WASHINGTON – While the world powers are trying to strike a deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran to limit its nuclear program, experts say they should also be concerned about the country’s missile program.

“Despite UN resolutions that forbid the development and testing of nuclear delivery systems, Iran has continued its missile program unabated and currently has the largest and most diverse missile arsenal in the Middle East,” said Kenneth Weinstein, the President and CEO of Hudson Institute, a domestic and foreign policy think tank based in Washington, D.C.

Experts were invited to the Hudson Institute to further examine this issue. According to U.S. Republican Representative Ron DeSantis from Florida’s 6th district, Iran’s missile arsenal undermines international and regional security because these armaments can be used as a delivery mechanism for nuclear and other unconventional weapons. He also said that Iran’s missile capacity will allow the country to exercise undue influence in the region, as well as intimidate neighboring countries.

“I think this is something that the Congress needs to scrutinize and I think that we need to elevate this issue as much as we can,” DeSantis said during the panel discussion at the Hudson Institute on June 2.

According to Michael Eisenstadt, the director of The Washington Institute For Near East Policy’s Military and Security Studies Program, Iran’s way of war focuses on deterring and avoiding major conventional conflicts. The country pursues this through a combination of proxy operations and information operations.

“The missiles play a key role in both deterrence with regard to preventing them from getting into a major conventional conflict and in their information activity,” Eisenstadt said. “So it’s absolutely critical for deterrence and in the event they get into a major war, it’s also absolutely critical for warfighting from their point of view.”

In terms of Iran’s proxies and partners, Eisenstadt said Iran’s weapons of choice are rockets and missiles.

“I served in the embassy in Baghdad in 2010 and we got rocketed quite often by special groups that were trained by the Iranians,” he said. “Overall, I would argue that their missile force is really the backbone of their strategic deterrence.”

Eisenstadt said Iran views “missiles as a part of their ability to advance their strategy of driving wedges in enemy coalitions.”

“And for a while they were working on missiles that had arranged to reach Europe,” he said. “(It) is important for them to be able to target the Europeans in the event of a crisis and split them off from the U.S.”

Eisenstadt said he thinks the missiles are used as a replacement for Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

David Cooper, who serves as a professor and chair of the Department of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval War College, said at the panel discussion that missiles are associated with nuclear weapons, but they are treated separately. He said that should not be the case.

“If Iran were to make a bulk for serious nuclear weapons power status along the lines of Pakistan or in India,” he said, “then the missiles far from being peripheral actually are rather key to the whole solution for the Iranians.”

Although Iran said that its nuclear weapons program is peaceful, Cooper said that the missiles may tell a different story.

“Iran has a very capable missile force,” he said. “The vast expanse and the international taboo of long range ballistic missile programs … really only make economic, political, military sense in the broader context of an ambition to become a nuclear weapons power.”

DeSantis said that not only is Iran’s missile program a threat to the U.S., but he also thinks that the country’s leadership is “dedicated to a militant, Islamic ideology that is inherently antagonistic to the United States.”

“I think underneath what (the Obama administration is) trying to do is an assumption that Iran could be kind of brought into the civilized world and could become a productive force for regional stability,” DeSantis said. “I think they really want a deal because a deal means Iran might start to change.”

As the U.S. and the other five world powers – Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia – work to limit Iran’s nuclear program, experts said they should also consider Iran’s missile program.

“I think we really do need … (to) put the Iranian regime on the hook to explain what is it they need these long range missiles for if not nuclear weapons,” Cooper said.

“We have not put the bandwidth, the intellectual capability and the funding in developing true coalition capabilities with our partners,” said Jeffrey Bialos, former deputy undersecretary of defense for industrial affairs during the Clinton administration.

U.S. and Japan agreed on new guidelines last month to enhance bilateral defense cooperation on security issues that range from defense against ballistic missiles to cyber and space attacks. Through this new agreement, not only will the U.S. help protect Japan, but Japan will also be able to defend regional allies that may be attacked. This means that Japanese missile defense systems can intercept weapons launched toward the U.S.

Japanese industries have a lot of innovation, and the defense collaboration between the U.S. and Japan should be encouraged, Bialos said at a panel discussion at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a think tank based in Washington, D.C. However, he said the U.S. should be willing to share as much defense technology information with allies as it receives. He said that he also does not see any significant US-Japan cooperative programs arising from the new guidelines.

“We have to understand, guidelines are guidelines … not laws, not rules, not treaties. It’s a framework and the question is, “What’s going to be done in practice?” he said. “Will there be more demand in way of government programs to meet these but focus on interoperability and bilateral security needs?”

