Explainer: How Iran could hit back at the US and what that could mean

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

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• Irish Times

How effective was the US attack on Iran's nuclear sites?

Donald Trump was quick to claim that US strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities had 'completely and totally obliterated' them . Still, it remains unclear how much physical damage has been done or what the longer-term impact might be on Iran's nuclear programme. What was the target? Israel-Iran map The Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran (AEOI) confirmed that attacks took place on its Fordow, Isfahan and Natanz sites, but insisted that its nuclear programme would not be stopped. Both Iran and the United Nations nuclear watchdog said there were no immediate signs of radioactive contamination around the three locations after the strikes. The Iranian Red Crescent also reported no deaths in the US strikes on the nuclear sites, appearing to confirm Iranian claims they had been evacuated in advance. 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Some experts have suggested that the layering of the sedimentary rocks, including faults, would also make it more difficult to strike the centrifuge array, providing a kind of geological cushioning against a blast wave. The attack – code-named Operation Midnight Hammer – was carried out by seven B-2 Spirit stealth bombers flying from the US, after a deception flight by other B-2s into the Pacific. Tomahawk missiles were also fired from US ships in waters south of Iran. The site was hit by a dozen 13,600kg ordnance penetrators – known as bunker busters – at about 2.10am Iranian time. It was the massive weapon's first operational use. The number used suggests some lack of confidence that a smaller strike could penetrate to the target. The result would, to a large extent, depend on the kind of concrete inside the facility, with estimates of the bunker busters' penetration based largely on reinforced concrete resistant to 5,000 psi. Iran is believed to have used more resistant concrete. [ US attack on Iran 'not about regime change', says defence secretary after Trump hails 'spectacular military success' Opens in new window ] While video from the site showed evidence of a fire in the immediate aftermath, satellite images published on Sunday were inconclusive. The Open Source Centre in London highlighted what appeared to be at least two locations where the weapons appeared to have penetrated. While the main support building at the site looked to be undamaged, the topography of a prominent area of ridge lines and small wadis appeared to have altered and been flattened out, with some evidence of rock scarring exposing damaged bedrock near an area that could show fresh cratering. Analysts had previously suggested that a strike could hit the main entrance tunnel to the site. However, the main effort appears to have been in a different location. There was speculation that the chief aim of the strikes may have been to bury access to Fordow. What was the impact at Isfahan? 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In response to the US strikes, Iran launched ballistic missiles at Israel on Sunday, triggering countrywide air raid sirens and injuring 16 people. Was Iran's nuclear programme obliterated? Vehicles at the Fordow enrichment facility in Iran on June 20th. Photograph: Maxar Technologies/AP Iran has claimed that it evacuated the sites several days ago, and satellite imagery from several days ago suggests there was unusual truck traffic at Fordow. That appears to confirm the movement of some material from the site, possibly including the uranium stockpile – or parts of it – which remains unaccounted for. Hassan Abedini, the deputy political head of Iran's state broadcaster, said Iran had evacuated the three sites – Natanz, Isfahan and Fordow – some time ago. 'The enriched uranium reserves had been transferred from the nuclear centres and there are no materials left there that, if targeted, would cause radiation and be harmful to our compatriots,' he said. Three days before the US attacks, 16 cargo trucks were seen near the Fordow entrance tunnel. The head of the AEOI, Mohammad Eslami, claimed this month that Iran had another enrichment site 'in a secure and invulnerable location' where centrifuges could be. Analysts have long argued that while it is possible to disrupt the physical function of a nuclear facility and limit the scope of a programme through, for example, the Israeli assassination of scientists, the breadth of technical knowledge acquired during the decades-long programme is impossible to destroy. [ How Iran could hit back at the US and what that could mean Opens in new window ] Ultimately, the question is whether the US-Israeli attacks are seen as sufficient for Iran to capitulate, or whether they instead encourage the regime to accelerate its efforts to produce a viable nuclear weapon. – Guardian

Irish Times

an hour ago

• Irish Times

Evacuation of 15 Irish citizens from Israel under way, Tánaiste says

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Irish Post

2 hours ago

• Irish Post

Tánaiste warns of 'spiral of escalation' following US attacks on Iran's nuclear sites

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