More than 8,000 targets have been struck so far in Iran, according to the latest US Central Command reporting. At the same time, the news media has been focused on the degradation of Iran’s nuclear ambitions and the potential for regime change. From the beginning of the Iran war, the US plan was to decimate Tehran’s ballistic missile, drone, and cruise missile capacities, as well as Iran’s other offensive capabilities. That was the number one objective. Bomb damage results and Iran’s incapacity to launch barrages of missiles and drones or lay mines are evidence that the plan is working. The US is making the war one of logistics, destroying Iran’s weapons, production, and supply chain. But you wouldn’t know that if you relied on the standard news outlets.
Iran Going Broke
Focusing on taking out Iran’s missile and drone forces as a priority makes sense. It is the only offensive capability the rogue nation has to inflict significant damage beyond its national boundaries. The US and Israel have been successful in eliminating not just the missiles loaded on launching vehicles, but also the warehoused inventory and production facilities. In a March 19 press conference at the Pentagon, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth explained:
“Their ability to manufacture new ballistic missiles has probably taken the hardest hit of all. Ballistic missile attacks against our forces, down 90 percent since the start of the conflict, same with one-way attack UAVs, think kamikaze drones, down 90 percent. Now the Iranians will still shoot, we know that, but they would shoot a lot more if they could, but they can't.”
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine, also at the press conference, confirmed: “As reported by U.S. CENTCOM yesterday, the US military dropped 5,000-pound Penetrator weapons into underground storage facilities storing coastal defense cruise missiles and other support equipment.” Caine explained that the US is going after “mine storage facilities and naval ammunition depots.” Furthermore, the US has hunted and destroyed more than 120 Iranian naval vessels and 44 mine layers. Caine told reporters that the Air Force’s premier ground-attack aircraft, the A-10 Warthog, is now in the fight, taking out Tehran’s fast-attack watercraft in the Strait of Hormuz.
Despite the overwhelming force used against Iran’s ballistic missile capability, it is not 100%. The Iranians can still launch what remains of their inventory. However, analyzing the targets that Iran is attacking is also an indicator that the Iranian leadership is getting desperate. In what can only be viewed as a futile gesture, CNN reports that “on Friday morning local time, Iran launched two intermediate-range ballistic missiles at Diego Garcia, a joint US-UK military base in the Indian Ocean, a US official told CNN, adding that neither of them struck the base.” The joint US-UK installation at Diego Garcia is part of the Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean.
Falling Short
The Iranian intermediate-range ballistic missiles have a “self-imposed” range of 2,000 km (1,240 miles) and Diego Garcia is between 2,350 miles and 2,500 miles from ballistic missile launch points in Iran. That would mean the current intermediate-range ballistic missiles would have to double the current range – not likely. Reporting from the region explains that one of the missiles failed in flight, while the other was intercepted by a US missile destroyer or cruiser. The two ballistic missiles may not have been the intermediate-range variety. According to The New York Times, “Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, the Israeli military chief of staff, discussed the missile attack on Diego Garcia in a video statement on Saturday night, saying Iran had fired a ‘two-stage intercontinental ballistic missile with a range of 4,000 kilometers’ at ‘an American target’ on the island on Friday [March 20].”
If true, the interception of one of the missiles corroborates the US Navy's air defense capability against intercontinental ballistic missiles. It’s not likely that Iran has a plentiful inventory of such rockets. However, the fact that Iran has such a weapon at all underscores the importance of the US and Israel destroying the rogue nation’s means of producing such munitions. It’s a simple calculus. As Hegseth pointed out, if Iran cannot produce ballistic missiles, drones, cruise missiles, and mines, or warehouse the weapons, then it cannot launch them, either.
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The views expressed are those of the author and not of any other affiliate.
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