What we are learning about Iran’s missile capabilities

Iran fired more than 12 ballistic missiles at U.S. bases in Iraq on Wednesday. Although Iranian media initially reported casualties, it appears the missiles did little harm. This may be due to Iran’s purposeful decision to avoid bloodshed by giving advanced warning to Iraq, knowing that killing Americans would result in a major response. In any event, the world is being forced to come to terms with the growing threat of Iran’s ballistic missiles and the way in which it has used these missiles to send a message to the U.S. and U.S. allies such as Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Iran knows it can’t confront the U.S. conventionally tank-to-tank or air force-vs.-air force, so it uses missiles and other technologies it has developed, as well as unconventional means and proxies.

Iran’s ballistic missile and rocket program dates back decades to the 1980s, when the Iranian regime sought to create its own indigenous weapons industry based on Soviet Scud missiles and North Korean missiles. It eventually created a series of missiles, such as the Shahab and Fateh series. Iran has continued testing its missiles, trying to obtain greater precision and also longer ranges, up to 1,000 miles. It realized that it also needed to use them against real targets in wartime to see how they perform.

In 2017, Tehran fired missiles at ISIS in Deir Ezzor, but it was unclear if all the missiles it fired even made it to the ISIS positions they were intended for. Iran tried again in October 2018, firing ballistic missiles at ISIS in Syria. It also fired Fateh 110 missiles at Kurdish dissidents in northern Iraq in September 2018. These three strikes illustrated increasing precision, with the rockets fired near Koya at a Kurdish group striking a room where dissidents were meeting. Iran used drones to conduct surveillance.

The Islamic Republic also exports its missile technology to allies throughout the region. It has sent technology to Hezbollah for decades, culminating in trying to help Hezbollah with precision guidance for its upward of 150,000 rockets. Iran is alleged to have supplied the Houthis in Yemen with increasingly long-range missiles based on its Qiam ballistic missile. The Houthis have fired missiles more than 600 miles into Saudi Arabia to strike at targets near Riyadh in the wake of Saudi Arabia’s military intervention in Yemen in 2015.