Lessons from Iran’s shoot-down of Ukrainian Airlines 752

By SETH J. FRANTZMAN

Iran went from “it’s a big lie” to “we apologize” in just 24 hours from Friday to Saturday. It now says that it shot down Ukrainian Airlines flight #752 on the morning of January 8, killing all 176 people on board.

The Iranian mistake is not the first time civilian jetliners have been shot down: The US shot down an Iranian passenger plane in the 1980s and the Russians shot down a Korean plane. Ukrainian insurgents also likely shot down a Malaysian plane in 2014.

What makes Iran’s admission interesting and how the tragedy has unfolded is important and reveals some details about Tehran’s targeting of US bases on January 8.

First of all, let’s start with the unprecedented. Iran decided to use ballistic missiles to target American bases in Iraq in the wake of the US killing of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) general Qasem Soleimani. The ballistic missiles were mostly aimed at Al-Assad base, where US President Donald Trump had spoken in December 2018. This was symbolic. Not all of the missiles made it – and this shows that Iran’s ballistic missiles are dangerous, but can also malfunction. The Islamic Republic has used missiles before, but this is the first time they’ve been used against US bases.

Washington decided not to respond directly to the attack. That is a big deal in itself, because usually when countries fire ballistic missiles at a base, the recipient will respond. The US has instead decided to de-escalate. This is mostly due to the fact that no one was killed in Iraq. The missiles hit warehouses and runways and other infrastructure. This could have been purposeful or it could have been by mistake. Iran had initially claimed that it killed numerous US soldiers.

Iran expected a response. Its air defense crews were on alert. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the Aerospace Force of the IRGC, says that his men had only ten seconds to decide if they should shoot down Ukrainian Airlines 752. He claims their systems were jammed and they lacked communications. This points to either errors in their system or foreign jamming. But in such a situation near an international airport, why didn’t the IRGC coordinate with civilian air controllers? Why didn’t they have a list of known civilian departures? Why didn’t the airport route civilian traffic elsewhere or stop it entirely?

The IRGC was operating the air defenses and fired the ballistic missiles as well. Soleimani was also a senior Guard Corps member. All this points to the IRGC controlling most of Iran’s foreign offensive capabilities as well as internal defenses. What does Iran’s army actually do? It’s not clear, but the army and civilians and others seem to have been out of the loop on January 8 during this operation.

This has harmed Hajizadeh’s reputation. The man allegedly responsible for other Iranian actions in Syria and against the Gulf has not had his reputation tarnished. But by taking responsibility, he is showing some decency in the tragedy’s aftermath. The regime may have ordered him to do so to make him and the IRGC into scapegoats. Is this another way to claim that the “hardliners” downed a plane while the “good” regime did not? So far it is unclear, but it does poke holes in Iran’s air defense and show how problematic Iran’s IRGC is, despite its boasts.

Iran’s air defenders made a severe mistake and this shows they expected to be attacked by the US. Hajizadeh implicated an alleged cruise missile threat as the culprit. But Iran doesn’t say where it thinks the US would shoot cruise missiles from. Iran was on high alert that morning but hadn’t indicated this to civilians. This shows a major disconnect between the IRGC and its plans and communications, and the rest of Iran. It illustrates that next time, foreign airlines should be reticent in a time of crisis to continue flying.

Iran’s IRGC says they carried out cyberattacks against US forces before firing ballistic missiles. The group indicates that it could have killed more Americans if it had wanted to. This is a way to save face in the wake of the downing of the plane.

The IRGC wants to showcase capabilities that it was not expected to have. Whether it actually was able to disable US drones and communications is unclear. What is clear is that its own communications systems did not perform well – and that 176 people died because of it.