As the Trump administration pressures Iran with a massive military buildup in the region, Persian Gulf states are warning U.S. officials that Tehran’s missile program remains capable of inflicting significant damage to U.S. interests in the region, according to two Western officials briefed on the matter.
Although Iran’s missile program suffered critical losses in the country’s 12-day war with Israel last June, an assessment produced by a U.S. ally in the Gulf found, key elements remain intact and other capabilities have been rebuilt, according to the officials. They and others in this report spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the subject with the media.
Iran’s ability to launch effective retaliatory attacks has been central to the Trump administration’s decision-making as it masses forces around the Islamic Republic.
President Donald Trump initially said he was considering military action to support massive public protests in Iran against its ruling system and supreme leader, but has since shifted to demand Iran return to nuclear talks. Trump withdrew the United States from the 2015 deal to limit Iran’s nuclear program during his first term.
A regime crackdown on the protests has left at least 6,713 people dead, the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency reported Saturday, including protesters, government forces and bystanders. More than 17,000 additional cases are under investigation, according to HRANA, which has in the past produced accurate figures.
An Iranian diplomat said Tehran is open to respectful engagement, but will not engage under U.S. military threat.
“No negotiation is possible under the current situation. Trump’s conditions for negotiation are unrealistic and unnegotiable,” he told The Washington Post. In addition to demands Iran halt its nuclear program, the Trump administration has called for limits on its missile program and an end to its support for militant groups in the region.
For Iran, one of the Western officials said, the nature of the confrontation with the United States shifted dramatically when Trump issued a statement in support of the protests. The regime now sees a potential conflict with the United States as an existential threat.
After the U.S. attack on Iran’s nuclear program in June, Iran retaliated with a largely symbolic barrage of missiles on al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar that inflicted no casualties.
Iran has signaled to U.S. allies in the region that it remains capable of launching deadly attacks in the Persian Gulf, and that such strikes this time would not be measured and telegraphed as the al-Udeid action was.
Iran retains its shorter-range munitions, launchers and some elements of its missile production system, according to the Gulf ally’s assessment. These munitions can reach U.S. interests in the Persian Gulf, including more than a dozen military bases and tens of thousands of troops.
Amir Mousawi, a former Iranian diplomat now based in Iraq, said Tehran has doubled missile production since the 12-day war and made significant progress repairing damaged launchers. The regime has also made some launchers into the country’s mountainous regions, where they’re more difficult to hit. “Iran has mountains thousands of meters high,” he said. “It is not possible to reach and damage these capabilities easily.”
Those capabilities pose enough of a threat that some Persian Gulf states have taken steps to distance themselves from the U.S. buildup. The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia said last month that U.S. forces would not use their territory or airspace in any operations.
Iran maintains the largest missile program in the region, according to David Des Roches, a former director of Arabian Peninsula affairs in the office of the defense secretary.
“The Iranians have more missiles than [Gulf Cooperation Council members have] air defense missiles,” said Des Roches, now a professor at the Thayer Marshall Institute. Moreover, he said, GCC air defense systems are spread out over a large region and aren’t fully integrated from one country to another. These defenses are focused largely on protecting a specific, limited number of targets, he said, and could be overwhelmed by broader attacks.
Open-source analysis of Iran’s missile program supports the government assessment of its capabilities. Israeli strikes during the 12-day war appear largely to have targeted the “operational capabilities” of Iran’s longer-range missile arsenal, according to Fabian Hinz, a research fellow with the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Israel’s strikes and sabotage operations targeted missiles and launchers capable of threatening Israeli territory more than 800 miles away.
“The shorter-range arsenal and, of course, the anti-ship arsenal in particular, should still be intact,” Hinz said. Elsewhere, he said, satellite images have shown Iran beginning to repair some of the damage to missile production plants and bases. The Israeli strikes didn’t completely destroy Iranian missile factories, Hinz said; rather, they destroyed key elements of the missile-production process such as mixing equipment.
Damage to Iranian missile bases is more difficult to assess because the facilities are so deep underground. Some satellite images show attempts to remove rubble from base entrances, Hinz said.
After the violent crackdown on the protests, Iran’s leadership appears to have assumed a united front, according to a European official in contact with Iranian officials. There were indications that some in leadership were uncomfortable with the government’s use of force against protesters, the official said, but now, in the face of U.S. threats, those disagreements have been set aside.
“The regime has completely closed ranks,” the official said. “All the messages from my contacts now is ‘We are ready for total war.’ ”
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi called on the United States last month to take a “fair and equitable” approach to Iran.
Still, Iran finds itself increasingly isolated. The European Union last month responded to the crackdown by listing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization.
According to one of the Western officials, U.S. allies in the Gulf believe it’s only a matter of time before the Iranian regime falls. But they fear far greater instability if the fall is triggered by a U.S. attack — which is why they’re pushing for a diplomatic off-ramp.
“They support collapse, but not in a sudden and brutal way,” the official said. They “prefer a more controlled erosion of the regime.”
Loveday Morris contributed to this report.
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