February 13, 2023
The West Has Captured Thousands of Iranian Weapons. Send Them to Ukraine.
Last month, both the U.S. and French navies intercepted cargo vessels smuggling thousands of weapons from Iran bound for Yemen. Tehran sent the shipments in defiance of a U.N. Security Council resolution banning the provision of weapons to the Houthis, Iran’s Yemeni partner and proxy force in the civil conflict. The two seizures alone netted thousands of Russian-style assault rifles and machine guns, dozens of antitank missiles, and over half a million rounds of ammunition. Likewise, last summer, the British navy snagged an Iranian vessel carrying surface-to-air missiles and engines for land-attack cruise missiles.
Instead of allowing these weapons to gather dust, Washington should send them to Ukraine.
Sending Iran’s weapons to Ukraine advances the mission in ways both tangible and symbolic. Washington should move without delay.
The U.S. Central Command (Centcom), through its work with European allies and Gulf partners, is well on its way to turning the critical waterways around the Arabian Peninsula into a panopticon, making it increasingly difficult for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps navy to operate without detection. The U.S. Naval Forces Central Command’s Task Force 59 has blazed the trail of innovation in maritime domain awareness, which has enabled more and more seizures of smuggled Iranian weapons at sea. Its success in stymying Iran has left Centcom with vast stores of seized weapons. These weapons, once inspected and recorded by the United Nations as evidence of Iran’s violations of U.N. Security Council resolution 2624, are housed in U.S. military facilities across the region.
Read the full article from The Washington Post.
More from CNAS
-
Russia in the Middle East with Jonathan Lord and Hanna Notte
Podcast
One year after the October 7 attacks by Hamas, the crisis in the Middle East has grown more and more complex. With the region teetering on the brink of broader conflict, the B...
By Jonathan Lord, Hanna Notte, Andrea Kendall-Taylor & Jim Townsend
-
Biden Urges Israel Not to Attack Iran Nuclear Sites
Video
Rachel Ziemba joins Bloomberg Television to discuss oil rising for a third day as traders watch for supply risks in the Middle East. Watch the full episode from Bloomberg Tel...
By Rachel Ziemba
-
The Fury of History
Commentary
Even manifestly unpopular regimes do not end on their own. There has to be a trigger....
By Robert D. Kaplan
-
The Axis of Upheaval
Commentary
The West has been too quick to dismiss the coordination among China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia....
By Andrea Kendall-Taylor & Richard Fontaine
