How else to interpret the Iranian decision to test-fire no less than nine missiles? The weapons fired included at least one Shahab-3 intermediate range ballistic missile – IRBM – with a 1,250 mile range. The distance from western Iran to the densely populated Greater Tel Aviv region where more than two-thirds of Israel's six million people live in a tight corridor only 60 miles long by 15 miles wide is little more than half that – 650 miles.
It is certainly true that tensions between Tehran and Washington had been rising again dangerously, with increasing fears around the region that the United States, or Israel, or both of them might be preparing for a preemptive series of air strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities.
Yet Iranian diplomats had been sounding far more moderate and constructive in recent days. And on the U.S. side Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs William "Bill" Burns, one of the most experienced and level headed diplomats in the U.S. State Department testified to Congress this week that the Iranians were making only very slow progress on their nuclear development program, thereby implicitly questioning the argument that urgent military action was required.
Was, then, the test-firing of the missiles a move by a unified and alarmed government in Iran to deter the United States and Israel from carrying out any air strike by making clear to them that they could not get away with such an action cost free? Or was it a move by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps and hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to try and torpedo the real forces in both Iran and the United States pushing for a non-violent diplomatic compromise on the issue?
There may be short-term tactical benefits for Iran in raising tensions: Global oil prices already around a near record $150 a barrel jumped nearly $2 a barrel Wednesday following news of the Iranian missile tests. That means a huge windfall for Iran, along with other major global oil exporters.
It may also be that if a U.S. air strike was further feared, or if it was attempted and failed, pushing oil prices even further into the stratosphere, Iranian policy makers calculate that the effect would be to throw the U.S. presidential election to Democratic Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., who is widely regarded around the region as being far less likely to authorize major attacks on Iran than his opponent, GOP Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. But an outbreak of hostilities now could just as easily throw the election to Sen. McCain as the tough, experienced old warrior with more realistic policies on maximizing oil, coal and nuclear energy production in a time of crisis.
Whatever the calculations in Tehran that lay behind the test-firing of the nine missiles, carrying out those exercises was a long step down a dangerous road with consequences that could rapidly backfire in a catastrophic way on the Islamic republic. Cooler heads need to prevail in Tehran.