Iran’s decision to supply large quantities of armed drones to Russia amidst Moscow’s ongoing war against Ukraine makes Iran an accomplice and enabler of wanton Russian aggression. The fact that Iran was subjected to similar aggression in the past also makes it an incredibly cynical move on Tehran’s part.
On Oct. 10, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced the spate of Russian attacks against Ukrainian cities, including the first attacks in months targeting the capital Kyiv.
“We are dealing with terrorists,” Zelensky said in his address. “Dozens of missiles, Iranian Shaheds.”
He added that the “two targets” of the missiles and drones are “energy facilities throughout the country” and “people.”
Russia began using its newly acquired Iranian drones in combat in September, shortly after taking delivery of the first batch in August. The drones include the Shaheds Zelensky referred to – specifically the Shahed-136 loitering munition or “suicide” drone, referred to as the Geran-2 in Russian service – and the armed Mojaher-6. Kyiv has shot down dozens of these drones in recent weeks.
Shahed-136 loitering munitions, now being used in large numbers by Russia against Ukraine, on ... [+]
According to Zelensky, Moscow seeks as many as 2,400 Shahed-136s, possibly to sustain its capability to attack urban centers deep in Ukraine without having to expend more of its reportedly dwindling stockpiles of ballistic and cruise missiles.
The nature of Iran’s arming of Russia with drones today brings to mind France’s supply of fighter jets to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in the 1980s.
Iraq ordered a fleet of Dassault Mirage F1s from France in 1977. Paris remained doggedly committed to fulfilling that order even after Iraq infamously invaded Iran in September 1980, igniting a vicious war that would last until the end of the decade and leave one million dead in its wake. This rankled the Iranians, who were then on the defensive, desperately fighting to fend off the Iraqi invaders and preserve their country’s territorial integrity. Iraqi jets and ballistic missiles intentionally targeted Iranian cities early in the war, killing and injuring innocent civilians.
Tehran sought revenge. In October 1980, Iranian intelligence discovered that 47 French Air Force technicians and Mirage fighters were arriving at northern Iraq’s al-Hurriyah airbase near Mosul. Iran, as two senior air force personnel later recounted, decided, among other things, to “welcome” the French into the war by attacking the base, which they successfully did.
Today the Ukrainians similarly have no intention of sitting idly by while these drones strike their civilian infrastructure. They are currently trying to figure out the location of bases used by Russia to launch and direct these Shaheds so they can target them with artillery or their U.S.-supplied High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), which are also threatened by these Iranian drones.
In 1983, France leased Iraq five Super Etendard strike fighter aircraft armed with Exocet anti-ship missiles directly from its navy. Baghdad used them against Iranian tankers in the Persian Gulf. A furious Tehran boycotted French products and threatened reprisals. (Shortly after the jets were delivered in October 1983, the French barracks in Beirut was infamously blown up the same day as the U.S. Marine Corps barracks. Fifty-eight French military personnel perished in that deadly attack.)
It’s unclear how many of the drones Iran is presently supplying Russia are being built for Moscow or are coming out of existing Iranian military stocks. It’s probably a bit of both. And while the Mojaher-6 and Shahed-136 drones certainly aren’t comparable to fighter jets, arming the aggressor in the Ukraine war with as many as 2,400 of the latter while hostilities are ongoing is at least as provocative as France’s leasing and selling of those warplanes to Iraq.
Furthermore, just as those French-built Iraqi jets predictably used their Exocets to attack Iranian tankers, Iranian-built Russian drones are doing the same against Ukrainian energy facilities in a clear bid to economically strangle the country. And, just as Iraq’s Mirage F1s penetrated deep into Iran later in the war to attack the country’s infrastructure – including the Ghotour bridge in Iranian West Azerbaijan on Mar. 13, 1986, and the Karaj dam north of Tehran the following Oct. 15 – Iranian drones are aiding and abetting Russia’s deliberate destruction of Ukraine’s infrastructure.
A family walks past a building destroyed by Russian, Iranian-made, drones after an airstrike on Bila ... [+]
The parallels are striking, as is Iran’s duplicity in the very kind of aggression it denounced and was a victim of four decades ago.
Zelensky has condemned Tehran for supplying Moscow with these drones, dubbing the move “a collaboration with evil.” Ukraine has moved to downgrade its ties with Iran in response.
If the above history is anything to by, Tehran would probably have done, or at the very least threatened to do, much worse than that if it found itself in Kyiv’s present unenviable position.
