Iran Postures

Iranian warships headed to the U.S. coast pose little danger to the United States but could be a dry run for the future, according to former U.S. military and security officials.

The mission shows the danger Iran would pose if it possessed nuclear weapons, says John Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under President George W. Bush and an arms negotiator during the Cold War.

"It shows they could put a weapon on a boat or freighter, and if (Iran) has ballistic missiles it could put it anywhere on the U.S. coast," Bolton said. "Down the road it could be a threat."

Chris Harmer, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War and a former military planner for the U.S. Navy in Persian Gulf, said one of the two ships is a military cargo ship that has visited China in the past and is suspected of delivering Iranian arms shipments to Sudan on multiple visits to that country in the past few years.

While it poses no tactical threat to the United States, Iran will likely use it to advance its relationship with its ally Venezuela, a U.S. adversary in the Caribbean.

"It shows the Iranians have worldwide ambitions and capabilities," Harmer said.

 Iran's military has successfully test-fired two new domestically made missiles, the defense minister said on Monday according to state television, ahead of talks with world powers to try to reach an agreement on curbing Tehran's nuclear program.

Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan said one of them was a long-range ballistic missile with radar-evading capabilities.

"The new generation of long-range ground-to-ground ballistic missile with a fragmentation warhead and the laser-guided air-to-surface and surface-to-surface missile dubbed Bina (Insightful) have been successfully test-fired," state television quoted him as saying.

"The Bina missile is capable of striking important targets such as bridges, tanks and enemy command centers with great precision."

Iran already has long-range surface-to-surface Shahab missiles (above) with a range of about 2,000 km (1,250 miles) that are capable of reaching Israel and U.S. military bases in the Middle East. 

However, analysts have challenged some of Iran's military assertions, saying it often exaggerates its capabilities.

President Hassan Rouhani issued a congratulatory message saying: "Iran's children successfully test-fired a new generation of missiles," the television reported.

The news comes as the United States and other world powers prepare to meet Feb. 18 with Iranian diplomats in Vienna to seek a comprehensive agreement about Iran's disputed nuclear program. 

Iran seeks an agreement that would eliminate economic sanctions over its nuclear program that have crippled its economy. The United States seeks to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.