In fact, over the years many Iranian officials have threatened to do just that, one official recently warning Israel that Iran would strike at the heart of Israel. So there seems to be little doubt about what Iran will do against any attack: It will strike back with its considerable arsenal of missiles. Knowing this fact, the US and Israel have been preparing against this eventuality. In this respect they have just completed a two-week anti-missile exercise called Juniper Cobra. Although US and Israeli officials insisted the exercise was unrelated to events, Israeli public radio called the exercise preparations for a face-off with Iran.
Furthermore, no Israeli military official has shied away from mentioning that scenarios involving Iran form a substantial portion of the exercise. The US officials, on the other hand, were extremely careful not to mention Iran with regard to the exercise. However, Commander Carl Meuser of the guided missile destroyer USS Higgins remarked on Nov. 2 that “we’re here for some very specific reasons, some specific threats that the Israelis are interested in, that we’re interested in. And that’s as far as I want to go down that road,” strongly suggesting that the Iranian missile threat was the main aim of the exercise.
The exercise, which started on Oct. 21 and ended last Thursday, was the third and largest joint exercise ever held by the two countries. During the two-week exercise 17 US ships of various classes and 1,000 US personnel took part with the same number of Israeli personnel. They tested all the components of the joint anti-missile systems, namely the US’s THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense), which incorporates Patriot-3 missiles, ship-based Aegis interceptors, X-band radars and Israeli Arrow anti-missile system.
As I wrote in this column a fortnight ago, of the four, the X-band radar was a relatively new component in this exercise. Transportable by air, it uses high powered pulsed beams for extremely high-resolution tracking of objects in space such as a missile that could carry conventional as well as chemical, biological or nuclear warheads. Built by US defense giant the Raytheon Company, the system has been described by experts as capable of tracking an object the size of a baseball from about 4,700 kilometers away.
The radar, which was sent to Israel last October as a parting gift from President Bush, would let Israel’s operational Arrow anti-missile defense systems engage long-range Iranian Shahab-3 ballistic missiles about halfway through what would be its 11-minute flight to Israel from Iran, or six times sooner than Israel’s “Green Pine” radar is capable of doing. According to one expert, with the X-band system at work and connected to the US system, a missile intercept would theoretically take place over Iran or a neighboring state and not over Israel, which would of course give Israel a significant strategic advantage over potential Iranian missiles.
According to reports, the X-band and its complimentary units have been tested against missiles, both real and in computer simulations. The results will, of course, remain secret. This being so, however, one cannot help but think that if the complete system works efficiently and intercepts possible Iranian missile on Iranian territory, the value of these missiles will be much reduced and the whole Iranian missile program will not have achieved much in terms of attacking US and Israeli targets.
If Juniper Cobra was successful in this sense, then it could be a strategic turning point in the region and will lead to many unforeseen changes.
Benzer Haberler 
