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The Meaning of the U.S.-Israel Juniper Cobra Military Exercise

[Today's Zaman-Turkey] Fikret Ertan - It is widely assumed by military circles that in the event of air strikes by either the U.S. or Israel or both against Iran to destroy its nuclear facilities, Iran will respond by firing its medium-range ballistic missiles. In fact, over the years many Iranian officials have threatened to do just that. The U.S. and Israel have been preparing against this eventuality. They have just completed a two-week anti-missile exercise called Juniper Cobra. Israeli public radio called the exercise preparations for a face-off with Iran. While U.S. officials were extremely careful not to mention Iran with regard to the exercise, no Israeli military official has shied away from mentioning that scenarios involving Iran form a substantial portion of the exercise. The exercise was the third and largest joint exercise ever held by the two countries, with 17 U.S. ships and 1,000 U.S. personnel, matched by the same number of Israeli personnel. They tested all the components of the joint anti-missile systems, namely the U.S.'s THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense), which incorporates Patriot-3 missiles, ship-based Aegis interceptors, X-band radars, and the Israeli Arrow anti-missile system. According to one expert, with the X-band system at work and connected to the U.S. system, a missile intercept would take place over Iran or a neighboring state and not over Israel, which would give Israel a significant strategic advantage over potential Iranian missiles.
2009-11-12 06:00:00
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