{"id":114128,"date":"2026-05-14T19:52:06","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T19:52:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/114128\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T19:52:06","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T19:52:06","slug":"irans-navy-wont-rebuild-for-5-to-10-years-country-unable-to-support-proxies-centcom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/114128\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran\u2019s Navy won\u2019t rebuild for 5 to 10 years, country unable to support proxies: CENTCOM"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2014 US operations during Operation Epic Fury<\/a> have severely \u201cdegraded\u201d Iran\u2019s Navy to the point it could take a decade for Tehran to build it back up, the head of US Central Command<\/a>, Adm. Brad Cooper, told lawmakers today.<\/p>\n

Cooper also said that the operations have been successful in effectively cutting Iran off from being able to provide weapons and support to its proxy partners in the region, such as Hamas<\/a>, Hezbollah<\/a> and the Houthis<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe defense industrial rates for their drones, and their missiles and their Navy were degraded by 90 percent. They have about 10 percent left,\u201d Cooper said, although in this written testimony, he wrote the degradation was at 85 percent. \u201cFor the Navy, my military assessment would be that the Navy will not begin to rebuild for five to 10 years.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

In his written testimony, Cooper stated the US has eliminated over 90 percent of Iran\u2019s \u201conce-massive inventory\u201d of over 8,000 naval
mines and has conducted over 700 airstrikes on Iranian \u201cnaval mine targets.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cIn sum, Iran\u2019s navy can no longer claim to be a maritime power, and it cannot project into the Gulf of Oman or the Indian Ocean,\u201d he wrote. \u201cIran retains nuisance capability \u2013 harassment, low-end drone and rocket attacks, and residual proxy support \u2013 but it no longer possesses the means to threaten major regional operations or to deter U.S. freedom of action in the air or maritime domains.<\/p>\n

During a joint hearing with CENTCOM and US Africa Command<\/a>, Cooper told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee that the all along for Operation Epic Fury was to accomplish three goals: degrade Iran\u2019s ballistic missile and the defense industrial base that supports it, degrade Iran\u2019s drones its industrial base and degrade the Navy and its coinciding industrial base.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIn each of those categories, we met all of the achievements. Each of those systems were significantly degraded,\u201d Cooper said.<\/p>\n

Cooper wrote in his written testimony that \u201c[a]cross more than 10,200 sorties and over 13,500 strikes, we targeted the full breadth of the regime\u2019s ability to project power,\u201d adding that \u201c[m]ore than 1,450 strikes on weapons manufacturing facilities set the regime\u2019s ability to build and stockpile ballistic missiles and long-range drones back by years.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cooper also testified that Iranian proxy groups have been completely cut off from Iran, stating that no resources or equipment \u201care flowing from Iran\u201d to those actors.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe also all watched Iran spend decades and billions and billions of dollars arming proxies. Today, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis are all cut off from Iran\u2019s weapons supply and support,\u201d he said. \u201cThis result was not foreordained, nor was it brought by chance. It\u2019s the culmination of months of careful planning built upon decades of experience.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cooper praised US allies in the Gulf Region for making it possible to strangle Iran\u2019s flow of weapons and overall support to its proxies and for helping the US defend against Iranian attacks. He specifically called out the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIn addition to those key allies, everything that we\u2019ve accomplished would have been impossible without the Kingdom of Jordan, and clearly we were operating very closely with the state of Israel. I think that group in particular should be commended,\u201d he added. \u201cIt didn\u2019t just execute missions, they served side by side with Americans and protected Americans.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014 US operations during Operation Epic Fury have severely \u201cdegraded\u201d Iran\u2019s Navy to the point it could…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":114129,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[17078,141,467,3804,1411,100,379,34,49,1488,212,1403],"class_list":{"0":"post-114128","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-iran","8":"tag-adm-brad-cooper","9":"tag-centcom","10":"tag-congress","11":"tag-global","12":"tag-hamas","13":"tag-hezbollah","14":"tag-houthis","15":"tag-iran","16":"tag-middle-east","17":"tag-navy","18":"tag-operation-epic-fury","19":"tag-pentagon"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116574679394911404","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114128","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=114128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}