For years, Iran threatened what it would do if the US ever struck. Now that it has, the regime is discovering that threats are easier than action – especially when every option risks a heavier blow.
On June 11, just two days before Israel began Operation Rising Lion, Iranian Defense Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh issued a stark warning: If Iran is attacked, all American bases in the region would be targeted. “All US bases are within our reach, and we will boldly target them,” he said.
The US, of course, has numerous military installations throughout the region, including in Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, and the UAE. In total, about 40,000 American troops are deployed across the Middle East.
Following Sunday’s joint Israeli-American strike, it is hard to believe Iran will not seek to retaliate. The question is how – and where – it will choose to do so. The volley of missiles it launched at Israel immediately after the strike is unlikely to be its last word.
Yet, for all of Tehran’s bluster, its options are limited and not without risks.
First, it may very well target US military bases. Although Israel’s actions over the past nine days have degraded Iran’s rocket and missile arsenal, those capabilities have not been eliminated. But if Iran does strike American installations, it will be inviting a far more devastating response than what it experienced Sunday morning.
There was something off-key about Nasirzadeh’s threat. What does he think the Americans will do in response to an attack on US bases – sit on their hands?
The US possesses a far greater capacity to inflict damage on Iran than Iran can dream of inflicting on US military targets. To attack American assets would be to invite crippling reprisals – and Iran knows it.
Or, as US President Donald Trump wrote in all caps on Truth Social shortly after the attack: “ANY RETALIATION BY IRAN AGAINST THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WILL BE MET WITH FORCE FAR GREATER THAN WHAT WAS WITNESSED TONIGHT.”
After Trump gave the orders to bomb Iran, it would be foolish anymore to dismiss that type of rhetoric as “all talk.”
Another option on the table for Tehran is to try to close the Strait of Hormuz – the narrow channel between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman that provides the only sea passage from the Persian Gulf to the open ocean. Roughly a fifth of the world’s oil supply passes through it. Shutting it down, or even threatening to do so, could send global oil prices soaring.
However, this would also harm Iran. Its vital trade with China passes through this same corridor. Blocking the strait would be a self-inflicted wound – possibly a fatal one – on its already flailing economy.
A third option, which has both Tehran’s neighbors and international oil markets on edge, is to strike at oil infrastructure in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, or Bahrain – countries seen as sympathetic to or are collaborating with the US and Israel.
Tehran destabilizing the Middle East
Iran has long threatened such action and has the capabilities to carry it out, either directly or through proxies.
However, doing so would almost certainly invite retaliation against Iran’s own oil facilities – a line Israel has largely refrained from crossing to avoid destabilizing global markets. That restraint may not last if Iran escalates.
Tehran has a lot to lose by going after its neighbors’ oil infrastructure, namely, its own oil installations, which are critical to its economy and already vulnerable.
A fourth route would be to resort to terrorism – to orchestrate attacks against Jewish, Israeli, or American targets abroad. Iran has done this before, most notoriously in Argentina in the 1990s with bombings of the Israeli embassy and the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires.
For instance, some are concerned Iran may try to smuggle into Israel a “dirty bomb” containing conventional explosives (such as TNT) with radioactive material.
But today’s Israel is not the Israel of the 1990s. With the country now openly engaged in a war with Iran, the old pattern of absorbing these attacks without a direct response is likely over. Any Iranian-ordered terrorist strike against Israeli or Jewish targets abroad could now trigger a direct Israeli reaction inside Iran itself – something that was once off the table but no longer is.
Because of the depth of the destruction inflicted – and the humiliation dealt to what Iran sees as the crown jewel of the Islamic Republic, its nuclear program – Tehran will feel it must retaliate. There is no question that pride, power, and deterrence are all in play.
But the Iranians are going to have to weigh their options carefully, knowing that the wrong move could plunge them into a wider war – one that could endanger not just their nuclear facilities but the regime itself.
The Islamic Republic is walking a tightrope: On one hand, it clearly feels compelled to respond; on the other, it surely recognizes that doing so could turn an already bad situation into something much, much worse.