WarSclerotic

Iran has launched a cruise missile from a submarine for the first time during an ongoing annual military drill in the Strait of Hormuz, Iranian media reported Sunday.

The semi-official Fars news agency reported the launch and released an image showing a green submarine on the surface of the water launching an orange missile. It said other submarines have the same capability. It did not detail the missile’s range.

Iran debuted a domestically constructed submarine as well as a new destroyer Friday as part of the large-scale three-day naval drill in the Persian Gulf, state media reported.

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Tehran had announced the launch of the Fateh submarine (Farsi for “Conqueror”) earlier this month. It said Fateh was the country’s first submarine in the semi-heavy category, and the first capable of firing cruise missiles.

The Sahand destroyer has a helicopter landing pad, is 96 meters (105 yards) long and can cruise at 25 knots. It is equipped with surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles as well as anti-aircraft batteries and sophisticated radar and radar evading capabilities, according to a report on state TV.

Iran’s new Sahand destroyer (YouTube screenshot)

Navy chief Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi said “The exercise will cover confronting a range of threats, testing weapons, and evaluating the readiness of equipment and personnel,” in remarks on state television translated by Reuters.

“Submarine missile launches will be carried out… in addition to helicopter and drone launches from the deck of the Sahand destroyer,” he said.

The exercise aims to evaluate the navy’s equipment, practice launching weapons and “enable the troops to gain readiness for a real battle,” he added.

Iran frequently touts its military arsenal, much of which is manufactured locally because of international sanctions. The Strait of Hormuz, at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, is a crucial bottleneck for global energy supplies, with about a third of all oil traded by sea passing through it.

Submarines, warships, helicopters and surveillance planes participated in the three-day drill, dubbed “Velayat-97,” which concludes later Sunday. On Saturday, Iran launched surface-to-surface missiles.

The show of military might comes at a time of heightened tensions with Iran’s main regional rival Saudi Arabia and with Washington, which last year withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran and reimposed sanctions on the Islamic Republic.

American forces routinely pass through the Strait of Hormuz, which has seen tense encounters between them and Iranian forces in the past.

TEHRAN — Iran’s Revolutionary Guards on Sunday accused “enemies” of the Islamic Republic of trying to sabotage the country’s missiles so that they would “explode mid-air” but said the bid was foiled.

“They tried as best as they could to sabotage a small part which we import so that our missiles would not reach their target and explode mid-air,” Fars news agency reported, quoting the Guards’ aerospace commander Amir Ali Hajizadeh.

“But they couldn’t do a damn thing because we had seen this coming from the start and had reinforced this sector,” he added, accusing Iran’s “enemies” of sabotage without naming any specific country.

Iran reined in most of its nuclear program under a landmark 2015 deal with major powers in return for sanctions relief, but has continued to develop its ballistic missile technology.

Earlier this month The New York Times reported that the administration of US President Donald Trump was pushing a secret program aimed at sabotaging Iranian rockets and missiles.

It said Washington was trying to “slip faulty parts and materials into Iran’s aerospace supply chains” as part of a campaign to undercut Tehran’s military.

In May, Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal  known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, and reimposed sanctions on Tehran.

UN Security Council Resolution 2231 — adopted just after the nuclear deal — calls on Iran “not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons.”

Tehran insists that its missile program is “purely defensive” and compliant with the resolution but it has developed medium-range ballistic missiles capable of reaching arch-foe Israel.

Hajizadeh, whose remarks were also reported by Tasnim news agency, said similar sabotage attempts had happened before and targeted Iran’s nuclear and oil sectors.

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — As Iran marked the 40th anniversary of its Islamic Revolution, a white-turbaned Shiite cleric at one commemoration targeted President Hassan Rouhani, a fellow clergyman, with this sign: “You who are the cause of inflation; we hope you won’t last until spring.”

Already lashed by criticism over his collapsing nuclear deal and renewed tensions with the US, the relatively moderate Rouhani faces anger from clerics, hard-line forces and an ever-growing disaffected public that now threatens his position.

Iranian presidents typically see their popularity erode during their second four-year terms, but analysts say Rouhani is particularly vulnerable because of the economic crisis assailing the country’s rial currency, which has hurt ordinary Iranians and emboldened critics to openly call for his ouster.

Though such a move has happened only once in the Islamic Republic’s four-decade history, the popular discontent heard on streets throughout Iran could now make it possible.

