Gen. Amir-Ali Hajizadeh proclaimed angrily Saturday, “Should we be threatened, we will target NATO’s missile defense shield in Turkey and then hit the next targets.”
Such threats cannot help relations with Turkey, which has found itself in frequent conflict with Iran in recent months. The main source of friction in the last few months has been Syria, as Turkey has become increasingly more critical of the regime of Bashir al-Assad, Iran’s only ally in the Arab world.
The radar, to be installed in Turkey in a matter of weeks, is to track any Iranian missile launches toward Europe. The radar trackings, in turn, will be fed to sites in Romania and Poland from which missiles could be fired to destroy any Iranian missiles headed toward Europe. The radar is not a threat to the territory of Iran; it is a threat only to Iranian missiles that might be fired at Europe.
Iran, however, insists the radar in Turkey is there to help Israel track any Iranian missiles fired at Israel. But Israel has its own tracking radar. The Iranian insistence on the Israeli link seems intended to inflame Turkish public opinion against the Turkish government and thus cannot help relations either.
General Hajizadeh said, “We are sure that the missile system is deployed by the United States for the sake of the Zionist regime. But to deceive the world, especially the Turkish people, they allege that the system belongs to NATO. Turkey is a member of and cover for NATO. Today, NATO has become a cover for the United States while the US itself has turned into a cover for the Zionist regime. Yet, the Turkish people are aware of what is happening, and we are sure that Turkey’s Muslims will stop this plot by themselves.”
Turkey has so far maintained public silence in the face of such Iranian provocations. It does not appear that anyone in Turkey takes Iran’s comments about the radar seriously and there has been little criticism in Turkey of the decision to host the American radar.
Russia has for years opposed the anti-missile system, asserting that it is aimed at Russian missiles, so the world is attuned to this issue as a Russian-American dispute and Iran’s new suppositions strike as clangorous.
General Hajizadeh made his threat against the radar as part of a speech announcing that the Islamic Republic was devising a new strategy to counter what he called increasing threats from the United States and Israel. But the volume of the rhetoric against Iran from the US government has fallen considerably since Barack Obama became president in 2009.
The Islamic Republic, however, is not happy at that fact and clearly prefers a high level of nasty rhetoric from across the Atlantic in hopes of inflaming Iranian passions. The Islamic Republic has repeatedly taken angry and hostile comments by private citizens and Republicans and attributed them to the US government. Most recently, the regime’s media outlets have characterized proposals by two private citizens in congressional testimony to assassinate Iranian figures as proof that the US government is behind assassinations in Iran.
In Washington, Hajizadeh’s threat to Turkey was treated not as an example of regime hostility, but of stupidity. Antony Blinken, the national security adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, who is visiting Turkey in days, said that “making threatening statements doesn’t serve anyone’s purpose—least of all the Iranians.”