced technology and is installed in warships, which transmit the information about the enemy’s missile launches to ground bases. These warships can use standard class surface-to-air missiles to destroy their targets. Iran wanted to install Aegis on its Kurosh-class powerful and heavy destroyers.

Which countries supported Iran’s military programs in the years before the revolution?

From 1965 until the revolution, Iran had the fastest military growth that a country can have at peacetime. At that time the consensus was that petroleum reserves in the region would diminish after two decades and Britain was about to withdraw its forces from the Persian Gulf area because the costs were too high.

The United States was worried about a power vacuum in the region, which would allow the Soviet Union to expand at the height of the cold war. It was a good time for Iran to play the role of Persian Gulf’s gendarme, even though the UK was not very enthusiastic about it. The other factor was that as the war in Vietnam was drawing to a close, orders to American military industries decreased and the US needed new capital for its future programs. With its investments, Iran became a partner to the most modern American projects.

Before the revolution, Iran’s goal was not limited to buying military equipment from outside. It was also seeking transfer of knowhow, expansion of production lines and the development of native technology. The foundations were laid for a vast academic research complex for science and technology in the midst of Mazandaran forests, somewhere between Amol and Noor. It was hoped that this complex would become one of the most reputable centers of science and technology in the world and would grow into a technological hub—like Silicon Valley—for the whole region. For example, In Isfahan, they began building a production line for F-18 fighter jets. These fighters were to replace F-4 Phantom jets and F-16s were to replace F-5s. In Shiraz, preparations were under way to build a production line for Maverick air to surface missiles.

The Iranian air force still retains many of those fighters. Due to their advanced age and structural cracks the maneuverability of these fighters has diminished. As a result, once in a while one of them crashes.

What was the Iranian defense doctrine based on at the time?

The basis of the Iranian defense doctrine at the time was to maintain security and order in the Persian Gulf and to stand up to a direct and sudden aggression by the Soviet Union or an invasion by Iraq. Iran wanted to reduce its reliance on its Western allies. You must take into account that Iran was not a member of NATO and as a result was not covered by its missile defense shield.

The addition of F-14 fighter jets to the Iranian air force had the same goal. Up to then, Soviet MIG-25 fighter jets flew over Iran on their way to the South Yemen capital of Aden. Soviet planes took surveillance photographs from Iran without being intercepted. When F-14 fighter jets joined the Iranian air force, the Soviets stopped such violations of the Iranian airspace.

Some Iranian military officials, especially those in the Revolutionary Guards, claim that the Iran-Iraq War led to Iran’s self-sufficiency in terms of its military capability. What is your opinion?

As a result of purges in the military and the dismantling of the army, which happened after the revolution but before the war, a great amount of damage was done to Iranian artillery and other capabilities. To overcome these shortcomings, the Revolutionary Guards resorted to using rockets similar to the Katyusha rockets the Soviet Union used extensively in World War II. This was the first step in Iran’s missile program. Later on, helped by Syria, Iranians learned how to build Scud missile systems. Iran imported these missiles through Gaddafi’s Libya, and then embarked on a project to make the Shahab-1 missile using the technology of Scud-B and with a range of 300 kilometers. Soviet Union developed Scud during the cold war and exported a vast number to third-world countries. A little later Iran began the development of Shahab-2 based on the technology of Scud-C with a range of 500 kilometers.

Since Iran was isolated and under economic blockade, Libya was the main source of this technology for Iran—and it abused the situation for its own gain. But after the Soviets pressured Gaddafi, sale of these missiles to Iran was discontinued. Iran turned to North Korea and started a serious cooperation with that country. The Shahab-3, with a range of 900 kilometers, was based on North Korea’s Nodong missile.

Ghadr-1, an improved version of Shahab-3, was developed by Iran and tested in 2004. Ghadr-1 has a range of about 1600 kilometers and can carry a warhead, but it weighs only 750 kilograms.

Iran’s next step was to replace the liquid fuel for its ballistic missiles with solid fuels. It started the production of the Sejil generation of missiles. This ground-to-ground missile is a two-staged solid-fueled ballistic missile and has a range of more than 2,000 kilometers. Iran could try to use Sejil technology to build a three-stage missile with a range of 3,700 to 4,000 kilometers.

How do you evaluate current developments?