“I don’t care who is in the presidential palace: a cleric, a general or anybody else,” said Qassim Abhari, who sells hats and socks on the streets of Tehran. “We need someone who creates jobs and firmly pushes the brake pedal on rising prices.”

It’s been a long fall for Rouhani, who secured the 2015 nuclear deal after two years in office and won the praise of Iranians, who flooded the streets to celebrate it. Under the deal, Iran limited its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.

But the benefits of the deal never reached much of the Iranian public. Even before President Donald Trump pulled America from the accord in May, uncertainty over its future caused the rial to crater, fueling sporadic, nationwide protests.

Now the rial is dropping again, down to 133,000 to $1. It had been 32,000 to the dollar at the time of the deal. On social media, hard-liners share price lists showing food staples like beans, rice and tomato paste rising as much as 238 percent.

People walk around the Grand Bazaar in Tehran, Iran, February 7, 2019 (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Hard-liners stopped parliament speaker Ali Larijani, an ally of Rouhani, from addressing a crowd in Karaj, only 40 kilometers (25 miles) west of Tehran. Rouhani’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, typically collected, appeared visibly frustrated at times during a recent security conference in Munich.

Hassan Abbasi, a retired general in Iran’s hard-line Revolutionary Guard, which answers to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, gave a speech after Karaj saying he believed people will spit on Rouhani, Larijani and Zarif in the streets over the nuclear deal after they leave office. He said they are “shivering” over the accord’s collapse.

“Mr. Hassan Rouhani, Mr. Zarif and Mr. Larijani, go to hell,” Abbasi said to applause.

Tension between hard-liners and more-moderate forces within Iran are nothing new. The Islamic Republic’s political structure muddles who wields power between paramilitary forces within the Guard and the country’s civilian government. Reformist President Mohammad Khatami faced similar pressures in his second term, which then gave way to hard-line populist President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

But Khatami didn’t face the same grinding economic pressure, or an American president like Donald Trump, whose administration has taken a maximalist approach toward pressuring Tehran. Analysts say that only further weakens Rouhani’s hand.

“You, Mr. President, have only 15 to 20 percent of the power” within Iran’s government, the pro-Rouhani daily newspaper Jomhouri Eslami said in a January editorial. “You cannot run the country with this amount of power and be accountable for all its difficulties and problems.”

Rouhani himself seemed to acknowledge the pressure he faces during a visit to the Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas on Monday.

“Presidential elections happen every four years,” he said. “When people voted for a particular viewpoint, all should go after that and support” it.

Nine hard-line lawmakers have put forward a measure to disqualify Rouhani as president. His dismissal would require two-thirds of parliament’s 290 members, but there is a precedent. In 1981, parliament disqualified the liberal Abolhassan Banisadr as president, and then Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini dismissed him.

Iranian shoppers walk through the Grand Bazaar in Tehran, on February 7, 2019 (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Iranian law also allows Rouhani to resign, and criminal charges could push him from his post. His brother, Hossein Fereidoun, is on trial over corruption charges that his supporters call politically motivated.

Mahmoud Vaezi, a spokesman for Rouhani, on Wednesday dismissed those pursuing impeachment as belonging to “a group in parliament that opposes everything.” However, they aren’t the only source of pressure.

Reformists, those who want to change Iran’s political system from the inside, have grown increasingly disenchanted with Rouhani over his inability to end the house arrests of opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mahdi Karroubi. Rouhani ran for election in 2013 and 2017 promising to free the two leaders of the 2009 Green Movement.

Meanwhile, hard-line clerics have opposed his administration’s efforts to join international anti-money-laundering conventions, fearing that could cut off support to Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group and others. State television, long controlled by hard-liners, has played up speeches by military officials and increasingly airs segments glorifying those who fought in the 1980s war in Iraq.

“When Rouhani will not be in power, people will choose his alternative,” said hard-line lawmaker and cleric Mojtaba Zolnouri, who signed onto the Rouhani impeachment effort. “Whoever people choose, we welcome.”

Rouhani’s four-year term runs until 2021. But Tehran-based political-economic analyst Saeed Leilaz echoed the sentiments of many in saying the next few weeks could prove crucial to the embattled president. Some have suggested even ending the position of president and returning to a parliamentary system.

“In the spring, parallel with intensifying pressures and problems, Rouhani may resign or the (government’s) structure may change,” he said.