Iran Fortifies Nuclear Sites and Warns Gulf Allies

Third U.S. Carrier Group Heads to Middle East

Iran is hardening nuclear facilities, border areas and other security-related bunkers after using the pause in direct U.S.-Iran fighting to rebuild its missile and drone arsenal, according to a Monday report in The Wall Street Journal. Vantor satellite imagery reviewed by the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Science and International Security shows makeshift dirt mounds constructed last month around Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain and Natanz nuclear sites, intended to impede a ground raid.

Iran has little ability to defend against attacks from advanced U.S. jets, high-altitude bombers or cruise missiles, giving it an incentive to try to deter such attacks with threats, the Journal reported. The belligerent tone also serves as a distraction from the deepening economic misery Iranians are experiencing as the United States toughens sanctions and pressures airlines not to fly to the country, tightening the blockade.

The fortifications sit alongside an intensified public messaging campaign aimed at both domestic audiences and regional adversaries. Iran’s airports, seaports and power plants “have prepared for wartime conditions,” with shelters and backup supplies installed to keep them operating in a crisis, Brig. Gen. Gholamreza Jalali, the official in charge of the country’s contingency plans, told reporters at the end of September. State media has broadcast daily pro-regime gatherings, with Iranian residents telling the Journal the crowds have grown bigger and spread to more locations in recent weeks. In Sabzevar, a city in northeastern Iran, a Revolutionary Guard unit visited a kindergarten and showed children stories from the earlier fighting this year and a U.S. Tomahawk missile that the unit said it had neutralized, according to the social-media account of the guard’s ground forces. Billboards in Tehran now advertise civilian training courses in the use of shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles and sniper rifles. Last month, the Revolutionary Guard boasted that it had trained its first female commando units in guerrilla tactics, firearms use and drone piloting, according to footage posted by the Fatehin, an elite unit of Iran’s Basij volunteer defense forces. A hard-line cleric who joined the demonstrations said he expected the war to restart and Iran to win it. “Diplomacy hasn’t worked,” the cleric said in an interview, “so Iran has no other choice but to fight.”

Tehran is also pressing its threats outward. Rezaei, Iran’s top national security official, said on Sunday that Iran could target the United Arab Emirates — which has largely escaped attack since late spring — as well as data centers and internet cables across the region. Iranian officials have privately warned Arab counterparts that they could strike Saudi oil facilities in the event of renewed conflict, according to people familiar with the warnings, and some Iranian officials have hinted that their forces could conduct land incursions into neighboring countries. The government has also told mediators that it would more aggressively target U.S. personnel, including by trying to sink U.S. warships in the Middle East and kill their crews, according to some of the people familiar with the warnings.

The U.S. military has been gearing up in parallel. The United States has ramped up its economic pressure campaign and is guiding tankers through the Strait of Hormuz with increasing success, the Journal reported. A third aircraft carrier strike group and another Marine expeditionary unit are steaming toward the Middle East, and the Pentagon is weighing additional air-defense equipment and munitions for regional bases, the Journal has reported. The Pentagon moved a dozen B-1 bombers from a U.K. military base last week over concerns that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had planned a drone attack. Iranian missiles came close to American warships during attacks in September. President Trump last week ruled out an attack before the Nov. 3 midterm elections but has publicly mulled hitting Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain nuclear site, and U.S. officials have said the military is preparing a range of options for new strikes. Iran is fortifying its defenses and rallying loyalists as it prepares for potential American attacks after the midterms and seeks to deter them.

Iran’s threats and regional attacks have underscored the vulnerability of Gulf targets. A missile attack by Houthi militants on the airport in Riyadh killed at least 13 people and injured hundreds more on Saturday, the single deadliest attack on the United States or its Gulf allies in the conflicts related to the Iran war, according to the Journal. That would add to the threat Saudi Arabia faces from Iran-backed Houthi militants in Yemen. Iran has stepped up its strikes on vessels in the Persian Gulf area; at least three commercial vessels were hit over the weekend in and around the Strait of Hormuz, according to U.K. Maritime Trade Operations, which is affiliated with the Royal Navy. A drone attack set a fire on Emirati tanker Petro Dolphin near Oman on Sunday, leaving two Indian sailors missing.

Iran’s preparations have come after a months-long pause in direct U.S.-Iran fighting that dates to Trump’s decision in late July to call off plans for a major escalation, partly over concerns about supplies of missile interceptors needed to defend targets across the region. Iran has used the pause to rebuild its missile and drone facilities and replenish its arsenal. Iran’s supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, praised the work but acknowledged supply-chain struggles in early September comments published by news outlets linked to the Revolutionary Guard.

Both sides are now public about their preparations, and analysts said the renewed tempo reflects a conflict that neither side feels it can leave where it is. “The war footing is serving them well for now due to an impasse on many fronts — diplomatically, economically and politically,” Sanam Vakil, Middle East director at London’s Chatham House think tank, told the Journal. “With a new war, the Islamic Republic could dig itself out of the cul-de-sac it has dug for itself.” Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior director of the Iran program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington think tank, said the regime’s measures now amount to both deterrence and war planning. “In both word and deed, the Islamic Republic is actively preparing for the next war,” he said. “In this sense the regime’s measures constitute both deterrence and war planning.”