For at least two decades now, North Korea has been acting behind the scenes to accelerate the Iranian ballistic missile program and perhaps many other parts of Iran’s military-industrial base.

The first major Iranian ballistic missile – the Shahab-3 – was widely viewed when it was first tested in 1998 to be a knockoff of the North Korean Nodong missile. The missile became operational in the Iranian armed forces in 2003 and Iran today fields one of the largest missile forces in the Middle East, largely because of the help it received from North Korean engineers.

Very few people have been aware of the fact that Iran also received a missile known as the BM-25 from North Korea. This was originally a Soviet submarine-launched ballistic missile and it came in two models: one was 2,500 kilometers in range and the second one was 3,500 kilometers in range.

This missile, which was reconfigured to be used on land, gave Iran the capability of striking far outside of the Middle East. Indeed, those ranges give Iran the ability to hit as far as the English Channel.

If North Korea is moving toward an international ballistic missile capability, it will be foolhardy not to consider that Iran will soon be there as well.

This updated video was originally part of a larger Diplomatic Dispatch on March 22, 2017. (Rex Tillerson’s Warnings to North Korea Reached the Middle East)