The delivery of Russian S-300 air defense missiles to Iran will not affect the U.S. ability to strike at Tehran’s nuclear facilities if necessary, the top US military officer said on Thursday.
“We’ve known about the potential for that system to be sold to Iran for several years and have accounted for it in all of our plans,” General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a news conference.
Dempsey said the military option would not be undermined by Russia’s decision this week to supply Iran with the sophisticated S-300 missiles.
“The military option that I owe the president to both encourage a diplomatic solution and if the diplomacy fails to ensure that Iran does not achieve a nuclear weapon is intact,” Dempsey said.
Although the S-300 would provide a major improvement for the Iranian regime’s air defense network, it remains unclear if the missile would be a match for American stealthy F-22 fighters and bombers, experts say.