Iran, Intransigent and Triumphant

Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the head of the Revolutionary Guard’s aerospace division stands in front of an Iranian rocket carrying a satellite in an undisclosed site believed to be in Iran’s Semnan province, on April 22, 2020. (Sepahnews via AP)

"The intended research objectives of this launch were achieved. this was done as a preliminary launch ... God willing, we will have an operational launch soon."

"By developing our capacity to launch satellites, in the near future satellites with a wide range of applications ... will be placed into orbit."

Ahmad Hosseini, spokesman, Iranian Space Agency

 

"These activities are all the more regrettable as they come at a time when we are making progress in the nuclear negotiations in Vienna.".

"We call on Iran not to launch further ballistic missiles designed to be capable of carrying nuclear weapons, including space launchers."

French foreign ministry

Iranian satellite carrier rocket “Simorgh” is launched in an unknown location in Iran, in this picture obtained on December 30, 2021. Ministry of Defense of Iran/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS

France's plea to the Iranian Ayatollas and the IRCG will most certainly not persuade the Islamist theocracy to abandon their ambitious plans for the future of the Islamic Republic to mark out its territory in space, to launch satellites to look down on what its challengers are up to, to assess the military preparedness of its enemies, to threaten those whom Iran feels has no right to their very existence in a geographic area hostile to the presence of the territorial integrity of a non-Muslim country.

Harsh sanctions imposed on Iran for its well-known plans to achieve success in nuclear weaponry to accompany its ever-evolving arsenal of technically advanced ballistic missiles appear to have done nothing to extinguish its passion to be armed with the most fearsome of mass weaponry. Iran has amply demonstrated it has the wherewithal to supply its military proxies in Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Gaza with weapons, but remains shy of finances to ensure its own population can live with ample fuel and food.

Like North Korea, Iran has its priorities and fending for its peoples' comfort in food security is not one of them. Their ambitions remain set on securing weapons of mass destruction to instill fear in the minds of their adversaries, and to gain respect-through-intimidation to ensure that others think twice before provoking their ire by criticism and challenges. Like North Korea, which has exchanged formulas, methodology and technicians with Iran, formal discussions brought to a bargaining table by the international community to persuade Iran to surrender its nuclear ambitions are destined to fail.

Three 'research' devices were launched into space with the use of a satellite launch from the Imam Khomeini Space Center in Northern Iran at dawn on Thursday. During the time of the original 2015 nuclear agreement meant to slow down Iran's nuclear program where it promised to stop enriching uranium to a grade level useful for the creation of a nuclear device, Iran prosecuted conflict in Yemen and in Syria, threatened Arab Sunni Muslim nations, vowed to eliminate Israel, provided Hezbollah and Hamas and the Houthis with advanced rocketry, and sneered at the gullibility of the West.

Indirect U.S.0Iran talks on the nuclear issue are ongoing, but even the most oblivious optimist cannot believe that anything positive can be achieved, other than buy Iran more time to perfect its rocketry and approach nuclear bomb technology to secure an arsenal of their own. Iranian state television showed footage of the firing of the launch vehicle, a Simorgh (Phoenix) satellite carrier rocket which launched the three research devices at an altitude of 470 km and a speed of 7,350 meters per second.

Image taken from footage aired by Iranian state television shows a rocket that Iran announced it launched on Thursday, Dec. 30, 2021. (Iranian state television via AP)