Revolutionary Guards reiterated their message to the Trump administration on Wednesday, April 22: Despite the disastrous impact of the Covid-19 epidemic in the country and the difficulties it is fueling, the Islamic Republic is not lowering its guard . At dawn, the regime’s ideological army announced the launch of its first military satellite, Nour, using a new kind of rocket. The launch, which could signal a major turning point in the development of the Iranian ballistic program, comes as tensions between Washington and Tehran show, despite the global health crisis, no signs of abating.
Failing to react immediately to the launch of the Qased rocket, the American president, Donald Trump, announced a few hours later and on Twitter having ordered the American navy "To cut down" any Iranian craft that "Harass" of US Navy ships. The presidential tweet referred to an already week-old incident. The fifth American fleet, deployed in the Persian Gulf, had indeed published on April 15 images of a maneuver carried out by dozens of stars belonging to the naval forces of the Revolutionary Guards approaching very close to the American ships.
The scale of this deployment and its media coverage made it an episode marking daily tensions between Washington and Tehran. However, operations of this type are not exceptional off the coast of Iran, even in international waters where Iran does not accept the American presence.
Concern for Washington
Even more worrying for Washington is the launch of the Qased rocket a week later. On Wednesday, US Foreign Minister Mike Pompeo said it was against United Nations resolutions on the Iranian missile program. "Iran will have to be accountable", he warned. In fact, this development challenges beyond the limited circle of proliferation specialists who observe Iranian progress in ballistic and space technologies with a magnifying glass.
In the context specific to the Islamic Republic and the proliferation issues related to it, the successful orbit of the Nour satellite matters less than the nature of its launcher. In this case, the new device used on Wednesday differs from the devices previously used by Iran for its civilian satellites. It denotes indeed and for the first time the mastery by the guardians of the revolution of technologies necessary for the development of long-range missiles.
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