PICTURED: Iran’s new Bavar-373 missile system. Photo credit Tasimnews CC.4 license.

Tehran, August 23rd, 2019. Iran has unveiled a new surface-to-air missile system, dubbed Bavar-373, during a ceremony on Thursday morning in the presence of President Hassan Rouhani and senior Iranian military officials.

The following day, officials claimed that they have precision-guided missiles that have not been revealed to the public yet. They claimed that 1,800 kilometers is the blanket of their strike capabilities.

“Americans know very well” Iranian forces do not need to reach New York to confront them; instead “today there are tens of thousands of Americans in the region” said Qassem Taqizadeh, the Iranian Deputy Defense Minister.

Escalation Dominance is a strategic term used by militaries to describe which entity can control the degree to which a conflict can escalate from small engagements, like surgical strikes on non-human targets, police actions, or small arms fire for example, all the way to land invasions, sieges etc.

The deputy defense minister, by saying that “today there are tens of thousands of Americans in the region,” he is saying that the United States cannot control the level of any conflict that breaks out due to the capabilities of Iran to strike the panoply of military bases maintained by the United States in the region.

Deterrents by Land and Sea

On Saturday, Iran test fired its new Bavar-373 missile system according to Al Jazeera.

“Our country is always the arena for testing a variety of defense and strategic systems and these are non-stop movements towards the growth of our deterrent power,” Major General Hossein Salami of the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said on Saturday.

“And yesterday was one of the successful days for this nation,” he said, without providing more information about the missile.

A deterrent would be sorely needed from an Iranian point of view considering the escalating tensions between the United States and Persia over the course of the summer.

Iran shot down a U.S. drone in Iranian airspace with a surface to air missile in June that nearly resulted in retaliatory strikes which President Trump claimed he called off after learning the strikes would have killed 150 Iranians.

The Justice Department issued seizure warrants for an Iranian oil tanker after it was recently released from custody by authorities in Gibraltar.

Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari of the Iranian Navy said they were ready to send escorts if needed to deter U.S. attempts to track and seize the vessel, called the Adrian Darya, and its 2.1 million barrels of crude oil.

Sayyari warned that “if they [The U.S.] conduct any aggression against the Army and the armed forces, they will definitely face a crushing response,” he said.