Five Ways Iran May Respond

The Atlantic

4 hours ago

'NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE!' Donald Trump posted on Truth Social right after the United States launched a bombing campaign against three sites crucial to the Iranian nuclear program.
But Iran gets a vote on whether that time has indeed come, and its leaders are instead vowing 'everlasting consequences.' What happens next in this rapidly expanding war largely depends on what exactly Iran means by that.
That's not easy to predict, because the next stage of the conflict now hinges on an Iran facing unprecedented circumstances. The Iranian regime is arguably more enfeebled and imperiled than it has been since the 1979 revolution ushered the Islamic Republic into existence. Even before Israel launched its sweeping military campaign against Iranian nuclear and military targets just over a week ago, it had dramatically degraded two of the three pillars of Iran's defenses: Tehran's regional network of proxy groups (such as Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon) and its conventional military arsenal (assets like missiles, drones, and air defenses). Now Israel and the United States may have reduced the third pillar—the country's nuclear program and its position at the threshold of acquiring nuclear weapons—to smoldering ruins as well.
Given these conditions, past behavior by the Iranian regime may not be a reliable indicator of its future actions. Iran's leaders, for example, have developed a reputation for biding their time for months or even years before retaliating against foes, but the speed and scale at which their nuclear program and the regime itself are coming under threat may force their hand.
For Iran experts, the north-star assumption tends to be that the regime's overriding priority is ensuring its survival. Viewed through that prism, the Iranian government currently lives in the land of bad options. If Iran responds forcefully to the United States, it could enter an escalatory cycle with the world's leading military power and an archenemy already pummeling it, which in turn could endanger the regime. If Tehran responds in a limited manner or not at all, it could look weak in ways that could also endanger the regime from within (enraged hard-liners) or without (emboldened enemies).
'There are no good options, but Iran still has options,' Sanam Vakil, an expert on Iran and the broader region at the think tank Chatham House, told me. She ticked off the goals of any Iranian retaliation: 'Inflict pain. Transfer the costs of the war outside of Iran. Showcase resilience, survivability.'
In my conversations with experts, five potential Iranian moves kept surfacing.
1. Close the Strait of Hormuz
Iran could take a big step and use its military to disrupt shipping or even seek to shut down commerce in the Strait of Hormuz, a crowded international waterway near southern Iran through which roughly one-fifth of the world's oil supply passes.
Indeed, in the hours after the U.S. strikes, the Iranian parliament reportedly granted its support for such a measure, though Iran's leadership hasn't yet followed through with action along these lines.
Such a move would affect the global economy, driving down financial markets, driving up the price of oil, and inflicting steep costs on economies around the world. It would likely get the attention of the economic-minded American president.
But in addition to the fact that the U.S. military might contest such a move, the dispersed pain of this measure could ultimately make it an unattractive option for Iran. The economic shock would boomerang back to Iran, in addition to harming Iran's patron, oil-importing China, as well as oil-exporting Gulf Arab states. In recent years, Iran has been improving its relations with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates—the Saudis even restored diplomatic ties with the Iranians in 2023. The Iranian regime will likely be wary of alienating partners at a time when it is so isolated and diminished.
2. Attack U.S. personnel or interests in the Middle East
Iran could also choose, either directly or through what remains of its regional proxy groups, to attack U.S. forces, bases, or other interests in the region.
That could include attacks on U.S. personnel or energy-related infrastructure based in Gulf countries allied with the United States, with the latter option serving as another way to induce economic shock. But Tehran's assessment here may be similar to its calculations regarding the Strait of Hormuz. If the Iranians hit targets in the Gulf, that could 'bite the hand that feeds' Iran, Vakil told me. 'They need the Gulf to play a de-escalation role and perhaps a broader regional stabilization role. I think they will try to protect their relationship with the Gulf at all costs.'
Vakil deemed it more probable that Iran would strike U.S. targets in nearby countries that don't have close relations with Tehran, such as Iraq, Syria, and Bahrain, which hosts the headquarters of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command (NAVCENT).
If Iran were to take this approach, much would depend on whether its strikes are relatively restrained—essentially designed to claim that it has avenged the U.S. attack without provoking a major response from Washington—or whether it decides to go bigger, perhaps galvanized by the devastation wrought by the U.S. attacks and the U.S. government's sharp public messaging.
