Iranian Reaction to US Missile Defenses - UPDATED

Yep, the predictable reaction from Iran, mocking US missile defenses around them.

Iran on Tuesday criticized the U.S. move to boost the defensive missiles system in Gulf Arab countries against potential strikes by Tehran, calling it a political ploy to increase American military presence in the region.
Parliament speaker Ali Larijani said upgrading the missile defense systems in the Persian Gulf would only bring more trouble for U.S. forces.
"Regional countries should know that this puppet show by the U.S., while claiming to create security in the region is nothing except a new political ploy to increase the (American) military presence at the expense of others," Larijani said during a parliament session.
The remarks follow reports that the Obama administration has quietly increased the capability of land-based Patriot defensive missiles in several Gulf Arab nations. One U.S. military official said last week the Navy is stepping up the presence of ships capable of knocking out hostile missiles in flight.
The defenses are being beefed up ahead of possible new sanctions against Tehran over its refusal to halt uranium enrichment, which the West fears masks Iranian ambitions to produce a nuclear weapon.
Iran has missiles ranging up to about 1,200 miles (1,900 kilometers) that could hit Israel and the U.S bases in the region, as well as parts of southeastern and eastern Europe. Tehran denies its nuclear program is meant for any other purpose except electricity production.
Four Mideast countries to have the U.S system are Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain — which also hosts the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet headquarters — and Qatar, which has a modernized U.S. air operations center that played a key role in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. Central Command chief responsible for U.S. military operations across the Middle East, mentioned in recent public speeches one element of the defensive strategy in the Gulf: upgrading Patriot missile systems, which originally were deployed in the region to shoot down aircraft but now can hit missiles in flight.

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UPDATE

Here's an unpredictable reaction:

Iran announced Wednesday it has successfully launched a 10-foot-long research rocket carrying a mouse, two turtles and worms into space — a feat President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said showed Iran could defeat the West in the battle of technology.
The launch of the Kavoshgar-3, which means Explorer-3 in Farsi, was announced by Defense Minister Gen. Ahmad Vahidi as part of Iran's ambitious space program. It comes a year after Iran sent its first domestically made telecommunications satellite into orbit.
The program has worried Western powers who fear the same technology used to launch satellites and research capsules could also deliver warheads.
Iranian state television broadcast images Wednesday of officials putting a mouse, two turtles and about a dozen creatures that looked like worms inside a capsule in the rocket before it blast off.
Vahidi gave no details on the research and the report did not disclose when or where the launch took place.

You wonder if this launch was a finger in the eye of the US, or if it was scheduled all along. Given that the Iranians tend to heavily promote such technological achievements ahead of time to drum up media interest (and take their beatings of dissidents off the front page) you have to think this was a last-minute over-reaction to the US missile defense shield announcements.

By: Brant