Monday, July 27, 1998

Early warning for American policy makers

Iran has successfully tested a medium-range -- 800 miles -- missile, and, while worrisome, that fact alone does not change the military equation in the Mideast.

It is one thing to fire a missile and quite another to build, deploy and maintain a credible, war-fighting missile force.

Still, that test is an early warning for U.S. policy makers.

Iran's xenophobic, hard-line clerics see themselves surrounded by enemies both real, like Iraq, and imagined, like Israel, the United States, with its military presence in the Gulf, and Saudi Arabia, with whom the clerics have profound religious differences.

Even though Iran's military technically answers to the supreme religious leader, Ali Khamenei, the clerics are no longer the sole power within Iran, not since the emergence of the popularly elected, moderate and outward-looking government of Mohammed Khatami. Khatami has expressed guarded hopes for better relations with the United States. That could be to the benefit of the United States, but only if Iran recognizes that its own ensuing benefits cannot be had short of a clearly evident sense of international responsibility.

The United States, it seems clear, must step up its efforts to persuade Russia and China not to sell missile technology to Iran out of misconstrued self-interest. Instability in that region is not in their self-interest, but could be a long-term threat.

A separate problem is North Korea, which sold Iran the actual missile or its prototype. North Korea sells missiles for one reason: The hermetic little dictatorship is broke and starving. Pyongyang's isolation shows signs of cracking under economic duress, and the United States should be quick to exploit those openings.

Meanwhile, the United States must sustain its sizable investment in missile defense technology, a field where we have no peer. And, if other nations are eventually to acquire intercontinental missiles, we should consider discussions with Russia about the pros and cons of renegotiating the ABM Treaty.

Iran is far from the only nation in the Mideast with missiles or missile capability.

At best, it may be engaged only in a limited exercise in self-assertion, saying, "Look at what we could do if we really wanted to .... "

But if there are darker motives at work, we can't say we weren't warned.