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NICOSIA - Whatever military might the Shi'ite theocracy of Iran has been showing in recent weeks is mainly for domestic consumption and to impress the Arab/Muslim peoples that it is a regional super-power already. Western defence experts tell APS Iran's recent war-games were all thoroughly analysed by the US and NATO powers and their conclusions were common: gross exaggeration of capabilities which mostly do not exist or are not as "superior" as Iranian military leaders have claimed.

The same experts say they have tried but failed to conclude whether or not the theocracy's elected president, Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, really believed what he said was true or could ever become reality. In his utterances, Ahmadi-Nejad seems to be sending one message: whether believable or not, whatever he says serves his agenda for enlarging his own power base on the domestic front.

Nor can these experts tell whether or not Ahmadi-Nejad truly thinks Iran's capabilities were as great as he has described them. Although he served as a low ranking commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), his base of knowledge as a military strategist is limited, if it is not sub-standard.

However, Ahmadi-Nejad's frequent bouts of bombast and threats to Israel - notwithstanding his way of belittling the might of the US and other Western powers - have caused the theocracy's Supreme Leader Ayat. Ali Khamenei to be seriously worried that he is endangering Iran. These were the impressions Arab diplomats got from key envoys such as former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani who recently visited Syria and Kuwait and told al-Hayat Tehran hoped that Saudi Arabia would help in bringing about wide-ranging talks between Iran and the US.

Iranians perceive themselves as part of a pre-ordained nation of greatness. Home of the Persian Empire and the first human-rights declaration as well as a leading political entity in the world during the pre-Islamic era, Iran stood at the centre of science, philosophy, poetry and architecture. Even in the post-Islamic but pre-revolutionary era, the Safavids established Iran as one of the two main Islamic powers, with Isfahan being "half the world".

Adding to the Iranian belief of self-importance, the 1979 Islamic revolution, its messianism and impact on global affairs exacerbates the notion of Iran being a pre-ordained nation of greatness. Within this context, although perceived as a state shrouded in Islamic discourse, the current government under Ahmadi-Nejad is nationalist draped in the morality of an Islamic guise.

The survivability of Iran as a nation is a key factor to the Shi'ite theocracy. Internal discontent regarding its governance is not to be confused with support for Iran as a country. With Iranian nationalism built on Persian glories and the resurgence of the country after decades of isolation, Iranians base their pride and self-confidence on past conquests for future capabilities. Understanding and putting these factors into context makes it obvious that the theocracy will co-opt nationalism for the purpose of survival (see sbme5-Iraq-9-StrategyMay8-06).

Knowing that the "Holy Prophet" war-games from March 31 to April 6 were not a new development, the use of more than 17,000 troops with 1,500 gunboats, jet fighters and helicopters, was to show the might of "the Great Iranian nation". To the US, it was the wrong message.

Recently Ahmadi-Nejad said: "Iran has the capacity to become a super-power... If we believe in ourselves no power can be compared to us". His promises to "wipe Israel off the map" and the belittling of the US and other Western powers have become part of his almost daily sayings. He seems to like making speeches so provocative to the West that Supreme Leader Khamenei and other pragmatic pillars of the theocracy have become genuinely worried. Though Khamenei has blocked all his frequently-promised moves, however, Ahmadi-Nejad is showing that he cannot be silenced - behaving as if he wants a military confrontation with the US.

Iran and the US have begun to reveal new strategies in their nuclear dispute which seem bound to escalate their confrontation, as both seek to turn to their advantage a highly critical report portraying a nuclear programme proceeding at full tilt, in growing secrecy. In many ways, despite the rudimentary nuclear facilities at Isfahan and Natanz, what has unfolded resembles cold-war deception and brinkmanship, with some decidedly new twists for a very different nuclear age. As in the early days of the cold war, both sides have tried to write the rules on the fly, using every tool available - from US threats of sanctions to Iranian threats to destroy Israel.

Steven Simon and Ray Takeyh, senior fellows at the US Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), wrote in a joint article published on May 3 that exaggeration of Iran's military might was part of an "effort to deter the international community from imposing sanctions against Iran, adding: "the mullahs are trying to instill fear in the Western capitals that if pushed to the wall, they will resort to extreme measures".

Khamenei recently took the lead in stressing: "The Islamic Republic is prepared to transfer the experience, knowledge, and technology of its scientists". Simon and Takeyh wrote: "However, such statements have to be viewed in the context of Iran's maladroit attempts to fend off international pressure, as opposed to an actual willingness to share its nuclear know-how with its many terrorist allies. There are a host of reasons to worry about a theocratic Iran armed with nuclear weapons. Secure in the knowledge that they could inflict horrific pain on adversaries that might dare to oppose their regional designs by force, Iran's mullahs would feel free to bully their Sunni neighbors, co-opt a weak Iraqi state, confront Israel, and severely complicate American military options. A nuclear Iran might also trigger a round of proliferation that would end with a volatile, economically vital region bristling with weapons of truly mass destruction. There is one reason, however, why we shouldn't worry about a nuclear Iran.

