(Image Source: Sky News)

BY CHARLES MCKEAGUE

ANCHOR LAUREN GORES

Iran’s navy has successfully launched short and long-range missiles during drills near the strategic Strait of Hormuz. This, a day after the country announced it has created its first nuclear fuel rods. Euronews sums up Iran’s latest tests.

“Iran says it will test fire two long-range missiles on Monday.  On Sunday State TV repeatedly showed the navy test firing medium-range missiles, which it says can avoid radar.  Iran is ending 10 days of naval exercises which it says are aimed at preparing to repel any possible attack.”

Fox News says these missiles aren’t nuclear missiles - and takes a guess at why Iran might be performing the drills.

“Well it is not necessarily a nuclear missile, Martha, but we don't know all that much about it. Iran this morning is bragging about two different missiles it tested during these exercises in the Persian Gulf. One is called the Gadarir. It is supposed hit ships. Mirav is surface to air. Now, Iran is calling the Gadarir a long range missile. …  But basically this is a message that Iran is sending that it is trying to project two ways. One is that Iran is able to block the straits of Hormuz, and another that it is self-sufficient and that it’s making its own missiles.”

On Sunday the U.S. announced new sanctions against Iran - and media outlets are reporting Iran has threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz. About 20 percent of all of the world’s oil traffic passes through that strait in 2011. According to IRNA — the recent drills included mock exercises to close it. 

And the Islamic news agency quoted a spokesperson for the missile drills, who says the exercises were successful - hitting the desired targets and “totally destroying them.”

According to Iran’s state-run Press TV, the drills are defensive, and the country intends to send a message of peace and friendship to the region.  But if a country should harm the Islamic republic - it's game on. 

“The member of the Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Committee emphasized that the desire to harm … will have devastating consequences because given its ‘immense defensive potential [Iran] will cut off the hands of aggressors.’ … Iran has warned that in case Western threats of imposing an oil embargo ... materialize, it reserves the right to respond by choking the oil flow through Hormuz, arguing that the free flow of oil must be for all or for none.”

The Christian Science Monitor explains how Western-imposed sanctions are affecting Iran, and discusses how closing the Strait of Hormuz might not be the country’s best bet.

“Though Iran says it’s not being hurt by the sanctions, its currency has lost 53 percent of its value against the dollar over the past year. If Iran closed of the Strait of Hormuz in response to sanctions, Agence France-Presse reports that it would risk hurting its economy even further, losing the support of China and Russia, and starting an open war with the US.”

Despite Western suspicions, Iran maintains its nuclear program is designed strictly to meet the country’s electricity needs.