Iran's Exaggerated Claims

You have to take the military and terrorist threats of Iran seriously; but you cannot help but smile at the rhetoric and seemingly exaggerated claims coming from Tehran. One should be mindful of all the hyberole from the likes of Saddam, and the embellished threats that come from various factions in the Middle East with language like "like your streets will flow with blood", yada, yada, yada, when listening to the announcements coming out of Iran.

On April 7, the air force chief of Pasdaran, Iran's Revolutionary Guards, Gen. Hossein Salami, announced the successful firing of a "stealth missile" that he claimed was impossible to detect by radar. The missile was the Fajr (Dawn) 3 and was acclaimed as a "remarkable" achievement.

Well, it turns out it was a crude Shahab-2 copy of a less-than sophisticated Russian Scud-C, which is a one stage, short-range (311 mile) missile with limited accuracy.

Two days later, the deputy naval commander of Pasdaran, Gen. Ali Fadavi announced the launching of "the world's fastest underwater missile." The torpedo, he claimed, was so fast, it was "undetectable."

Again, apparent wild exaggerations. As it turns out, it's a poor copy of a Soviet-era rocket-powered torpedo, named the Shkval. It's range is less than four miles; it has no target designation devices; and it is not self-homing. What's more, it's huge wake makes it easy to spot and destroy.

While we keep our eyes focused on them, they can provide us with some comedy relief as they have done here.