Flawed Arguments on Iran's Missile Program (Kaveh L. Afrasiabi, Iran Review)

In a recent article in The National Interest, two former US ambassadors, William Luers and Thomas Pickering, as well as Greg Thielmann, senior fellow of the Arms Control Association, have defended the recent US sanctions on Iran over its missile program, calling for a mix of "pressure and diplomacy" to curtail the development of Iran's missile program. The authors draw attention to the parallel development of Saudi and Israeli missile programs, and acknowledge the important role of Iran's missile program given its "outdated air force" and the "potential threats Tehran sees from Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United States." They portray Iran's missile program as "worrisome" and propose a US-led missile diplomacy that would have the objective of freezing "the current range of Iran's missiles (around 2,000 km) to complement the nuclear nonproliferation objectives of the JCPOA. At the same time, the authors realize the regional dimension of the issue and argue in favor of a broader regional security discussion "including parallel regional missile constraints."

http://www.iranreview.org/content/Documents/Flawed-Arguments-on-Iran-s-Missile-Program.htm