The purpose of the new guidelines is for Japan to strengthen its military due to concerns of the rising Chinese military activity and North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs. Under these strategies, Japan will now allow defense transfers overseas and has negotiated defense equipment cooperation agreements with Australia, France, India and the United Kingdom. These agreements will allow Japan to participate in research, development and production of defense technologies with allies.

The guidelines have a potential to create a much more integrated alliance between the U.S. and Japan, according to James Schoff, a senior associate for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who was also one of the panelists.

“It also comes at the same time the United States is launching what it calls the Defense Innovation Initiative,” he said.

Then-Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel introduced the Defense Innovation Initiative last November at the Reagan National Defense Forum. The goal of the program is for experts at the Department of Defense to explore and develop cutting-edge technologies and systems for warfighting. Some of these technologies and systems include robotics and 3-D printing.

Schoff said this program and future emphasis on developing technologies fit well with Japan’s strengths in technology development.

“Why don’t we try to leverage some of these strengths together with American strengths and develop alliance solutions to some of the military defense technology challenges that we face?” he asked.

Schoff noted that this can be difficult to accomplish since both governments may have slightly different priorities and the bureaucratic systems operate somewhat differently. Nevertheless, he said the potential benefits from collaborating will make it worthwhile to take on these challenges.

Michael Morell (on left) says al Qaida is a greater threat than ISIS. (Tanni Deb/MEDILL NSJI)

WASHINGTON — The Islamic State group has attracted foreign recruits for its war in Iraq and Syria because the extremist network has what it sees as a compelling story to share with them, according to the CIA’s former deputy director.

“Their narrative is that the West, the United States, the modern world is a significant threat to their religion [and] that they have an answer to that threat to their religion, which is the establishment of this caliphate,” said Michael Morell, who held the post from 2010 to 2013. They say “they are being attacked by the United States … and because they are being attacked as they try to set up this caliphate to protect their religion, they need support.”

Morell is the author of “The Great War of Our Time: The CIA’s Fight Against Terrorism, From al Qa’ida to ISIS,” published this month. Indeed, ISIS presents a clear threat, he said Monday at the National Press Club in Washington. But it’s al Qaida, which perpetrated the 9/11 attacks and continues to have widespread influence abroad, that remains a greater danger, he added.

“The most significant threat to the homeland today,” Morell said, “still comes from al Qaida.”

ISIS seeks support in two ways, he said. It wants fighters to carry out its war in the Middle East, and it urges people to attack Americans and other coalition nations in their homelands.

The U.S., on the other hand, doesn’t really have a strong counter narrative, he said.

“Not because we’re not doing our job, but because it’s really hard to have a counter narrative in a conversation about a religion where we have absolutely no credibility,” he said.

Morell was an intelligence analyst who delivered daily briefings to then-President George W. Bush in 2001. He also assisted with planning the 2011 raid in Pakistan that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden. His new book includes his assessment of the CIA’s counterterrorism successes and failures of the past two decades, and highlights growing threats from terrorist groups that could impact the U.S.

Three al Qaida groups in particular pose the greatest threat to the U.S., he said.

Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, based in Yemen, remains the most dangerous, Morell said. The international terrorist organization was responsible for the last three attempted attacks against the U.S.: the would-be Christmas Day underwear bomber in 2009, the printer cartridge plot in 2010 and the nonmetallic bomb plot on an airliner in 2012.

“They have the capability to bring down an airline in the United States of America tomorrow,” Morell said.

The second most dangerous, he said, is the Khorasan Group, which has operatives from Pakistan. It was formed to assist the jihadist organization Jabhat al-Nusra in its fight against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad with the goal of using Syria as a base of operations to attack the West.

Finally, the third group is al Qaida’s senior leadership in Afghanistan and Pakistan, he said.

But Morell did not downplay the ISIS threat — either on the battlefield or in its attempts to radicalize young men and young women around the world.

“The first and probably the most important right now is the stability of the entire Middle East. ISIS threatens the territorial integrity of Syria, the territorial integrity of Iraq and the potential for spillover to the rest of the region,” Morell said.

ISIS killed hundreds of Iraqi civilians and security forces and caused thousands to flee their homes as it captured the city of Ramadi in central Iraq on Sunday, according to multiple news reports.

Morell said that Islamic educators are needed to inform people who may consider joining terrorist groups.

“We really need the leaders of Muslim countries, we need leading Muslim clerics [and] we need Muslim teachers to have this dialogue in those countries themselves.”

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