18 hours ago
What weapons does Iran have and how long can it attack Israel?
The vast and limitless potential of Iran's capacity to strike Israel would soon become clear. Any previous attacks on the old enemy had merely been 'minor demonstrations' before Tehran's war machine swung into full gear.
That, at least, is what Hossein Salami, the architect of Iran's missile programme, would have had us believe before the tumultuous events of the past five days.
Yet the regime's response to Israel's operation, Rising Lion, has underscored the limitations of Tehran's missile programme. Many of its missile sites were destroyed before Iran even fired a shot in response.
What was left has so far been used with devastating effect, levelling apartment blocks and killing at least 24 people over three days in a series of strikes that have pierced Israel's much-vaunted protective shield, the Iron Dome defence system. Iran, however, cannot maintain the intensity of these attacks which, in turn, have little to no impact on Israel's ability to strike back at will.
Israel estimates Tehran has launched about 300 missiles so far, while an undisclosed but probably significant number were destroyed in air strikes and sabotage operations during the first few hours of the war. Tehran has been left with little way to defend its missile sites from airstrikes and the production of new weapons will be difficult as the stockpile dwindles by the day.
Western intelligence had estimated before the war that Iran possessed about 2,000 to 3,000 missiles capable of reaching Israel. Tzachi Hanegbi, Israel's national security adviser, said Iran still had 'thousands' more missiles at its disposal, suggesting previous estimates might have been an underestimation.
The arsenal that we know about includes the hypersonic Fattah 1 and 2, which Iran claims are manoeuvrable in flight and can carry a warhead of up to 450kg. The larger Emad, which has an advertised range of just over 1000 miles, can carry a warhead of almost 800kg.
The regime can also field its satellite-navigated Kheibar Shekan and possibly its recently announced Qassem Bassir, a missile purportedly equipped with defence-evasion capabilities. Days before the war, Iran had unveiled a two-tonne warhead it said could be fitted on to its existing missiles.
Even if Iran's arsenal is larger and more sophisticated than previously thought, the regime knows it has entered an unsustainable war of attrition against a superior enemy. And, even if President Trump is reluctant for the US to take a greater role and provide 'bunker-buster' bombs to destroy Tehran's nuclear sites, there is little chance of Israel running out of weapons thanks to its stockpiles. Indeed, one western diplomat suggested that the intensity of Iran's attacks had already 'peaked'.
That will remain to be seen. The response so far, however, is likely to have appeased regime hardliners who have for months clamoured for massive strikes against Israel. The humiliation of watching high-profile targets destroyed across Iran, and the deaths of senior figures within the regime, is likely to mean that the missiles will keep being fired, even if the present pace of the onslaught is not sustainable.
Iran has already learnt it cannot overwhelm Israeli defences — the Iron Dome is still intercepting almost all the projectiles fired — despite Iran's claims that it has discovered a strategy to pierce the defences. 'The problem is the level of retaliation expected,' said Farzan Sabet, managing researcher at the Global Governance Centre. 'If Iran conducts a strike, it's not able to destroy [Israel's] retaliatory capability, but its enemy is capable of destroying its retaliatory capability.' He said this takes the Middle East down a 'path of a conflict which inevitably draws in the US'.
Tehran's only hope is to strike Israel as hard as it can in an attempt to increase pressure on Israel to end the conflict before it draws in the entire region, including Iran's proxies in Iraq and Yemen. 'Iran's strategy, because it has a limited supply of missiles, is to inflict as much damage [as possible] to raise alarm in the international community and wear Israel down,' said Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House. 'Iran will certainly be looking for a climbdown but has conditioned it on Israel also drawing back its military operations.'
For now, there seems to be little appetite in Israel for any kind of slowing down. The deaths in the past 24 hours will only increase the public clamour for action. The Israel Defence Forces said on Monday it would continue to 'push east' to target Iran's missile and nuclear programmes. 'More than 50 fighter jets and aircraft carried out strikes and destroyed over 120 surface-to-surface missile launchers,' said Brigadier General Effie Defrin, the military spokesman. 'This amounts to one third of the surface-to-surface missile launchers possessed by the Iranian regime.'
