People assess the aftermath of an Iranian missile attack that destroyed residential buildings in Tel Aviv in June. Photo / Heidi Levine, Bloomberg, via The Washington Post
As the Trump Administration pressures Iran with a massive military build-up in the region, Gulf states are warning United States officials that Tehran’s missile programme remains capable of inflicting significant damage to US interests in the region, according to two Western officials briefed on the matter.
Although Iran’s missile programme suffered critical losses in the country’s 12-day war with Israel last June, an assessment produced by a US ally in the Gulf found key elements remain intact and other capabilities have been rebuilt, according to the officials.
They and others interviewed for this report spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorised 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.
US 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 US from the 2015 deal to limit Iran’s nuclear programme during his first term.
A regime crackdown on the protests has left at least 6713 people dead, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency reported at the weekend, 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 US 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 that Iran halt its nuclear programme, the Trump Administration has called for limits on its missile programme 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 US shifted dramatically when Trump issued a statement in support of the protests. The regime now sees a potential conflict with the US as an existential threat.
After the US attack on Iran’s nuclear programme in June, Iran retaliated with a largely symbolic barrage of missiles on al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar that inflicted no casualties.
Iran has signalled to US allies in the region that it remains capable of launching deadly attacks in the Gulf, and that such strikes this time would not be measured and telegraphed as the al-Udeid action was.
Iran’s Supreme Leader warned today that US strikes on Iran would lead to “regional war”.
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 US interests in the 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 on repairing damaged launchers.
The regime has also set some launchers into the country’s mountainous regions, where they’re more difficult to hit.
“Iran has mountains thousands of metres high,” he said. “It is not possible to reach and damage these capabilities easily.”
Those capabilities pose enough of a threat that some Gulf states have taken steps to distance themselves from the US build-up.
The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia said last month that US forces would not use their territory or airspace in any operations.
Iran maintains the largest missile programme in the region, according to David Des Roches, a former director of Arabian Peninsula affairs in the office of the Defence Secretary.
“The Iranians have more missiles than [Gulf Co-operation Council members have] air defence missiles,” said Des Roches, now a professor at the Thayer Marshall Institute.
Moreover, he said, GCC air defence systems are spread out over a large region and aren’t fully integrated from one country to another. These defences 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 programme 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 1280km 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 US 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 US 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 organisation.
According to one of the Western officials, US 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 US 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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