{"id":108720,"date":"2026-05-11T16:49:36","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T16:49:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/108720\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T16:49:36","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T16:49:36","slug":"why-irans-ballistic-missiles-pose-a-greater-threat-than-the-nuclear-issue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/108720\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Iran’s ballistic missiles pose a greater threat than the nuclear issue"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the weekend, the Washington Post made waves with a story leaked by CIA<\/a> officials, potentially undermining one of Israel’s main “win” narratives for the war: that Iran’s ballistic missile threat<\/a> was heavily reduced.<\/p>\n

Underlying that story is a series of complete misunderstandings about what “ballistic missile” different parties were talking about, what the CIA was talking about, the nature of the threat, and what achievable goals were during the war regarding this issue.<\/p>\n

From the Israeli perspective, US President Trump’s loose messaging and use of numbers on these issues only muddy the waters for what matters to the IDF.<\/p>\n

The starting point is why this war was launched from an Israeli military perspective.<\/p>\n

The Israeli and American political class, who often find it hard to speak with nuance and seek simple soundbites, have said that there was no choice but to attack when Israel and the US did, due to imminent threats.<\/p>\n

The truth is more complex.<\/p>\n

\"PartPart of an Iranian ballistic missile is seen in the desert near the city of Araf after being fired towards Israel during the war with Iran, April 16, 2026. (credit: CHAIM GOLDBERG\/FLASH90)Main reason to launch the war: to reduce Iran’s ballistic missile capacity<\/p>\n

The Jerusalem Post has learned that, leading up to key Israeli-US decisions in February, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir made a sophisticated and nuanced argument to US Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine, US CENTCOM Chief Gen. Brad Cooper, and others \u2013 which eventually reached Trump.<\/p>\n

The argument acknowledged that, in theory, Israel and the US could wait some period of months, as Iran had not yet crossed a redline threshold of a volume of ballistic missiles which the IDF could not handle. After all, Israel’s original plan was not to attack Iran’s ballistic missile program until sometime between June and November 2026.<\/p>\n

However, Zamir said that the Islamic Republic was racing forward too fast. The Post has learned that the IDF chief said that putting off attacking would heavily harm the war effort later.<\/p>\n

Iran was producing an additional 200-300 ballistic missiles per month. It had replaced about half of its lost missiles and half of its lost missile launchers in only eight months, getting back up to 2,500 missiles.<\/p>\n

In Zamir’s understanding, waiting another six months could mean an Iran with 3,700-4,300 missiles, and waiting another year could mean 4,900 to 6,100 missiles.<\/p>\n

Although Israel has not disclosed a red line at which it feels its missile shield would be completely overwhelmed, such a tremendous increase in the missile threat by 50%, 100%, or more could mean much higher casualty rates.<\/p>\n

It could also mean much more damage, could lead to Israel running low on missile interceptors at a much earlier point, and collectively force Israel and the US to cut short their attacks on Iran’s missile and other capabilities much earlier than what might make sense strategically, the Post understands.<\/p>\n

From the IDF’s perspective, this was the main reason to launch the Iran war: to reduce Iran’s existing and future ballistic missile capacity to avoid reaching an existential threat volume point.<\/p>\n

Not the nuclear issue – the IDF barely attacked any nuclear sites, as most have still not been rebuilt after they were destroyed in June 2025.<\/p>\n

Not regime change – the IDF was happy to try to improve conditions for Iranians to topple their government, but had no illusions that an outside bombing campaign with no ground campaign could by itself end the Islamic regime.<\/p>\n

And not to eliminate the ballistic missile threat completely, just reduce it substantially and push off by some period of years, Iran’s ability to reach a volume of missiles which could potentially overcome Israel’s air defense.<\/p>\n

Now, what was achieved?<\/p>\n

No one seems to know where Trump got his statistics that 80% or more of the missiles were destroyed.<\/p>\n

But the CIA statistic that only 25% of missile launchers were destroyed and only 30% of the missiles were destroyed could also be deceptive, given that different apolitical Israeli intelligence officials have said that either 60% or 75% of the missile launchers were destroyed, and that Iran only had, in the best case, 40% of its pre-war missile arsenal, and quite possibly much less.<\/p>\n

Part of the dispute is that no one knows for sure, and everyone is making estimates based on aerial surveillance or satellite imagery, which can provide indications but may be inconclusive, especially for underground missile sites.<\/p>\n

This issue is especially dynamic as Iran surprised both Israel and the US with the speed at which they were able to excavate and uncover underground missile sites, which had been bombed and covered with rubble.<\/p>\n

The reason is that what “ballistic missiles” means can vary, depending on whether one is discussing short-range missiles or long-range missiles.<\/p>\n

The distance from southern Iran to the northern UAE is only around 100 kilometers, such that much less fancy and expensive missiles with a short range of a few hundred kilometers could reach the Emirates from the Islamic Republic.<\/p>\n

