US pushes laser arm, cites Iran’s might

Highlighting major US concerns over Iran’s surging naval strength, the American Navy has announced the development of a new ‘laser weapon’ that a major US daily claims is intended to deter Iranian ‘harassment’ of American military presence in the Persian Gulf.

The US Navy plans to deploy the experimental “shipboard laser,” which has shown “in tests to disable patrol boats and blind or destroy surveillance drones,” to the Persian Gulf, “where Iranian fast-attack boats have harassed American warships” and where the Islamic Republic is developing drones that carry “surveillance pods and, someday potentially, rockets,” The New York Times reports on Tuesday.

Although no US official has been quoted by the influential daily as mentioning Iran by name, the report likely reflects the mindset of the American military authorities and their aim of using the Islamic Republic’s naval power as a pretext to win funding for the weapon project in the pro-Israeli US Congress.

The report, however, further points to US Defense Department’s “long history of grossly inflating claims for its experimental weapons,” adding that a “nonpartisan study for Congress” to promote the laser attack weapon claims “the weapon offered the Navy historic opportunities.”

Although the weapon “will not be operational until next year,” the Times claims that Monday’s announcement of its deployment by Chief of US Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert “seemed meant as a warning to Iran not to step up activity in the [Persian] Gulf in the next few months if tensions increase because of [the US-led] sanctions.”

The report further quotes Chief of Naval Research Rear Adm. Matthew Klunder as saying that the laser weapon was developed as part of the Navy’s search for “new, innovative, disruptive technologies,” in a bid to battle adversaries that have come up with inventive means “to counter American power.”

This is while the daily also points to the limitations of the experimental laser weapon, including its ineffectiveness in bad weather condition and in the presence of smoke, sand and dust.

Another major drawback of the laser is that it is a “line of sight” weapon, which means that its targets must be visible. In other words, it cannot confront threats over the horizon.

Furthermore, US adversaries can take countermeasures against the laser attack weapon, such as coating vessels and pilotless aircraft with reflective surfaces.

Among the advantages cited for the weapon in the promotional study for the US Congress is its low cost – “less than $1 per sustained [high-energy laser] pulse” – against “certain targets” compared to an interceptor missile that ‘cost up to $1.4 million,” according to the report.

The news of the US plan to develop an anti-drone weapon comes after Iranian defense forces remotely intercepted and took over control of at least two American surveillance drones over the Islamic Republic’s airspace, safely landing them in Iran and recovering its data.

This is while the US has been the only country to deploy armed assassination drones in Muslim countries as part of its secret and illegal targeted killing plan to assassinate perceived militant enemies. In the process, over 3,000 have been reported killed by American drone strikes, most of whom have been identified as innocent civilians.