The elite force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has successfully launched the Noor-1 Satellite by the domestically-built launcher Qassed (messenger) on Wednesday morning and placed it into the orbit at an altitude of 425km. The launch of Noor-1 which is the Islamic Republic’s first military satellite was carried out on the anniversary of the establishment of the IRGC.
The IRGC’s satellite launch as a great achievement for the elite force provides the Iranian elite force with the capability to monitor Earth from space.
Just one day after the achievement the US President Donald Trump wrote in his twitter account, "I have instructed the United States Navy to shoot down and destroy any and all Iranian gunboats if they harass our ships at sea."
To know more about the significance of the IRGC's new achievement and the reasons behind Trump's remarks against Iran, we reached out to Bangkok- based geopolitical researcher Anthony Cartalucci.
What is the importance of Iran's new achievement in sending a military satellite to orbit?
For Iran, it is a major milestone and reflects a degree of technical competence that will serve as a warning to those who have for decades attempted to undermine Iranian sovereignty. More specifically, access to space enhances a nation's economic and military capabilities, expanding methods for communication, surveillance, and signal intelligence.
On a global level, Iran's milestone reflects a global trend where more and more nations are harnessing technology that once was the sole domain of the West and a handful of other powers - Russia and China for example. Iran's achievement helps add a greater degree of balance to what many are calling the emerging multipolar world.
Why did Trump's remarks come just hours after launching the satellite?
For the United States, a world tilting more toward multipolarism is a world tilting ever further away from the unipolar world order the US created and is the sole benefactor of. Iran is one of several key nations helping shape this new multipolar world and thus attracts the ire of the United States each time it contributes tangibly toward shifting the balance of global power.
US aspirations toward war with Iran is no secret. It has attempted to provoke war or depict Iranian progress as provocations toward war for decades. Launching satellites or asserting itself with more authority off its own shores are two non-issues for the rest of the world, but a golden opportunity for Wall Street and Washington to promote one of the few industries the US still excels at - war. Thus the US wasted no time in attempting to escalate tensions with Iran.
What is the message of the IRGC commander's visit to the Persian Gulf today?
General Hossein Salami has pointed out that while the US attempts to frame Iranian activity off its own shores as "hostile," it is not even US vessels traveling thousands of miles from their own shores that is the real problem for Iran or even the wider Middle East - but the fact that US vessels are there in support of regional chaos fuelled by multiple illegal US occupations, war, proxy war, and other forms of aggression.
Iran's continued resilience and its ability to help other nations weather US aggression has continued regardless of US provocations. With US President Donald Trump threatening an even greater escalation by "shooting down Iranian gunboats" off their own shores, it seems the US is only able to respond with more of the very same policies that have weakened its grip in the Middle East and triggered the irreversible decline of its unipolar world order globally.
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