US Reviews Reported Iranian Missile Test

Recent reports of an Iranian missile test have put the Obama administration in a quandary as it has to decide how vocal it should be in condemning violations to a UN resolution. Initial response to the test of a medium-range ballistic missile was not quite loud.

US ambassador to the UN Samantha Power said the US is seriously reviewing the reported incident. She said the issue will be taken up with the Security Council if the review discovers that the test actually happened. While some sanctions were announced by US officials for ballistic missile test, these were against North Korea, which violated a resolution from the Security Council banning the launch of short-range and medium-range missiles last year.

US Reviews Reported Iranian Missile Test - image credit: nbcnews.com

Iranian missile tests were regularly criticized by the United States prior to the Iran nuclear accord. However, officials have been saying privately that the tests were conducted by impassioned elements within the military of Iran who are aiming to disrupt the Iran nuclear accord as well as maintain the nuclear infrastructure of the country. A senior US official said there is a good amount of infighting in Iran right now.

Analysts do not appear to doubt reports on the reported missile tests of Iran. The Iranians reportedly tested a Ghadr-110 missile, which is a version of the Shahab-3 missile of the country, on November 21. The missile was included in the nuclear discussions due to evidence showing that Iran was conducting experiments on shrinking nuclear devices to allow them to fit into the nose cone of the Shahab.

The tests in November would clearly violate Resolution 1929 of the UN Security Council, which is active until the nuclear deal becomes effective sometime in January. Once the nuclear deal takes effect, another resolution from the Security Council will become active. The new resolution will urge Iran to halt work on ballistic missiles with the capability of delivering nuclear weapons for eight years. However, the reported Iranian missile test will not violate the nuclear deal itself.

Posted by James Fried on Wednesday December 09 2015, 12:12 PM EST. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under World. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0