It is a mere detail, emphasized by the human desire for the tangible. Iran is really an abstract problem, but let’s get the tangible out of the way.

The best technical descriptions are given by Al-Monitor’s What’s so special about Iran’s latest missile? and the  Arms Control Wonk article Iran’s New Missile, by Joshua Pollack.

Qualitatively, this is the difference. Missiles indigenous to the region have been primitive scrap-metal monsters with vestigial guidance systems. The Qiam-1 is Iran’s first smart, agile missile. Like China’s carrier killer Dong-Feng 21, it takes inspiration from the Pershing II. Scrapped by 1991, the Pershing II was historically innovative. Even today, the Pershing II is remarkable.  If you want to see what Iran is aiming for, read the Wikipedia article.

Like the German V-2, and the many imitations in use to the present day, such as the Scud, it is liquid fueled. This makes it cheap, and possible to use and fire in large quantities. In the middle east, cheap missiles have traditionally been used as barrage weapons. They lack the accuracy required to take out compact, high value targets. The new missile incorporates warhead winglets, which could be used in two ways:

• Evade an antimissile system with high-g maneuvers at altitudes lower than the Kármán Line.
• Terminal course correction for pinpoint accuracy.

This would require a guidance system that Iran does not have. There have been four major steps:

• The first solution, devised in the 50’s by the U.S. and the Soviet Union, used gyroscopes and accelerometers, and operated without reference to the external world.
• Next came the star-tracker, used to refine the inertial system.
• This was followed by terrain recognition systems. These are commonly associated with cruise missiles, but they have been used by ballistic missiles that have fairly flat trajectories, such as the Pershing II.
• GPS is the state of the art, but requires a huge infrastructure outside the missile itself. Iran has none, and if it did, it would be extremely vulnerable.

Is it a “nuclear capable” missile? In the West, an elaborate and real distinction exists between weapons systems designed for nuclear versus  conventional weapons. This is the result of the elaborate  support systems required to handle and target nukes with stringent levels of reliability and safety.  In particular,

• Nuclear guidance systems are less accurate but more autonomous than guidance systems for smart bombs. If a nuclear weapon lands within a few  hundred yards of the target, it will usually do the job. But there is a premium on that hundreds-of- yards circle. A smart bomb must land dead on, but as many bombs as required for a direct hit can be used.
• Nuclear weapons have elaborate safety interlocks that extend to the delivery platform, plane or missile. The release of a nuclear weapon is not a mere trigger squeeze.
• At the level of consideration given by rogue countries to the above, there is no particular distinction for a nuclear capable weapon.

Now the Trump Administration has come down hard on Iran for testing this missile, which also worries France. But the argument that it is a treaty violation is the consequence of a defectively written treaty. The treaty bans development of a nuclear capable missile. For Iran, any missile will do.

To be continued shortly.