Iran has been preparing for war with the United States for nearly half a century. Unable to match U.S. military might, the Iranian government is instead focused on ways to impose large costs that could shake up the Middle East and the global economy.
A US carrier strike group has arrived in the Middle East, reigniting fears of a broader war as US President Donald Trump warns it could attack Iran. Experts say that despite being severely weakened by last summer’s Israeli and American attacks and experiencing recent domestic unrest, the Iranian regime still has a wide range of options for counterattack, including attacking American interests and Israel, mobilizing allied groups, and launching economic retaliation that could cause global chaos.
How the Iranian government uses the tools at its disposal will depend on the level of threat it perceives it faces.
“The regime has a number of capabilities it can use if it views this as an existential war,” said Farzin Nadimi, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute who specializes in Iranian security and defense issues. “If they see this as the final war, they may throw away everything they have.”
In the event of an attack against Iran, Iran’s options are:
missiles and drones
Iran is believed to have thousands of missiles and drones within range of U.S. forces based in many countries in the Middle East, and has threatened to attack them as well as Israel.
After Israel launched a surprise attack on Iran in June, the Islamic Republic retaliated by firing a flurry of ballistic missiles and drones at Israel, bypassing and damaging Israel’s sophisticated air defenses.
Iranian officials maintain that many of the stockpiles used in that war have been replenished, and U.S. officials believe these war-tested weapons and aging Russian and U.S. fighter jets remain a threat.
For example, Iran’s Shahid suicide drone has proven to be a destructive tool in Russia’s war in Ukraine. The Iranian regime has also developed, tested, and deployed more than 20 types of ballistic missiles, including short-range, intermediate-range, and long-range systems that can threaten targets as far away as southern Europe.
“We have 30,000 to 40,000 U.S. troops stationed in eight to nine facilities in the region,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday. “They are all within range of thousands of Iranian one-way UAVs (drones) and Iranian short-range ballistic missiles, short-range ballistic missiles that threaten the existence of our military.”
Two U.S. officials told CNN that even though Tehran’s military forces are far larger in numbers and far older than modern U.S. systems, it would be much more difficult for the U.S. to launch a decisive attack on the country.
The Iranian government has repeatedly warned US allies in the region that it would retaliate if attacked. When U.S. bombers attacked Iranian nuclear facilities in the summer, Iran launched an unprecedented missile attack on Qatar, targeting al-Udeid Air Base, the largest U.S. military facility in the Middle East.
Over the past two years, Israel has attacked Iran’s regional proxy networks and significantly curbed the Iranian regime’s ability to project power beyond its borders.
Still, the agents vowed to protect the Islamic Republic. Iraqi groups such as Kataeb Hezbollah and Harakat al-Nujaba (militia groups that have targeted U.S. forces in the past) and Lebanese Hezbollah announced this week that they would support Iran if it was attacked.
On Sunday, Abu Hussein al-Hamidawi, commander of Katab Hezbollah, called on “Iranian supporters around the world to prepare for all-out war in support of the Islamic Republic.”
Despite the threat, Iranian proxies face constraints. In Lebanon, the once-formidable Hezbollah has weakened significantly after a 13-month conflict with Israel and is now facing a domestic disarmament movement. Iran-backed militias are powerful in Iraq, but they also face hurdles from the central government, which is increasing pressure from the United States to curb Iranian influence.
Yemen’s Houthis are targeted by both Israel and the United States, but they are one of Iran’s most destructive proxies and have shown a willingness to protect their patrons. Last weekend, the Houthis released a video showing an image of a ship engulfed in flames with the simple caption: “Soon.”
In the past few years, with support from Iran, the group has attacked Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Israel, as well as American ships in the Red Sea.
Iran has repeatedly warned that a war with Iran would not only shock the Middle East but the rest of the world. Although militarily inferior, Iran’s strength lies in its ability to disrupt energy markets and global trade from one of the world’s most strategically sensitive regions.
Iran, one of the world’s largest energy producers, borders the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway through which more than a fifth of the world’s oil and most of its liquefied natural gas flows. The regime has threatened to shut down if attacked, and experts warn that the prospect could send fuel prices soaring far beyond Iran’s borders and trigger a global economic downturn.
Experts say targeting the global economy through the strait may be one of Iran’s most effective options, but also the most dangerous given the far-reaching implications.
Umud Shokri, a Washington, D.C.-based energy strategist and senior visiting fellow at George Mason University, said a prolonged closure of the strait would be a “dangerous scenario.” “Even a partial disruption could cause prices to soar, supply chains to be disrupted and inflation to rise around the world. In such a scenario, a global recession would be a real risk.”
Such a move would likely be a last resort for Iran. Because it would seriously disrupt trade between their countries and their Arab neighbors, many of whom have lobbied President Trump against an attack on Iran and pledged not to allow the United States to enter their territory because of an attack on Iran.
The Iranian regime says it has naval bases deep beneath the country’s coast and dozens of fast attack craft ready to deploy in Gulf waters. The military has spent three decades building its own ships and submarines, ramping up production over the past few years in preparation for possible naval warfare.
Admiral. Robert Harward, a retired U.S. Navy SEAL and former deputy commander of U.S. Central Command, said Iranian naval capabilities and proxies present a challenge to shipping in Hormuz that “can be met very quickly,” but “asymmetric” tools such as mines, drones, and other tactics could make transportation and oil flows difficult.
Iran’s ability to disrupt global shipping and shock the global economy has historical precedent.
Toward the end of the long war with Iraq in the 1980s, Iran laid mines in the Persian Gulf, including near Hormuz. One of the planes nearly sank the USS Samuel B. Roberts in 1988 while escorting a Kuwaiti oil tanker in what became known as the “Tanker War.”
In 2019, several oil tankers collided in the Gulf of Oman amid heightened tensions between Iran and Gulf Arab states following President Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal. It was widely believed that Iran was involved.
More recently, during the Israel-Hamas war, the Houthis disrupted commercial shipping in the Bab al-Mandab Strait in the Red Sea, through which about 10% of the world’s maritime trade passes. Combined with Iran’s ability to threaten traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, Tehran wields enormous power to inflict global economic pain.
“The next war may not start in downtown Tehran, but in the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf,” Nadimi said.
