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Video of Iranian Missile Test Is Fake, Pentagon Says
http://www.youtube.com/watchvtvpPAKNlf44.)
"It is smart," Kouchaki said, according to a BBC transcript. "It has a very high degree of precision, taking the enemy by surprise. The missile has a massive destructive power."
Pentagon officials said Iran had several Russian Kilo-class submarines, the kind shown in the Chinese video. Iran's growing naval capability is real, said the senior official, which is what made the use of fake video seem particularly "clumsy."
"They do have a serious military capability," the official said. "They are a growing military problem."
Wayne White, the former deputy director of the State Department's Middle East intelligence office, called the news of the deception "a scream."
"I was looking at what they were showing" on the video, White said. "And it was not the kind of thing that would intimidate a military of the capabilities of the United States."
White argued that Iran wanted to intimidate Saudi Arabia and other gulf countries, saying that if the U.S. tried to destroy Iran's ability to create nuclear weapons, oil tankers in the gulf would be a likely target of an initial Iranian counterattack. And Iran may hope that the threat it poses to U.S. allies in the region is its best chance at pressuring Washington not to attack.
The video, White said, "is aimed at intimidating the Saudis and the gulf states, to get them to press Washington not to exercise the military option."
But he said that Iran's recent tactics seem to be self-defeating, only working to increase the perception in Europe that the country is becoming an ever greater world threat.
And so why highlight a video, so easily determined to be fake?
"They may not have believed that the inauthenticity would be so easily detected," said John Calabrese, a scholar at the Middle East Institute. "It's an attention-grabber. But it's bizarre."
"It is smart," Kouchaki said, according to a BBC transcript. "It has a very high degree of precision, taking the enemy by surprise. The missile has a massive destructive power."
Pentagon officials said Iran had several Russian Kilo-class submarines, the kind shown in the Chinese video. Iran's growing naval capability is real, said the senior official, which is what made the use of fake video seem particularly "clumsy."
"They do have a serious military capability," the official said. "They are a growing military problem."
Wayne White, the former deputy director of the State Department's Middle East intelligence office, called the news of the deception "a scream."
"I was looking at what they were showing" on the video, White said. "And it was not the kind of thing that would intimidate a military of the capabilities of the United States."
White argued that Iran wanted to intimidate Saudi Arabia and other gulf countries, saying that if the U.S. tried to destroy Iran's ability to create nuclear weapons, oil tankers in the gulf would be a likely target of an initial Iranian counterattack. And Iran may hope that the threat it poses to U.S. allies in the region is its best chance at pressuring Washington not to attack.
The video, White said, "is aimed at intimidating the Saudis and the gulf states, to get them to press Washington not to exercise the military option."
But he said that Iran's recent tactics seem to be self-defeating, only working to increase the perception in Europe that the country is becoming an ever greater world threat.
And so why highlight a video, so easily determined to be fake?
"They may not have believed that the inauthenticity would be so easily detected," said John Calabrese, a scholar at the Middle East Institute. "It's an attention-grabber. But it's bizarre."
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