Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had warned Washington of “irreparable damage” if the US joined Israel’s war on the Islamic republic.
On Saturday, Donald Trump did just that.
The US president sent American bombers to attack Iran’s key nuclear facilities. The sites were “obliterated”, he said.
Retired general Joseph Votel, a former commander of US central command — which oversees American troops in the Middle East — said the Pentagon had to assume that Iran would retaliate.
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This could mean direct attacks on US forces or diplomatic missions in the region, cyber attacks, terrorism, or new strikes by Iranian proxies, said analysts. Tehran could also disrupt energy shipments out of the Gulf.
With tens of thousands of US troops deployed in the Middle East, and Iran and its proxies being “very clear” that they would attack, the world would soon learn if Mr Trump was “prepared for the consequences”, said Dana Stroul, former deputy assistant secretary of defence for the Middle East.
Large US military hubs in Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait were “very likely” targets for Iran, Mr Votel said, adding that Centcom would have already taken preparations ahead of the attack.
In the days before the US’s military action on Saturday night, Elliott Abrams, who was the special representative for Iran and Venezuela in the first Trump administration, said the targets could also be US Gulf allies such as Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates.
Iran could also try to close the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway through which a third of the world’s seaborne crude passes each day, he said. That would “[raise] world oil prices immediately”.
While the US has sent more military assets to the region in recent days, Iran was “prepared now” for a counterstrike, with a “range of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones”, former air force secretary Frank Kendall said ahead of the US bombing raid.
Deciding to do so would be “an escalation question” for the Iranians — “a calculation of what additional attacks would be remounted if they responded” to the US.
Mr Trump warned Iran against that course of action in his late-night address on Saturday, saying Tehran needed to sue for peace now or face more war. “Future attacks would be far greater and a lot easier,” he said.
The US has approximately 40,000 troops and military personnel in the Middle East, according to a US defence official, in bases and military sites in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE, as well as Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Syria.
The bases in the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Kuwait are equipped with aerial defences, but are within striking distance of Iran’s shorter-range missiles, said Mr Kendall. There are also multiple destroyers and an aircraft carrier group in the region, with the USS Nimitz carrier strike group also on the way.
“They’re always on a reasonable set of alert because of potential attacks, but I would assume [it] would be higher [now],” he said.
The US’s 2,500 troops in Iraq and hundreds in Syria could be vulnerable to attacks from Iranian-backed Shia militants — who have in the past fired rockets and drones at US assets and troops — as well as from Iran’s missiles.
“Militias in Iraq are not dismantled. They made a political decision to preserve and protect themselves and not attack US forces” up to this point, said Ms Stroul.
Iran-backed Houthi militants in Yemen will also consider the US’s strikes a violation of a ceasefire the group had reached with Washington this spring, Ms Stroul said, and could target the American vessels.
Alongside Iran’s remaining missiles, other forms of weaponry are available, said analysts.
“Iran still has very sophisticated offensive cyber capabilities, their network maintains all sorts of sleeper cells far beyond the Middle East,” Ms Stroul said.
Another risk is that Saturday’s US bombing raid on Fordow, one of Iran’s two main uranium enrichment facilities, has been less successful than intended. While Iran confirmed the attacks, there was no evidence yet of the extent of the damage to the subterranean facility.
The attacks could make Iran more determined to develop a nuclear weapons programme. The republic was already enriching uranium to levels close to weapons grade, though it says its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes.
“Even though there’s no question that the Israelis have inflicted significant damage on Iran’s military-industrial complex, its ballistic missile capabilities, its nuclear programme and its leadership . . . you cannot bomb away all knowledge and these programmes can be rebuilt,” said Ms Stroul.
“Any additional damage would set them back perhaps years, but it would not stop them from reconstituting or continuing a programme to acquire nuclear weapons,” said Mr Kendall.
Iran could also strike back with punishing economic effect by targeting energy supplies out of the Gulf.
In 2019, the vulnerabilities were exposed when a missile and drone attack blamed on Iran temporarily knocked out half of Saudi Arabia’s crude oil output. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states have in recent years engaged in a détente with Iran, seeking to reduce tensions and ward off more strikes.
In the Strait of Hormuz, Iran could use fast-attack boats, submarines and land-based anti-ship weapons to strike sailing ships, said Mr Kendall. Alternatively, it could mine the waterway — though Iran also uses the strait for its own oil exports, its key source of foreign currency.
Michael Alfaro, chief investment officer at Gall Partners, an energy-focused hedge fund, said global energy markets would be braced for prolonged turbulence after the US strikes. “The broader geopolitical consequences will almost certainly keep upward pressure on oil prices,” he said. “Iran is likely to retain significant influence over the Strait of Hormuz.”
Helima Croft, a former CIA analyst and global head of strategy at RBC Capital Markets, said she was worried about the vulnerability of Iraq, which produces 4mn barrels of oil a day. Infrastructure in Basra was threatened by “Iranian-backed militias that operate very close to those facilities”, she told the Atlantic Council Global Energy Forum on Wednesday.
Other experts said they thought Israel’s bombardment, which has killed many of Iran’s top military commanders and destroyed missile launchers and plants, had sufficiently weakened Iran’s ability to retaliate against the US.
Israel has destroyed most of Iran’s air defences in recent days and has secured near total air dominance over the republic.
Iran’s main proxy, Lebanese militant movement Hizbullah, has also been severely debilitated after Israel launched a series of devastating assaults on the group last year.
There would be “major drawbacks” to Iran using missiles and drones to retaliate, said Erik Raven, former under-secretary of the US navy.
“Their stockpiles are depleting [and] American missile defence systems are highly capable,” he added. “There is no chance of these attacks achieving any of their political goals. The calculation is all risk, no reward.” - Financial Times
