More than five months after the United States and the Israeli occupation launched their war against Iran, growing evidence suggests that Tehran’s missile force has not lost its effectiveness as expected. Instead, Iran has continued carrying out attacks against military bases, strategic facilities and oil infrastructure across the region.
In an extensive report, the Financial Times examined the factors that have enabled Tehran to preserve its missile capabilities despite hundreds of US strikes, as well as the difficulties Washington faces in containing the continuing threat.
The newspaper noted that US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth declared shortly after the joint US-Israeli attack on Iran in late February that one of the operation’s objectives was to “destroy Iran’s offensive missiles and destroy Iran’s missile production capabilities”.
Five months and hundreds of US attacks later, however, Iran has maintained the effectiveness of its missile force and continued launching strikes that appeared increasingly accurate against targets across the region.
Iranian Missiles Remain Effective Despite Bombardment
Waves of Iranian missile attacks have killed US personnel inside their barracks in Jordan. Iran has also repeatedly struck buildings at major bases in Kuwait and Bahrain and targeted facilities in Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
Its forces appear to have benefited from experience gained during periods of intense bombardment in March and April.
According to the newspaper, observers believe the fragile ceasefire that prevailed in April, combined with the more limited US campaign conducted in recent weeks, which focused largely on southern Iran, gave Iranian missile crews an opportunity to operate more systematically.
The absence of the Israeli occupation from the latest rounds of fighting also reduced the pressure imposed on them.
Nicole Grajewski, an expert on Iran’s ballistic missile programme at the French Institute of International Relations, said: “It is easier for you to fire if you are not being fired upon in return. They do not have to move their launchers quickly from one place to another, so the operational environment has become much more favourable for them.”
Washington Faces Difficult Choices
Fighting temporarily halted over the weekend as mediators attempted to prevent the warring parties from returning to a full-scale confrontation, despite US President Donald Trump threatening late last week to escalate and launch a “massive attack” against Iran.
The Financial Times said US leaders, as they consider their next steps, will have to account for several factors, including the size of their missile stockpiles, particularly the expensive interceptor missiles required to prevent Iranian attacks from inflicting further damage.
How Did Iran Restore Its Capabilities?
Between 28 February and 8 April, the United States and the Israeli occupation focused on tracking and destroying Iranian missile launchers.
They also sealed the entrances to Iran’s vast underground missile bases in an effort to trap crews inside, while drones and fighter aircraft remained on constant alert to strike any launcher that was detected.
Grajewski said Iranian engineers had become capable of rapidly compensating for their losses by reopening buried bases.
“They undoubtedly still pose a threat,” she said.
Accuracy and Foreign Support
The Financial Times quoted analysts as saying it was difficult to identify every reason Iran had managed to preserve the effectiveness of its missile force.
Some factors are known only to the combatants themselves, including changes to equipment and the electronic warfare environment, as well as support Tehran may have received from other countries in targeting and navigation, including Russian intelligence.
The scale of interceptor missile use by the United States and its allies may also have been a significant factor, following reports that large numbers were consumed during the opening months of the war.
Jeffrey Lewis of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies said: “We may be firing less at them, while they may be firing more accurate missiles.”
He added that Iran appeared to have begun using its more modern missile stockpile.
Iran has become less reliant on older missiles derived from the Soviet Scud and North Korean Nodong models, he said, explaining that these weapons “severely lack accuracy”.
The shift towards newer missile types may therefore partly explain the natural increase in the accuracy of Iranian strikes.
Targeting Radars and Refining Tactics
Grajewski said Iran may also be benefiting from an early strategy of targeting infrastructure essential to maintaining missile defence coverage, including radars and early-warning sites in Jordan and the Gulf region.
“They are effectively trying to disrupt the ability to detect these missiles and track their trajectories,” she said.
She added that Iran’s success in striking high-value targets during the early stages of the war had produced clear advantages.
Jim Lamson, a former military analyst at the US Central Intelligence Agency, said the latest attacks in Jordan suggested Iran was succeeding in pushing more missiles through US and Arab defence systems.
“It appears that in Jordan they managed to achieve a greater penetration of missile defences and improve the accuracy of their medium-range ballistic missiles,” he said.
“If you are a US military planner, you have to assume that Iran is making technical and tactical adjustments based on lessons learned from previous conflicts.”
Adapting to War
Iran has benefited from reviewing its previous experiences and studying Russian tactics in the war in Ukraine.
Lewis said Iranian forces had intensified efforts to conceal terrain features in videos showing missile launches, making it more difficult to identify launch locations.
Missile crews have also begun operating farther away from their fortified bases.
“What we have seen is the Iranians’ ability to adapt,” Lewis said.
He explained that Iranian crews had also stopped burning vegetation at launch sites, a practice that had made their positions easier to identify during previous rounds of fighting.
Farzin Nadimi, an expert on Iranian military affairs at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said Iranian missile crews had become confident enough to conduct daytime launches rather than limiting operations to the night.
Lamson said Iran’s performance was most likely the result of “an accumulation of multiple factors”.
He suggested Tehran may also have improved the timing of drone and cruise missile launches so that they coincide with ballistic missile attacks.
Coordination may also have improved between Iran’s regular army and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, as well as between the formations operating under each branch.
Grajewski also pointed to preliminary indications, based on which force claimed responsibility for particular attacks, that Iran’s regular armed forces had begun playing a larger role in drone operations.
An Escalating US Dilemma
The report said analysts stressed that the exact nature of the Iranian targets inside military bases remained unclear.
Because such bases contain dense concentrations of infrastructure, even a limited deviation in a missile’s trajectory could result in another building being hit.
Iran has also announced that it is using missiles, including the Kheibar Shekan, that are capable of manoeuvring during the terminal stage before striking their targets.
This makes them more difficult to intercept, particularly by missile defence systems and radars that have already been subjected to sustained pressure.
Lamson said these manoeuvres, when combined with other factors, could increase missile effectiveness, especially as the efficiency of radar and missile defence systems declines.
Could Israel Return to the War?
The Financial Times said the United States now faces a strategic dilemma.
Iran retains a missile force capable of responding to any new attack, while analysts believe containing the threat would require an expansion of military operations.
Nadimi said ballistic missiles become more difficult to intercept during their final stages of flight.
He argued that Washington would eventually recognise the need to allocate greater resources to targeting launchers and military bases.
According to Nadimi, this could require the return of the Israeli occupation to direct combat.
He said analysts believed the missiles that struck Jordan were launched from an area near Tabriz in north-western Iran, a region where Israeli operations had previously taken place.
“There has to be Israeli participation. It is extremely difficult, and therefore the involvement of a state with enormous military capabilities such as Israel is crucial,” he said.
The report nevertheless noted that an Israeli return could create additional complications.
Expanding the war would further deplete US interceptor missile stockpiles.
Although Israeli firepower succeeded in reducing the Iranian missile threat during the opening weeks of the war, it failed to eliminate it or permanently disable Iran’s capabilities.
“Iran is a large country, and targeting those missile launchers is like looking for a needle in a haystack,” Nadimi said.