In fact, Iran fired many more missiles on the UAE than it did on Israel.<\/p>\n

To fire on Israel, Iran must use much fancier, more expensive, and more advanced long-range missiles, which can fly 1,000 to 2,000 kilometers.<\/p>\n

Both missiles that can strike the UAE and Israel are called “ballistic missiles”, but they are effectively completely different species.<\/p>\n

When Israel said that Iran had only 2,500 missiles at the start of the war, it was speaking about long-range missiles which could strike it, not about short-range missiles which could strike the UAE and other Arab countries which are geographically closer to Iran.<\/p>\n

Some of this confusion is reflected in completely different sets of missile counts regarding how many missiles Iran fired during the current war.<\/p>\n

While open sources from the UAE have said Iran fired around 1,600 missiles at them, the IDF has told the Post that around 850 missiles were fired at all of the Arab countries, including the UAE, collectively.<\/p>\n

Pressed to explain the discrepancy, the IDF has declined to dig into the differences between its estimates and those of other countries, but has also stood by its numbers.<\/p>\n

So maybe the CIA report is talking about Iran having 70% of all of its kinds of missiles, including a much larger volume of short-range missiles, and the IDF is talking about longer-range missiles.<\/p>\n

If so, the IDF would not be concerned about short-range missiles, because they cannot hit Israel.<\/p>\n

The CIA report also is missing another dimension: if Iran fired 550 missiles on Israel out of 2,500, that pretty much gets the Islamic regime down to around 75%.<\/p>\n

Does the CIA really think that Israel destroyed almost zero missiles when it hit 2,600 targets, a significant portion of which were related to ballistic missiles?<\/p>\n

Again, what is more likely is that between Iran firing many of its missiles and Israel striking many of its missiles and launchers, the long-range missiles were reduced to 40% or lower, leaving Iran with between several hundred and 1,000 long-range missiles that can strike Israel.<\/p>\n

In addition, many of the 2,600 military targets hit by Israel eliminated Iran’s future missile production capacity, or pushed it off by multiple years.<\/p>\n

This is not an end to the threat by any means.
\u00a0
But if in fall 2026, Iran has 800-1,000 missiles that can hit Israel, and without the war, it would have had 3,700-4,300 missiles, it is a game-changer.<\/p>\n

It does not help that the argument about missiles and how threatened Israel is was swept into an article which correctly challenges many other Trump exaggerations about how quickly he can get the Islamic regime to crack with his counter-blockade of the Straits of Hormuz (Trump’s estimates were the regime would have collapsed by now, whereas the CIA likely more accurately said that the regime would not take major hits for three to four months.)<\/p>\n

Yet, setting aside Trump’s exaggerations and the fact that no absolute victories were achieved during this war, Israel pushed off a potential existential ballistic missile threat by multiple years.<\/p>\n

There are still concerns that China<\/a> might assist Iran to rebuild the ballistic missile arsenal faster.<\/p>\n

Chinese diplomats have strongly denied publicly and to the Post that they would be involved in any illegal weapons issues, but the Post also understands that the Chinese do not feel providing dual-use fuel to Iran (which can be used for civilian and military missile purposes) is problematic.<\/p>\n

In fact, if Israel needs to strike again in future years, it is more likely to need to be because of the conventional ballistic missile threat than the nuclear threat.<\/p>\n

The nuclear threat is not even clear whether Iran will try to build it back, and nearly a year after it was hammered in June 2025, it is stuck with few pieces left, and those pieces are either inaccessible, under careful watch by Israel and the US, or both.<\/p>\n

Also, the nuclear threat may be neutralized by a deal between Iran and the US for a decade or more.<\/p>\n

In contrast, the ballistic missile threat was already rebuilt once after June 2025, and all signs are that the US is ignoring the issue in the current negotiations.<\/p>\n

With Trump<\/a> focused more on the nuclear issue, it remains critical that Israel reach at least an unofficial understanding with Iran, through third parties if necessary, that it must keep its arsenal of long-range missiles under a certain number.<\/p>\n

Iran had around 2,500 missiles that could strike Israel for a long time, and many missiles for decades, and all sides lived with this as long as there was no attempt by Iran to cross a certain threshold volume.<\/p>\n

So Iran does not need to eliminate all of its missiles, and Israel can show some flexibility.<\/p>\n

But absent an understanding and limit of some kind, in two or three years, Israel might need to strike again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Over the weekend, the Washington Post made waves with a story leaked by CIA officials, potentially undermining one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":108721,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2551,2268,34,218,5557],"class_list":{"0":"post-108720","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-iran","8":"tag-ballistic-missile","9":"tag-cia","10":"tag-iran","11":"tag-iran-israel-war","12":"tag-nuclear-weapon"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116556972922450507","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}