"The mullahs are not about to give their nukes away to terrorist groups. Despite its routine designation by the State Department as the most active state sponsor of terrorism, Iran's terrorist activities today are largely confined to the Israeli-Palestinian arena. Gone are the heady days of the revolution when Iran subsidized militant groups plotting against the Gulf monarchies and dispatched assassination squads to murder dissidents abroad.

"Nonetheless, Tehran remains attached to the lethal Hizbullah, dubbed by former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage the 'A-Team' of terrorism, and has done much to sustain both Hamas and Palestine's Islamic Jihad. Would Iran be tempted to offer its potential nuclear arsenal to such forces as they wage their campaigns against Israel? The answer to such questions requires a better understanding of the nature of the Iranian-Israeli conflict".

The authors explain how the theocracy has used to Palestine and Lebanon causes to its advantage and for purposes not related to the conflict with Israel. They wrote: "By prodding violence, while containing it, Iran is free to burnish its Islamist credentials without necessarily exposing itself to inordinate danger. Hence the fact that Iran has not transferred any of its more potent weapons to its fighting friends. This is especially striking in the case of Hizbullah. This powerful Shiite organization, now also a political party in Lebanon, has served faithfully as Iran's aircraft carrier, projecting Tehran's power within the region and as far away as Argentina, where Hizbullah killed hundreds of Jews in 1994.

"Hizbullah's operations chief, Imad Mughniya, is said to have Iranian citizenship and shuttles between Tehran and Beirut. Yet despite Hizbullah's vital role in Iran's security strategy and its vulnerability to Israeli assault, Tehran has not provided it with advanced weaponry. This is not to say that the regime has been parsimonious with its protege. Hizbullah has received more than 10,000 Katyusha rockets, some of them newer Fajr 5s, as well as long-range mortars that can hit Haifa, and even an unmanned aerial drone. These weapons can and have drawn Israeli blood. But the blister, choking, and nerve agents in Iran's arsenal have been withheld, as have longer range, more accurate missiles.

The authors argue: "If Tehran has not transferred its deadliest wares to Hizbullah, then it is extremely unlikely it will transfer them at all. For Iran's cautious mullahs, the critical national mission is the survival of the regime and preservation of Iran's territorial integrity. As such, transferring nuclear arms to terrorist clients that may be difficult to restrain or discipline could expose the regime to an unacceptable degree of Israeli or American retaliation. Any measure that could potentially threaten the clerical leaders' hold on power will be strongly resisted by Iran's risk-averse rulers. The mullahs may be perennially hostile to Israel, but they do appreciate that should such conflict escape its controlled parameters, they could find themselves in a confrontation that would indeed threaten their hold on power".

Iran, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has been successful in gradually blinding UN inspectors, denying them access to crucial sites and refusing to answer questions about suspected links between Iran's civilian nuclear programme and its military one. While Iran denies any clandestine effort to build a nuclear weapon, it is clearly drawing on the diplomatic playbook of a country which has done just that - North Korea.

Iran has gone so far as to boast about, and perhaps exaggerate, its nuclear prowess in try-ing to convince the West that its programme now is unstoppable. Gholamreza Aghazadeh, the chairman of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, and other Iranian officials on April 28 described their nuclear programme as "irreversible". They argue that the US should simply accept this - much as it now accepts that Pakistan and India will never give up nuclear technology. Ahmadi-Nejad on April 29 said giving up enrichment "is our red line, and we will never cross it". But Ahmadi-Nejad has no say in Iran's nuclear programmes.

In Washington, senior Bush administration officials have taken a position at the opposite extreme. In the words of Robert Joseph, the State Department's top proliferation official, the administration is determined to ensure that "not one centrifuge spins" in Iran. Yet Iran's uranium enrichment has reached almost 5% amid indication that a higher percentage should be expected in the coming weeks.

The New York Times on April 30 quoted officials as describing a plan to turn the UNSC's "requests" that Iran cease enriching uranium into an enforceable requirement. What has chilled the Chinese, the Russians and some others in Europe, however, is that the US is insisting on citing Iran under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which authorises the use of penalties, and if that is inadequate, of military force.

