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Iran Was Bluffing - It Cannot Reach Israel

by BigT | July 11, 2008 at 03:44 pm

439 views | 14 Recommendations | 8 comments

UPDATE: I was looking around trying to figure out why Iran would lie about this. I don't think it has anything to do with Iran's Shahab-3 missile being based off of North Korea's No-dong (no kidding) missile. Maybe it could be about the price of oil - it went up when they "test fired" these "far reaching" rockets. Or maybe it could have been about forcing the hand of their foes, like Israel when they unveiled a new spy plane in response to these tests.

According to Drudge Iran tried to pull off a big bluff:

IRAN MISSILE TEST BLUFF: OLD ROCKETS, BOGUS VIDEO
Fri Jul 11 2008 15:18:02 ET

Many of Iran’s claims related to missile tests during “Great Prophet III” war games — appear to be smoke and mirrors!

The missiles tested DID NOT not have 2,000-kilometer range, the NEW YORK TIMES is planning to report on Saturday.

Iran DID NOT launch a Shahab-3 missile, able to reach Israel.

It was an older missile that was out of production, newsroom sources tell DRUDGE.

And a video showing what appeared to be many missiles being fired — is actually one missile, filmed from different angles!

NYT’s Bill Broad is planning to quote military insiders.

Developing…

What does this mean? Quite a bit actually. If Iran had missiles that could reach Israel and further out (Russia, Turkey, China, maybe even Europe) it would have made Iran more of an international player. Without these rockets they are still stuck being a regional player that likes to reach out and touch opponents through the funding of terrorist activities as far away as South America.

But why bluff? They had to know that we would figure it out. There were stories circulating that the photos were faked a couple of days ago. It was only a matter of time before everyone would find out they were lying.

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Rhonda J Mangus

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 15:57 on July 11th, 2008

BigT, I like this story. It's good stuff.

BigT

at 15:59 on July 11th, 2008

Thank you for the flag Rhonda.

PEP

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 18:34 on July 11th, 2008

BigT, I like this story. It's good stuff.

BigT

at 18:38 on July 11th, 2008

Thanks PEP.

korzac

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 23:55 on July 11th, 2008

BigT, I like this story. It's good stuff.

korzac

at 03:39 on July 12th, 2008

BigT, why they so poorly doctored their missiles launch photos, and even if they are bluffing about the missiles range, these are momentary news. In the short/long term they will develop a nuclear device and their missiles will have the necessary firing range.