The Shahab generation of missiles clearly showed the presence of foreign technologies but it is much less noticeable in the Sejil system. Sejil technology shows that in the long term, Iran’s missile program will concentrate on solid fuel. If Iran is after nuclear weapons, this technology will probably be the one that would carry the nuclear warhead. But I believe that the biggest challenge to Iran’s ballistic missiles industry is the guidance system, which still leaves something to be desired. 

With the current crisis in Ukraine, cooperation between Iran and Russia with regard to space and missile technologies will become more extensive and closer. Russia will provide Iran with many more technologies that it has up to now held back. Of course, China is also helping Iran with this.

Was the Shah’s military program focused on a possible military invasion by Iraq? How much did preparations help Iran when Iraq did invade?

If the Iranian military had not been destroyed early after the revolution, Iraq would have never dared to attack our country. Once, before the revolution, Iraqi forces tried to advance towards the Iranian side of the Arvand [Shatt al-Arab] river, but they were crushed within a few hours without gaining a foothold. This was one of the factors that forced Iraq to accept the 1975 Algiers Agreement with Iran, setting out the demarcation line for the Arvand River, which runs between the two countries. Before the agreement, Iraq maintained that both shores were Iraqi territory and Iranian citizens and fishermen had no right to use the waters.

When the war started, we were in a bad situation because the army didn’t exist. When Saddam’s forces entered Iran, they found no barriers against them. They were under the impression that Iranian forces would ambush them, but Iranian forces were not there. For years, the Iranian military had conducted exercises to prepare for confronting such an aggression, but after the revolution and before the war, many of the most experienced officers were shot extrajudicially and others were imprisoned. Officers above the rank of colonel were either laid off or just fired. As a result, military leaders during the war were very young and inexperienced.

In the 1970s, Iran and Israel conducted secret negotiations over the possibility of Israel providing Iran with missiles that were capable of carrying nuclear warheads. 

You are referring to Project Flower, the joint military project that began in 1977. The United States was worried about the international power balance and did not want a country such as Iran to have an offensive missile capability by itself and outside NATO. But for Iran, the military edge was the preventive capabilities. It was worried about Pakistani and Indian advancements in nuclear weapons and missiles; Israel needed capital to push forward its own development programs. In the 1970s, only the US, the Soviet Union, France, China, India and Israel had nuclear weapons. In order to launch nuclear weapons, each of these countries had a program for building missiles that could carry nuclear warheads. Among them, Israel could help Iran because it needed capital.

It appears that Iran and Israel started secret talks on developing a missile program: the aim was to build long-range missiles. According to reports, the two countries wanted to cooperate in assembling American-designed missiles with Israeli hardware that could accommodate nuclear warheads. It also appears that these missiles were to be equipped with American navigation and guidance systems. After the Iran-Iraq war started, it was difficult for Iran to buy basic military hardware [because of sanctions], often getting it on the black market for 12 times the normal price.

In your view, does the army or the Revolutionary Guards play a more important role in Iran’s missile program?

Currently, the Revolutionary Guards play the most important role in Iran’s missile program, which includes asymmetric military activities. Iran needs both the army and the Revolutionary Guards; the two forces must complement each other, not compete against one other. Unlike early on, after the revolution, the Revolutionary Guards are now a military force with a young and professional personnel whose area of activity—asymmetrical and regional—complements that of the regular army. Here I refer to the statistics published in 2012 by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) about Iran’s military capability in a conventional war without taking into account its unconventional capabilities.

According to SIPRI’s data, Iran’s military expenditure ranks 31 in the world. It is even lower than its neighboring countries such as India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Israel and Oman. Saudi Arabia ranks seventh, with $57 billion, India ranks eighth, with $48 billion, Turkey is 15th, with $18 billion, UAE is16th, with $15 billion, Pakistan ranks 25th, with $7 billion and Iran ranks 31st with $6 billion.

Iran’s military budget is about the same as that of Iraq, which has now lost part of its territory to the terrorist group ISIS [or IS]. Without counting its asymmetric military capabilities, the conventional military might of Iran is very weak, even in the region. So Iran’s defense program needs a force like the Revolutionary Guards, which specializes in asymmetric warfare. Of course, the Revolutionary Guards are not only engaged in military activities. They have become a Mafia-like organization which interferes in all affairs, often with damaging consequences. If they would concentrate on the organization’s military might, it could become an indispensable part of Iran’s defense.