'If the Iranians really strike all of the NAVCENT base in Bahrain,' Jonathan Panikoff, a former U.S. deputy national-intelligence officer for the Near East who is now my colleague at the Atlantic Council, told me, they may 'open up a world of hurt.' Such an attack might embarrass Trump and spur him to make good on his threat in his address to the nation on Saturday evening to respond to Iran with even greater force. The United States could, for example, hit Iranian oil and gas facilities or other energy sites, army and navy targets, or even political and military leaders. The war in Iran could quickly metastasize into a regional conflict.
Consider, as one case study, what transpired after the United States killed the Iranian general Qassem Soleimani during the first Trump administration in 2020. Analysts predicted all sorts of potential Iranian retaliatory measures of various sizes and scales, but Iran ultimately opted for an intense but circumscribed missile attack on the Al-Asad Airbase in Iraq, resulting in no fatalities but more than 100 U.S. personnel with traumatic brain injuries. The Trump administration downplayed the attack and limited its response to imposing more economic sanctions on Iran, and the two countries even swapped messages via the Swiss embassy in Tehran to defuse tensions.
3. Attack U.S. personnel or interests beyond the Middle East
An even more escalatory approach would be for Iran to directly attack U.S. targets beyond the region, Panikoff noted, referencing countries such as Turkey, Pakistan, and Central Asian nations.
But he thinks such a move is 'very unlikely' because the Iranians would be taking a 'hugely retaliatory' step and inviting conflict with those countries. 'Having an actual missile attack—say, into Pakistan against the U.S. embassy—would be devastating and shocking,' Panikoff told me, adding that he could envision Iranian leaders doing this only if they believed that the end of their regime was near and they had 'nothing to lose.'
Alternatively, the Iranians could revert to more rudimentary, older-school practices of theirs such as directly executing terrorist attacks or sponsoring proxy-group terrorist attacks against U.S., Israeli, or Jewish targets around the world. That 'would be a lower bar' for the Iranians, Panikoff said, and 'is something to be worried about.'
4. Dash toward a nuclear weapon
The Iranian regime could draw the lesson from its escalating war with Israel and the United States that only possession of a nuclear weapon can save it. Even before Israel's military operation, Iran seemed to be tentatively moving in the direction of trading its position on the brink of nuclear-weapons power for actual nuclear weapons, which appears to have contributed to the timing of Israel's campaign.
But although prior to the war Iran may have been capable of enriching uranium to 90 percent, or weapons-grade, within days or weeks, it was further away—perhaps months or more—from the capability of turning that weapons-grade uranium into a usable nuclear weapon. And now its nuclear program has been seriously degraded, though the extent of the damage isn't yet entirely clear: Iran may have retained its stockpile of enriched uranium. Any push for the bomb could also invite further economic sanctions and military operations against Iran. That makes a race for a nuclear bomb in the immediate aftermath of the U.S. strikes, with whatever resources it has left, unlikely, although Iran could take steps short of that such as seeking to develop and possibly use a crude nuclear device, scrambling to rebuild its nuclear program, or withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Iran will emerge from this war with dead nuclear scientists and destroyed physical nuclear infrastructure, but what will persist in some form is the technical expertise that enabled it to enrich uranium to 60 percent, and that probably can be applied to further enriching the material to weapons-grade, because that isn't much of an additional leap. The longer-term threat of a nuclear Iran is unlikely to be wiped out as long as the current Iranian regime, or any like-minded or even harder-line one, remains in power.
5. St rike a nuclear deal with the United States
It may seem like the most improbable scenario, given the bellicosity of Iranian rhetoric, but another potential outcome is that Iran concludes that the regime will be existentially threatened by an escalatory spiral with a militarily superior Israel and the United States and that, beyond a muted response, its next move should be striking a new nuclear deal with the United States that results in the end of the war and the regime in Tehran still in place.
But this would require Iran to agree to U.S. conditions that it forswear any nuclear enrichment, to which Iran hasn't given any indication of being amenable. So for the moment, this outcome appears unlikely as well.
Iran may want to carefully calibrate its response to the U.S. strikes, but calibration in volatile conflicts isn't always possible.
The Iranian attack on U.S. forces in Iraq after Soleimani's killing five years ago may have been smaller than some anticipated, but it has still been described as 'the largest ballistic-missile attack against Americans ever.' Troops later recounted that one soldier in a shelter behind the base's blast walls was nearly blown up by the barrage. Frank McKenzie, then the commander of U.S. Central Command, has estimated that had he not ordered a partial evacuation of the airbase, an additional 100 to 150 Americans might have been wounded or killed.
If that had happened, the Trump administration might have responded much more forcefully, which in turn could have sparked further escalation from Iran. The effort to achieve a calibrated response might have produced a full-blown war. All actors in this current war now contemplating their next moves should keep that lesson in mind.