The US military struck Iranian missile sites along the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday with 5,000-pound deep penetrator bombs in what analysts say could be the opening salvo of a three-week long campaign to try to make the strategic waterway safe for oil tanker traffic again.
But they cautioned that no matter how successful a US air campaign along the strait is, Tehran has put together an “asymmetric” – or layered – system of advanced and relatively primitive munitions that are hard to eliminate.
And if just one of those Iranian weapons were to get past US Navy defenses in the strait, it could do catastrophic damage.
“That strike tonight was kind of shaping the hope that you can set military conditions to retake the Strait of Hormuz,” said Brett McGurk, a former US national security official and CNN analyst, said of the latest attacks from US Central Command (CENTCOM).
Speaking on CNN’s “AC 360,” he predicted further US strikes over the next three weeks would try “to uproot the defense industrial base of Iran, to methodically take apart their missile, drone, storage, production – everything.”
Retired US Army Gen. Mark Kimmitt framed the scope of that challenge, saying Iran has possibly thousands of small boats that can be outfitted to fire missiles or sow mines in the strait.
“They can put a lot of pain on those tankers,” Kimmitt said.
Even with the US airstrikes Tuesday on missile sites, finding mobile launch vehicles in Iran’s topography is a challenge, the analysts said.
Kimmitt said small boats can be stashed in coves or hiding in plain sight disguised as fishing boats or pleasure craft.
McGurk said missile and drone launch vehicles can be hidden in tunnels in mountain ranges not far from the strait.
“It’s a huge military challenge,” he said.