Prof. Steven Starr: “Israel would not hesitate to attack Iran with nuclear weapons”

Mohsen Abdelmoumen: During one of your interviews, you mentioned the destruction of the U.S. THAAD system and radar stations in the Middle East, particularly those intended to protect the Iron Dome and Israel. You also spoke about the strategic advantage that Iran’s possession of hypersonic missiles represents in the context of this crisis. Could you elaborate on these points for our readers?

Prof. Steven Starr: The U.S. utilizes a layered defense system to intercept missiles, warheads, and drones. The system uses Patriot (PAC-3) to target and destroy tactical ballistic/cruise missiles, THAAD for high-altitude terminal intercepts, and the Aegis Combat System (sea/land) using SM-3/SM-6 missiles for midcourse/terminal defense. All these systems require a high-altitude phased array radar system to make an initial identification of any incoming missile or warhead, which points these land and sea-based radar systems in the direction of the threat. Without this initial identification, the THAAD, Patriot, and Aegis SM-3 air defense systems do not have enough time to locate rapidly incoming targets.

The US had placed an AN/FPS-132 Block 5 Solid State Phased Array Radar in Qatar that was used for the purpose of initial target identification.  The AN/FPS-132 also supplied this same information to the Israeli “Iron Dome” radar system.  After the initial US-Israeli attack, Iran responded by targeting and destroying the AN/FPS-132 radar in Qatar, as well as four THAAD radar systems that had been deployed at US military bases in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).  The destruction of these systems effectively disabled and blinded US and Israeli air defense systems in the Middle East, leaving Israel with only about a 1-minute warning time of missile attacks. (AWACs have been brought in to help address this, but it seems they are not capable of effectively replacing the destroyed radar systems.)

US air defense systems, even when working as designed, have proven ineffective in intercepting Russian and Iranian hypersonic missiles (the US does not have even a working prototype of a hypersonic missile).  Patriot and THAAD systems, while quite effective at destroying enemy aircraft, have very low intercept rates for ballistic missiles.  (Dr. Theodore Postol has been warning for years that US Ballistic Missile Defense systems are essentially fraudulent.)  The US systems were developed in the 20th century, and even with upgrades, they have proven to be essentially obsolete compared to Russian S-400 air defense systems.

You emphasize the harmful influence of Christian Zionists in the United States and of the Israeli government led by religious extremists. Do you think Trump is trapped or acting out of opportunism in his military campaign in the Middle East, or does he, too, share this millenarian agenda?

In my opinion, Trump is essentially a narcissist and opportunist. Although there are photos of Trump participating in fundamentalist religious ceremonies in the White House, I suspect the primary Zionist Christian influence comes from those with whom he has surrounded himself, as well from Zionists who made huge contributions to his presidential campaign (those donors also were instrumental in selecting the members of Trump’s Cabinet).

Whatever the case may be, Trump has consistently made policy decisions that support and benefit the Zionists in Israel rather than the American people. Trump was elected President based on his repeated promises to end U.S. involvement in foreign wars, yet he has pursued a diametrically opposite course with his unwavering support of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, which has carried out the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians and sought war with Iran for many years.

Regarding the Strait of Hormuz, you seem convinced that the U.S. military cannot break the current Iranian blockade. Could you explain your analysis of this tactical battle over the Strait of Hormuz?

Iran has fire control over the entire northern coastline of the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. Ships passing up the Gulf of Oman and then through the Persian Gulf are within range of Iranian missiles and drones. The coastline is ringed by mountains and cliffs that overlook the narrow Strait of Hormuz. Ships moving through the 33 to 39 km-wide Strait can be targeted by artillery, missiles, and drones.

The U.S. Navy has refused to send its ships to fight in the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf. U.S. Carrier Battle Groups have moved to 1000 kilometers offshore from Iran to remain out of range of Iranian drones and missiles. Although the USS Gerald Ford reported that it had been disabled by a “laundry fire” – which required 30 hours to extinguish – it seems more likely that it was hit by Iranian missiles and/or underwater drones (the Ford is out of action).

Iran has spent decades preparing for a full-scale war with the U.S. and Israel. It has built an enormous arsenal of modern ballistic missiles and drones that are based in underground “missile cities” scattered all across the Iranian nation (which is the size of Western Europe). Missile cities are constructed hundreds of meters deep in mountains made of granite that are close to impossible to locate and destroy with conventional weapons. Even when the tunnel entrances are blocked, the Iranians can use equipment based within the cities to dig their way out and move their mobile missile launchers outside to continue their attacks. The fact that Israel continues to be hit every day with waves of missile attacks demonstrates that the U.S is unable to locate and destroy Iranian missile cities.

