TEL AVIV, Israel, Nov. 30 (UPI) -- With missiles that can reach every corner of the Middle East and survive preemptive strikes, Iran is already "the major missile power of the region, at least in theory," said a former head of Israel's missile defense program. "No other country in the world ... comes close to Iran in the number and variety of ballistic missiles in development or already deployed," Uzi Rubin wrote in a study published by the Institute for National Security Studies. And yet, some of those missiles' effectiveness is questionable, he noted. Rubin based his study on published materials but his background -- from 1991 to 1999 he was the Arrow anti-ballistic missile program manager -- enables him to better analyze those reports. He wrote that most of the missiles designed to control the sea, land, and air near Iran show Chinese and Russian pedigree. The Raad, apparently an advanced version of the Chinese Silkworm, is a shore based anti-ship missile whose range should be sufficient to bloc the Persian Gulf at its widest point.
The Zelzal, which originally hails from China, is intended to hit hostile troops concentrated some 125 miles away. Other programs are externally similar to the old Soviet Strela, and anti-tank missiles.