Hypersonic missiles
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Hypersonic missiles came up in John Kiriakou's live wartime Q&A when a viewer asked how much of a beating Iran would take before unleashing them, and prompted a preliminary question on the programme about whether the weapons existed at all.

Existence and holders

Kiriakou's answer was flat. "Oh, yeah. They're real. The Russians have them. The Chinese have them. The Iranians have them."

Why they matter

The danger he identifies is arithmetical rather than exotic. "No, but the the danger of hypersonic missiles is they'll go three or four times the speed of sound. So, you're you're dealing with a missile going 2,500 mi an hour. You can't defend against a missile going 2,500 mi an hour."

The targets he names as reachable are political and naval rather than tactical: "And so, maybe you can get it into, you know, the Knesset building or you can get it into the side of the USS Abraham Lincoln or something like that. And then, you know, the West is going to have to deal with it."

The constraint

The qualification Kiriakou attaches is the one that governs how the weapons would actually be used. "They don't have a lot of them. They only have a couple of them. But, you know, we'll see if they use them."

He endorses the comparison drawn on the programme to the Afghan mujahideen of the 1980s, who did not have many Stinger missiles either but "had to make them count", answering "That's right, and they did."

The wider argument

The scarcity is what connects the subject to Kiriakou's general reading of the war. His position is that Iran does not need to win: "the US and Israel have to win. The Iranians just have to survive. And that is much, much easier than winning." A handful of undefendable missiles held in reserve is, on that logic, worth more unfired than fired, a deterrent asset in a war of endurance rather than an instrument of victory.

See also

- Killing Khamenei
- Iranian intelligence capability
- The Bridgeton And The Tanker Escorts
- Iran Posed No Threat
