October 1992, Page 35

Security and Intelligence

Iran's Alarming Military Buildup Transfixes Wary Gulf Neighbors

By Michael Collins Dunn

A columnist should never become preoccupied with a single issue, lest he seem to be crying wolf. In recent columns this writer has described the rapid buildup of Iran's armaments and the "yard sale" in which Soviet equipment has poured into many Third World countries, including Iran. With the West now engaged in Operation Southern Watch against Iraq, another column in the Washington Report on Iran must seem obsessive.

The problem, however, is that whoever is ordering arms in Tehran is far more obsessive than those writing about this alarming trend. Something fundamental is happening, and nobody's watching except the Gulf Arab states, mesmerized with alarm, and the few Western observers who still watch Iran.

European defense publications claim that Iran has received not only the MiG-29s, the two or more submarines, and the other attack and bombing military aircraft which have been reported previously in this column, but a vast additional inventory of military hardware. This includes 12 to 24 Tupolev Tu-26 Backfire bombers; MiG-29s, MiG 27s and MiG-31s; two or more A-50 (I1-76 variant) Mainstay ex-Soviet versions of the U.S. Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS); more submarines; and, most importantly, large numbers of Russian, Ukrainian, or other ex-Soviet advisers who are now on the world market seeking new high-paying jobs.

The "laundry list," paid for with petroleum earnings, is reminiscent of an earlier era. Before his fall, the Shah of Iran was seeking to acquire U.S. AWACS as well as missiles, major combat aircraft, and other sophisticated weapons. He also had the world's largest fleet of hovercraft, strongly suggesting he had designs on Iraq's southern marshes. The U.S. sold him the weapons anyway, under the convenient and highly profitable Nixon/Kissinger doctrine that Iran was one of the "twin pillars of the Gulf." (The fact that the other "pillar," Saudi Arabia, could have been overrun in a minute by the rapidly arming first pillar never seemed to undermine the "twin pillars" rationale.)

On the basis of population alone, Iran is, and must be, the biggest and most important power in the Gulf. But for the biggest country to have the military power to enforce its will on all of its smaller neighbors simultaneously is not something which encourages regional stability. Middle East specialists not under Israel's influence today deplore the over-arming of Iran by the Nixon administration as contributing to revolutionary Iran's adventurism. Iran needed strong defenses against the U.S.S.R., as did Saudi Arabia and other friends in the region. But the Nixon/Kissinger "give Iran everything but nuclear weapons" policy was excessive. Supporters of arming Saudi Arabia or other Arab states have never argued for the kind of blank check given the Shah. The Shah was in line to get the AWACS when he fell. Now in the Middle East, only Saudi Arabia has the AWACS, and its version cannot read what is happening to its northwest, in Israel.

It looks as if Iran is seeking the military capability to control the Gulf.

Iraq created its own little "AWACS," which it called the Adnan (after Saddam's brother-in-law/cousin/foster brother Adnan Khairullah, who died in a helicopter "accident" which many think was deliberate). It was a Soviet hull with a French radar, but nowhere nearly as capable as the U.S. AWACS or the Soviet Mainstay. The two known Iraqi Adnans flew to Iran during the war, and are believed to be there still. Even if Iran could use them, they are far inferior to a Soviet Mainstay, which comes close to matching American-built AWACS.

Furthermore, Iranian attack aircraft and Mainstays based in the far northeast of Iran, in Khorasan at Mashhad and other air bases in the area, would be outside the unrefueled attack range of U.S. carrier-based aircraft operating from the Gulf or all but the longest-range ground-based aircraft operating from Saudi Arabia or Turkey. Add to this those submarines being acquired from the former Soviet Union, which would give Iran a limited but real ability to sink enemy vessels. The Gulf is probably too shallow for serious submarine operations, but they could operate effectively outside the Strait of Hormuz.

Combine what we have said here with what we discussed a couple of columns back, namely the big Victory 3 amphibious exercise which Iran held in late April and early May, and an alarming pattern emerges. In those exercises, Iran practiced landing marines on hostile beaches and denying the Strait of Hormuz to an imagined enemy.

Adding it Up

And add, as well, the fact that Iran reportedly began moving non-Iranians off Abu Musa Island in the Gulf, which Iran occupied some years ago and whose oil revenues it divides with Sharjah in the UAE. It appears Iran plans to do something military on Abu Musa it doesn't want non-Iranians to see. All together, it looks as if Iran is seeking the military capability to control the Gulf and deny its waters to any enemy it chooses.

Why? Perhaps because Iran is the largest of the Gulf countries. By sometime early in the next century the population of Iran, now somewhere around 60 million people, will reach 100 million. Iraq, the second largest Gulf power, has 16 to 17 million people at most. Iran's ideology of Islamic revolution has been periodically expansionist, although it is true that the major war it fought with Iraq was started by Iraq's Saddam Hussain.

The Gulf is not Iran's only area of possible expansionist design: Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and other parts of the former Soviet Union are also potential areas of Iranian influence. But its military buildup seems designed to deny Gulf waters to shipping.

Why would Iran want to do that? To protect Iranian military operations on Gulf shores is the only logical answer. When it practiced landing marines on hostile shores in April and May, whose hostile shores did it have in mind? Hardly Turkmenistan's.

As Operation Southern Watch makes sure that what remains of the Iraqi air force does not operate over southern Iraq, Iran-which has most of the best aircraft in the former Iraqi air force as "guests" at its airports-is rapidly buying bombers, early warning aircraft and submarines. If Iran eventually decides to confront the West or its Arab neighbors, it will not be as easily contained as was Iraq.

Michael Collins Dunn, Ph.D., is senior analyst of the International Estimate, Inc., a Washington-based consultancy, and editor of its biweekly newsletter, The Estimate.

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