This is still not a contest between nuclear powers - Iran is not believed to have a bomb yet, and intelligence estimates say that day is still five to 10 years away, assuming there is no clandestine effort no one has detected. Instead, it is an effort by the US and some other nations to refashion the nuclear rules. They want to declare that even if Iran is legally entitled under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) to enrich uranium for civilian purposes, the likes of Ahmadi-Nejad cannot be trusted to do so.

By deceiving the IAEA about its activities, President Bush and British, French and German officials say, Iran has given up whatever treaty rights it once enjoyed. Bush has acknowledged that US credibility has been deeply harmed by the intelligence failures over Iraq. On April 28, he tried to allay concerns that he was proceeding down the same path he used to give a legal basis for the invasion he ordered 37 months ago. "There's a difference between the two countries", he told reporters, even as his EU allies worry about similarities in the American strategy.

For the first time, the administration has publicly declared, as it did in the case of Iraq, that if the UNSC fails to act, Bush will organise "like-minded nations" to begin to impose punishment. The NYT quoted R. Nicholas Burns, who directs the diplomatic talks for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, as saying: "We have not conceded the point and we will not concede the point that Iran will become a nuclear weapons power". He insisted that Iran was mistaken if it thought that the Bush administration would ever allow its nuclear activity to go ahead - which is essentially what has happened in North Korea for the past three years, while negotiations have dragged on to the brink of collapse.

Burns said: "The difference in the two situations is that in Iran you have a state situated in the most volatile area of the world, where they are the leading central banker of terrorist actions. What they can't count on is a compliant and divided international community".

The strategies have only hardened the other side's position. Washington's episodic saber-rattling - from the president's vague comments that "all options" are on the table if diplomacy fails, and the increasingly public discussion of whether he or the Israelis will ultimately opt for a military strike - has so far failed. The Iranians have responded with threats of their own, knowing that even the spectre of confrontation rattles the oil markets and sends prices to new highs, heightening the pain for Bush and American consumers (see omt19TurkTradeMay8-06).

The Iranians may have overplayed their hand. While they insist that their current activities are within their treaty obligations, they ignore the IAEA's finding that Tehran hid some of its activities for two decades. And the April 28 IAEA report accuses Iran of continuing to hide vital information. But this dispute is about more than transparency. It is also about national pride and Iran's insistence on self-sufficiency and independence. That may help explain why Iran has celebrated enrichment with dancers in traditional dress, who paraded on national TV while holding a small box said to contain the fruits of their atomic labours.

The inspectors' report confirmed that Iran had succeeded in enriching uranium at a low level, but it would take significantly more processing, equipment, and problem-solving to produce fuel for a bomb. Fabricating a warhead would take even more time, and risk detection. Gary Samore, who led non-proliferation efforts in the Clinton administration and continues to study the Iranian programme, earlier this year said: "The real fight here is not over whether they have a weapons program, it is over whether they can create a nuclear weapons option. And that is the smoke-and-mirrors game, convincing everyone that they have that capability". That is what most concerns senior US officials.

The NYT quoted "officials who deal with nuclear strategy" as noting that it is now widely assumed North Korea has several to 10 nuclear weapons - even though the North Koreans have never conducted a nuclear test. The NYT quoted a "senior [US] official" as saying: "We think the Iranians looked at the Koreans and learned a lesson". It would be a very different approach from the one taken by the Soviets in the late 1940s, or the Chinese in the early 1960s, or the Indians and Pakistanis in the late 1990s, all of whom set off nuclear explosions to prove their powers.

The NYT quoted "officials" in Washington and Vienna as saying: Given the limited access allowed to IAEA inspectors, there would be no way to verify, or disprove, Iran's claims. Bush has therefore taken the position that Iran must give up everything. On April 28 he said: "The Iranians should not have a nuclear weapon, the capacity to make a nuclear weapon, or the knowledge as to how to make a nuclear weapon".

The Russians and Chinese view that Bush's position as being unrealistic. The NYT quoted "a senior Russian official" as saying it was time for a "detente" with Iran, drawing another term from the cold war. In Vienna, IAEA Director Muhammad ElBaradei has made it clear he believes pragmatism will eventually dictate that Iran be allowed some limited form of enrichment, monitored constantly by his agency. But there is the fear - in Washington and in Vienna - that the IAEA is seeing only part of the programme, and that the evasive answers to its questions hide a clandestine effort, somewhere under the desert.

As Tehran restricts IAEA inspections, it will be harder to know whether its programme more closely resembles the very real one in Pakistan, whose scientists sold technology to Iran, or the nuclear mirage in Iraq.

An article in Asia Times Online (ATO) on April 21 said neither the Fajir-3 missile and the Hoot torpedo tested in the recent Iranian war games were indigenous or advanced weaponry. It said of the recent war games: "Tehran intended to convey three messages of nationalism: survival, security and status".