After Iran was attacked by the U.S. and Israel on February 28, it launched a counterattack on the many U.S. military bases in the Middle East surrounding the Persian Gulf. Iranian missiles comprehensively destroyed these bases and their radar installations. U.S. air defense systems were unable to protect their bases, and U.S. troops have been driven out of 13 of 14 bases in the region, with only one U.S. base in northern Iraq still in operation.  

Iran specifically targeted the radar systems at U.S. bases (as previously mentioned); 4 THAAD radars (two in the UAE, one in Saudi Arabia, and one in Jordan) and the AN/FPS-132 phased radar in Qatar were destroyed. The loss of the radar systems has effectively blinded U.S. and Israeli forces to long-range missile attacks, and this has reduced the warning time of missile attacks in Israel to one minute. The U.S. has only 13 THAAD radar systems in its entire inventory, so the loss of these systems is a huge loss to the U.S. (the U.S. cannot currently rebuild THAAD radars because it lacks the rare earths required to do so, as they come from China, which has blocked export of rare earths to the U.S.)

In an attempt to compensate for these losses, the US has pulled THAAD radars and Patriot missile systems out of South Korea and is rushing them to the Middle East. However, the loss of the ANFPY-132 system means that THAAD and Patriot systems will not receive the target acquisition data they normally require to focus in on an incoming missile, which means their ability to intercept and destroy enemy missiles will be considerably decreased (from their already low intercept rates).

Furthermore, the U.S. has already greatly depleted its stores of stand-off munitions and interceptor missiles through their expenditure in the war in Ukraine and their use in support of Israel. The U.S. has offshored most of its industrial base, and its extremely expensive high-tech missiles are hand-made (rather than being produced in an automated assembly line); consequently, the U.S. currently manufactures fewer than 1000 of the THAAD and Patriot PAC-3 interceptor missiles each year. Because two interceptor missiles are fired at each incoming missile or drone (the rate of expenditure far exceeds U.S. production capacity), and because the stocks of interceptor missiles were already quite low before the Iran War began, both the U.S. and Israel will run out of these missiles in a matter of weeks.

In war, logistics are generally more important than tactics. The simple fact that the U.S. has to move all its equipment and troops halfway around the world puts it at a great disadvantage in its current illegal war against Iran.  The U.S. has moved more than one-third of its active naval forces and huge numbers of its fighters, bombers, aerial tankers, and AWACS to the Middle East, and these forces must be resupplied and maintained, which is an enormous and costly undertaking. This becomes a great disadvantage in any conflict that lasts more than a few weeks. And the loss of U.S. military bases in the Gulf region has greatly increased the distance for U.S. ships and planes to travel back and forth to the war zone.

The U.S. is reportedly moving two battalions of Marines and 1,000 U.S. Airborne troops to the Middle East, with the Pentagon also activating another 10,000 troops for deployment; there is a lot of talk of some type of ground invasion of Iranian islands or perhaps a port city. Iran has a one-million-man standing army. It is hard for me to imagine how the U.S. will successfully invade any part of Iran with such a relatively small force. With the U.S. Navy being kept at bay 1000 km offshore, any invasion force would have to be parachuted in and resupplied by air.

Remember the Battle of Gallipoli during World War 1, where roughly half a million Allied troops attempted to invade the mountainous coast of the Dardanelles Strait (after the British Navy failed to pass through the Strait). The Allied invaders suffered about 250,000 casualties (killed, wounded, sick, and missing in action) and were repulsed by the Turks, who overlooked the invaders from the rocky cliffs that towered above the shoreline. Any U.S. invasion of Iran (with the current pitifully small force levels) has the same chances of success as did the Allied troops who fought and died at Gallipoli.

You highlight the risk of escalation into a nuclear conflict. What is the basis for your concern, and which side do you think is most likely to use nuclear weapons?

