Iran missile technology changes balance of power: IRGC commander
The chief commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) said that the country managed to change the balance of power in its favor by harnessing the technology required for manufacturing ballistic missiles.
Major General Hossein Salami, who was delivering an address at the Amirkabir University of Technology in Tehran on Tuesday, said the Islamic Republic acquired the knowhow 12 years ago while trying to prepare its defenses against the United States’ aircraft carriers.
“This had to be done using ballistic missiles since cruise missiles were vulnerable due to their speed and their trajectory being close to the ground,” the chief commander of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) said.
“Ballistic missiles, however, hit their target at a speed, which is several times the speed of sound, and are difficult to be targeted with anti-missile missiles,” Salami noted.
Nevertheless, the IRGC chief commander said, “The pressure, which you are witnessing [being exerted] is the maximum, which the enemy can apply.”
“They have weakened,” he said, adding, “Our enemy is being struck hollow [from within] and America’s era is ending.”
The White House in May deployed the aircraft carrier, USS Abraham Lincoln and B-52 bombers to the Persian Gulf, sharply increasing tensions with Iran, claiming that Iran is threatening US interests in the region -- a claim which Iran has categorically rejected.
Last month, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif reiterated Iran's rejection of the US's increase in military deployments to the region.
Iran "will see the end of Trump, but he will never see the end of Iran," Zarif said during his trip to Pakistan before the US announced the troop increase.
Tehran has warned Washington against escalating the tensions and noted that the region cannot withstand another conflict.
The crisis has its root in President Donald Trump’s withdrawal last year from the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers that limited Iran’s uranium enrichment activities in return for lifting of sanctions against Tehran.
Washington subsequently re-imposed sanctions on Iran after illegally abrogating the multilateral nuclear agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action (JCPOA) in May 2018.
Tehran has said it will not be the initiator of any war, but reserves the right to self-defense and will give a crushing response to any act of aggression.
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