Damage to Iran’s missile stockpile could limit a prolonged exchange
Iran’s warning named U.S. bases and warships, but it also included airports, pipelines and other civilian targets in neighboring Gulf countries. The Wall Street Journal reported that the warnings were issued publicly and in private diplomatic communications. The newspaper characterized the warnings as intended to deter an attack and said they signaled a real threat, while noting that Iran retained significant missile and drone stocks and the ability to use them.
People familiar with the threats said Iranian officials told mediators that Iran would expand attacks across Gulf nations, including their economic assets, if new U.S. strikes occurred. The people said Tehran would also target U.S. personnel more aggressively, including by trying to sink U.S. warships in the Middle East and kill their crews.
Brigadier General Yadollah Javani, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ deputy commander for political affairs, said Wednesday that Iran could sever internet cables beneath the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi wrote in an opinion piece in the Financial Times that new attacks “will put civilian lives and the wellbeing of all regional states and the global economy at great risk.”
Analysts estimated that Iran had from hundreds to thousands of ballistic missiles, while U.S. and regional officials believed it had resumed production of ballistic missiles in limited numbers using stockpiled components and working in underground facilities.
Tehran said it would seek greater damage in any new round at a time when stockpiles of the air-defense interceptors the U.S. and Arab militaries need to absorb any attack were running down and Israel’s interceptor supplies were also under pressure. The Wall Street Journal assessed that Iran’s economy was under strain and reported that another conflict would expose its infrastructure to attack. Earlier U.S. and Israeli attacks damaged Iran’s missile arsenal and launchers early in the war; the Pentagon said in September that the U.S. had destroyed up to 90% of Iran’s drone, ballistic-missile and naval industrial base. The damage limited Iran’s ability to sustain a long exchange, though analysts believed Tehran would run the risk.
During the war’s opening phase, Iran inflicted significant damage on U.S. air bases, embassies and the headquarters of the U.S. 5th Fleet in Bahrain. Iran also struck energy and industrial facilities in the United Arab Emirates, a major gas plant in Qatar and airports in Dubai, Kuwait and Bahrain.
Negotiations to end the war had been stalled for months. Trump warned that the U.S. could attack Iran after the Nov. 3 midterm elections, while U.S. and Israeli militaries prepared a range of strike options. The U.S. also was sending a third aircraft-carrier strike group and an additional Marine expeditionary unit to the Middle East, bringing more forces and munitions. Gulf states believed the combination of Iranian threats and stalled diplomacy made escalation likely.
The U.S. was also working to move service members and diplomatic personnel away from possible attacks. The military moved some troops off regional bases as Iran and its Houthi militant allies threatened the Gulf. The State Department directed nonemergency U.S. government employees and their family members to leave Saudi Arabia amid the threat from the Houthis. A U.S. official said the departure order also led to reshuffling families from some other Middle East embassies, reducing the U.S. footprint as risks grew.
Experts said Iran could use asymmetrical strategies to inflict heavy damage at low cost. Yemen’s Houthi militants, working with training and technology from Iran, had struck Saudi Arabian refineries and shut down air traffic to the capital with a series of long-range missile and drone attacks that Iran could replicate. Drones fired from Iraq had knocked Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline out of operation for days and threatened oil supplies.
Since the beginning of the month, Iran had increased its strikes on vessels in the Persian Gulf area, and two ships had sunk the previous week after being hit. Concerns that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had planned a drone attack on U.S. bombers at a base in Britain led the Air Force to move the bombers back to the United States. Some of Iran’s more recent missile strikes showed greater capabilities than previously, including a July attack on Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan that killed three U.S. service members. Iranian missiles also came close to American warships during attacks in September.
U.S. officials were concerned that Iran might receive satellite-imagery and warship-tracking assistance from Chinese entities. China rejected what it called malicious attempts to smear the country. On Sunday, Iran’s parliament appointed Mehrdad Akhlaghi, one of the fathers of the country’s ballistic program, as defense minister. The position had been vacant since his predecessor was killed in February, and Akhlaghi said Thursday that he would focus on new technologies.
Sina Toossi, an Iran expert at the Center for International Policy, a Washington think tank, said, “The consensus in Tehran now believes that deterrence requires imposing immediate, sustained and substantial costs on its adversaries.” Saeid Golnar, an expert on the Revolutionary Guard at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, said Iran risked overreaching if it tried to fulfill all its threats and would need to manage its shrinking missile stockpile carefully.
Farzin Nadimi, an Iran-focused senior fellow at the Washington Institute, a U.S. think tank, said Tehran would have to consider the likelihood of U.S. and Israeli retaliation. “They certainly have the capability to inflict major damage to the region’s energy and internet infrastructure,” Nadimi said. “But if Iranians do that they’ll most likely lose their own in reciprocal attacks.” Vali Nasr, a former senior State Department adviser, said, “We can dismiss their threats as bluffs, but then they have surprised throughout this war,” and, “So if anything we should be cautious in discounting the threats. I am not sure their capabilities are diminished.”
After MSI reported the July 30 U.S. strikes following an Iranian attack on a Jordan base and Trump’s July 31 vow to resume heavy attacks as diplomacy collapsed, the U.S. sent another carrier strike group and Marine expeditionary unit while U.S. and Israeli militaries prepared strike options. Iran’s warnings now broaden the potential retaliation to Gulf infrastructure and U.S. personnel, leaving whether the U.S. will attack unresolved.