Israel has a highly sophisticated nuclear arsenal made up of several hundred nuclear weapons. In addition to nuclear-armed ballistic missiles and gravity bombs, Israel also has 5 German diesel subs armed with Tomahawk missiles that carry a 200-kiloton warhead with ranges of at least 1600 km. Israel has been conducting genocide (enabled by the financial and military support of the U.S.) in Palestine for more than two years, resulting in hundreds of thousands of Palestinians buried in the rubble of Gaza. Israel would not hesitate to attack Iran with nuclear weapons if it believed its existence as a state was at risk – and this may soon be the case now that the “Iron Dome” is failing to intercept the daily barrages of Iranian missiles carrying one-ton high-explosive warheads.

If Trump is foolish enough to order a ground invasion of Iran, and U.S. troops are subsequently slaughtered by Iran, followed by the sinking of U.S. naval vessels, I think Trump is more likely to order the use of tactical nuclear weapons against Iran rather than order a retreat.

At the outset of this war, the U.S. killed the Iranian leader who had spent the last 26 years preventing Iran from building nuclear weapons. His son, who lost his wife and daughter in the attack, is now the new Ayatollah. Do you think he will continue his father’s fatwa against nuclear weapons?  Iran had enough 60% HEU to manufacture weapons-grade HEU to make 9 or 10 atomic bombs.  I think the weapons-grade HEU has already been produced and made into nuclear warheads that can be mounted on Iranian hypersonic missiles. 50% of the population of Israel lives in the three largest Israeli cities; if Israel or the U.S. attacks Iran with nuclear weapons, it will retaliate with its own nuclear weapons and destroy Israel.

The Western media have become propaganda machines, and this trend only worsens in times of war, as is the case with the current crises. How do you explain this shift in the media over the past 30 years?

In the 1980s, the U.S. had more than 50 large and relatively independent news organizations. But after President Bill Clinton’s administration removed anti-monopoly regulatory restrictions, the news organizations were bought up, and eventually the U.S. wound up with 5 mega-corporate news corporations that own and control about 90% of all news media. These 5 corporate conglomerates are all at the mercy of Federal regulation and control, as their licenses to operate can be revoked at any time by the Federal Communications Commission.

The lead news stories today must correspond to the official narratives, otherwise the stories will not make it to prime time. Over the years, news organizations in these media giants have gradually eliminated their staff of reporters, especially those located overseas. Rather than conduct independent journalism, newspapers rely on the statements that come from governments that are allied with or under the control of the U.S. Many executives who run the newsrooms are also more often concerned with advertising revenue rather than accurate reporting. Bottom line – the content of all stories being reported must be acceptable to the Board of Directors that runs the corporation, which always relies on the official narratives from the Federal government for the final word.

And as they say, “Truth is the first casualty in war.”  After 9/11 and the passage of the Patriot Act, the subsequent “War on Terror” that led to endless wars, the truth was more often than not absent in mainstream media reporting. After the Ukraine War began in 2014, war propaganda became overwhelming. Russophobia (which is unrecognized racism) became rampant; Putin became Satan, all the villains in Hollywood movies became Russians, and Russia was blamed for everything from lost elections to bad weather.

Populations must be conditioned to hate before they can be convinced to support a war against another nation or people.

Interview conducted by Mohsen Abdelmoumen

Professor Starr directed the Clinical Laboratory Science Program at the University of Missouri in Columbia for 11 years; he retired from that position in 2021. He obtained his degrees at the University of Missouri, Columbia, and he has also worked in Missouri clinical labs for 37 years as a Medical Technologist. Starr is a Board Member of the Los Alamos Study Group, an Associate of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, and has been a Board Member and Senior Scientist with Physicians for Social Responsibility. During the years 2015 through 2025, Steven Starr taught an online entitled nuclear weapons: Environmental, Health, and Social Effects for the University of Missouri Peace Studies Program.

He has worked with the Swiss, Chilean, and Swedish governments in support of their efforts at the United Nations to eliminate thousands of high-alert, launch-ready U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons; he maintains the website Nuclear Famine.

His work has been published by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the Federation of American Scientists, the International Commission for Nuclear Non-proliferation, Physicians for Social Responsibility, the Strategic Arms Reduction website of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology Center for Arms Control, Energy and Environmental Studies, by the Scientists for Global Responsibility, and the International Network of Scientists Against Proliferation. Starr began making presentations at side panels at the United Nations in 2007, sometimes working as an expert witness for Switzerland, New Zealand, and Chile at the UN offices in NYC and Geneva. In 2010, Starr addressed the UN First Committee, discussing the environmental consequences of nuclear war, including nuclear winter and nuclear famine.

Published in French in La Nouvelle République and Algeriepatriotique