During the war games Hossein Salami, head of the IRGC Air Force, described the technology in the radar-evading, multiple-target-hitting Fajr-3 as "completely new, [and] without copying any other missile systems that may exist in other countries". Yet ATO quoted "Western intelligence sources" as claiming that the tested projectile was a Shahab-2 short-range ballistic missile. Even Uzi Rubin, former director of Israel's Ballistic Missiles Defence Organisation and designer of the Arrow anti-missile defence system, went on record several times in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv as saying "the description does not match the picture" and "maneuvering stealthy ballistic missile[s] with multiple warheads is beyond Iran's technological capabilities". With the Russians not even claiming to be able to hit several targets with a single missile and as a variant of the Russian Scud C, whose capabilities are known, the Shahab-2 poses no new threat.

Tehran used the exercises to assert that, despite the attempts by hegemonic powers to deny Iran its inalienable right to defend itself, the bright youth of the country provide means for development and, hence, survivability. ATO said: "With indigenous advancements militarily, medically, technologically and economically, Iran's survivability factor increases because the populace sees that in some manners the government is attending to its needs through self-sufficiency. Moreover, Tehran gets to assert that the foreign threats previously made against the country were done 'without proper military assessments'".

Knowing that no substantive action is likely over its nuclear programme, particularly not until after the G-8 summit meeting on July 19, Tehran can use the military exercises in conjunction with the lack of international or US action as a way to buoy its claims of self-sufficiency which in turn increases the nationalist tenor. As such, and with US satellites posted on Iran and analysts viewing the military games to determine Iranian capabilities, the exaggerated claims of Iranian officials were merely intended for internal consumption.

In the war games, the theocracy conveyed that its conventional military maintains a defensive posture as a way of providing security to its people against external threats. As a huge portion of its existence relies on oil, Iran has always acted to protect its interests in the Persian Gulf and with regards to the Strait of Hormuz. Thus on April 2, it presented the Hoot ("whale") by describing the projectile as "the world's fastest under-water missile". Although claimed by the deputy commander of the IRGC Navy, Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi, to have been indigenously developed, many believe the Hoot to be based on the Russian-developed VA-111 Shkval rocket-powered super-cavitating torpedo. Although based on a prototype from the 1960s and powered by a solid-fuel rocket engine, the Shkval can reach in-water speeds near 100 metres per second and travel about 7,000 metres.

The importance of the Shkval is its purpose as a coastal-defence weapon designed to be fired from surface ships or shore batteries. With only an effective range of 7-9 kilometers, the Shkval missile does not pose an overwhelming threat to modern navies, such as the US carriers in the Persian Gulf, especially considering that the launching vessels for the unstealthy missile are very vulnerable to an air attack. If intended for submarines, the missile needs the support of a full anti-submarine warfare capability, which Iran does not have.

Given its two huge weaknesses and in compensating for limited air-power and surface-vessel capabilities, the Hoot signals a way of providing "area denial" with an emphasis on anti-ship missiles. As a high-speed under-water projectile guided by auto-pilot rather than by a homing head, no counter-measures seem to exist to the Hoot/Shkval. As such, opposing naval forces are at a considerable disadvantage when they advance to close range. Thus the Hoot enables Iran to keep adversaries from its coastal border in the Persian Gulf. However, more important, as any attack on Iran would not rely on close-range ships, the Hoot demonstrates Tehran's ability to disrupt tanker traffic in the Strait of Hormuz.

Although Iran has officially and repeatedly announced that Tehran would not close the strait because doing so would block Iran's ability to export oil (thus hindering security and survival), attacks on shipping are a weapon of last resort to be brought about by weapons like the Hoot. But the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s suggests that no combination of attacks by aircraft, missiles, mines, submarines and naval special warfare can close the Persian Gulf to all shipping for a sustained period. Yet any provocative measures against Iran could result in an Iranian reversal of its defensive posture and the start of anti-shipping attacks.

The "Holy Prophet" games brought a sense of status to the theocracy, as measures of nationalism, survivability, security and status all reinforce one another and increase nationalism. However, the willingness of the theocracy to engage in similar war games with the littoral states conveys a confidence in the country's military capabilities. Regardless of sincerity, the offer of joint Iranian-GCC war games made by Tehran further uplifts the morale of the people as well as other Muslim nations because the offer included the larger military of Saudi Arabia which the US supplies and trains. As such, the theocracy's projection of military power - regardless of its actual capabilities - delivered what ATO described as "an elevated sense of global status". In religious terms, the Iranian government received recognition and respect as a Muslim nation from the Arab and Iranian street for attaining that power in the face of its obstacles. While Arab governments may fear Iran, the streets support the populist mantra emanating from Tehran.