Indira Gandhi once said the most difficult decision she had to take during the 1971 war was when to stop it. Most war leaders face it—not knowing when to stop the triumphal run. History tells many stories of triumphant armies falling into death traps. The India Gate in New Delhi bears testimony to one such tragedy when a victorious commander, after achieving his military aim, led his troops to the jaws of defeat, disease and death more than a century ago in Mesopotamia.
Whether they know it or not, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are at that difficult moment now—of having nearly achieved their military objective, and we know not what they plan to do next—get the boys back home triumphantly or get bogged down in a Persian messpot.
Trump had claimed to have “obliterated” all of Iran’s nuclear arsenal and most of the nuclear potential in the 12-day war of last June. In the past few days of the current war, they have already neutralised or let Iran use up most of its missile armoury. It can be said with certain credibility at this juncture that Iran, with its remaining few missiles, what is left of its navy, a non-flying air force and a substantial army that is likely to get busy helping the crippled regime re-build the ancient nation, no longer poses a threat to Israel or its Arab neighbours.
THE MISSILE FORCE
Though no official claim was made from Washington, DC or Jerusalem regarding the size, range of the missile armoury or the TNT yield of the warhead stock, experts had estimated a collection of about 2,000 medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs), and 6,000 to 8,000 short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs), and no inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). According to data from the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), Iran launched about 600 ballistic missiles and more than 1,500 drones toward 12 countries in the Middle East in the first four days of the war.
Even if the numbers were military hyperbole, the fact is that the number of launches from Iran has been coming down. From about 80 missiles on the first day of the war, the number came down to 60 the very next day, further to 20 to 25 in a few days, and to less than 15 in a week.
More than the number of missiles launched, the decreasing effectiveness of the missiles is a more reliable indication that Iran’s offensive capability had been exaggerated. Israel has claimed to have suffered fewer than 15 casualties in the first 10 days of the war—against an estimated 1,300 casualties in Iran—and evacuated about 3,100 homes. That means most of the missiles launched against Israel were spotted before they hit targets and shot down by Israeli interceptors, or were of very low accuracy. Moreover, Iran’s two major missile factories, in Parchin and Shahrud, have been hit badly.
Missile accuracies are measured in terms of circular error probability (CEP), which says how close to the bull’s eye it would fall. Going by the data published by the Wisconsin Project of Nuclear Arms Control’s IranWatch website, a Shahab-1 with a range of 300km has a CEP of about 500m, which means the missile can hit anywhere within a radius of 500m from the bull’s eye. With a yield (destructive power) of about 700kg to 1,000kg, the missile is counted among the fairly effective weapons in the Iranian armoury.
But the longer-range missiles pose a different picture. The Khorramshahr-2 and 4, with a range of about 2,000km to 3,000km, have a CEP of 30m, but their warhead yield is just 750kg to 1,500kg. Which means, it flies up to 3,000km, but delivers very little punch for all the distance it has travelled. Israeli territory being about 1,700 air kilometres away, only weapons of the Khorramshahr type can hit Israel, but the punch packed in each delivery is inconsequential to Israel.
Regarding the threat posed to Arab states, Iran has made it clear that they are targeting only the US bases and US military assets stationed on their territories. Indeed, there have been instances of collateral damage when inaccurate missiles fell on hotels and residential complexes, but the bulk of Iranian shorter-range missiles have fallen on intended targets. All the same, very little damage has been reported from these targets, and the campaign has been militarily and politically ineffective since no Arab state has since asked the US to stop firing from their territories.
A more credible way of estimating the missile potential is to count the launchers than guesstimating the missile numbers. Launchers are said to be easier to spot from the air than missiles that are kept underground. As Ari Cicurel, associate director of foreign policy at Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA), reported in a paper on the 6th day of the war, “launchers have become the scarcest link in [Iran’s] missile launch chain”. Launchers also give out their location to the enemy the moment they fire a missile. Israeli media outlets had collated data about Iran’s launchers from various sources and counted between 400 and 550 launchers. By March 7, the eighth day of the war, Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) were claiming to have destroyed 75 per cent of Iran’s missile launchers. It would mean that there are too few of them left to pose any credible threat, at least till Iran’s crippled military factories build more launchers.
THE ELUSIVE AIR THREAT
The current war has seen hardly any air activity from the Iranian side, leaving the airspace to be taken over completely by the US-Israeli fleet who claim to have destroyed a substantial number of the Iranian air fleet on ground. There were hardly any attempts at interception or dogfight, let alone attempts at striking ground targets in enemy territory. The only word said in favour of the Iranian air force is that it has an army of smart engineers who have kept the 1970s vintage birds flying. That is, till the war broke out.
Iran has never posed any conventional air threat to Israel or any of the Arab states. Crippled with several years of economic and trade sanctions, it has not been able to modernise its air fleet since the days of the Shah and the decade-long war with Iraq. By early this year, Iran was estimated to have about 400 aircraft, with a combat fleet of 15 squadrons of ageing US-made Shah-era F-14 and F-4, F-5 (some 60 of them) and about 80 to 100 Russian-made MiG-29 and Su-24 of the 1980s vintage. None of them is a match for the kind of strike and reconnaissance aircraft in the inventory of even Saudi Arabia or the UAE, let alone the US or Israel. By the fourth day of the war, Israeli jets had taken out several air defence systems and command centres located in Tehran, further crippling the Iranian air force’s ability to strike back.
DEATH BY WATER
Contrasted with the air force, the Iranian navy has been a credible fighting force, say Indian Navy sources. (They should know, since they have been been exercising with the Iranians over the years.) The Iranian navy was estimated to have 18 submarines (most of them highly effective midget submarines), 70 fast patrol boats, in addition to 133 ordinary patrol boats and a few frigates and destroyers. The midget subs and fast boats, armed with missiles, could have posed a threat to enemy warships, but the US and Israel focused the first days of the campaign on crippling the Iranian fleet by shooting anti-ship cruise missiles at them. Warship Makran was destroyed at the Bandar Abbas base. It was subjected to heavy US missile assault, as were IRIS Bayandor, IRIS Naghdi, IRIS Jamaran, IRIS Soleimani and the newly-launched drone-carrier Shahid Bagheri.
On the sixth day of the war, Admiral Brad Cooper, chief of the US Central Command, claimed: “Thus far, we’ve destroyed 17 Iranian warships, including the most operational Iranian submarine that now has a hole in its side…. Today, there’s not a single Iranian ship under way in the Arabian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz or Gulf of Oman, and we will not stop.”
Moreover, the US seems to have established sea domination in the region, as was demonstrated by its strike at warship Dena that was returning from a fleet review in India, off the coast of Sri Lanka. As US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth claimed on the 5th day of the war, “Iranian Navy rests at the bottom of the Persian Gulf.”
Hardly any Iranian naval activity has been reported after the first few days of the war. The only major claim from the Iranian side was to have hit US aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, but independent reports suggest no substantial damage to the ship. All the same, little has been heard of the 18 submarines, including two or more of Russian Kilo-class. They could still pose serious threat to shipping in the straits, the gulfs and the seas around Iran. As Vice-Admiral Mark Mellett, former head of the Irish military, told a news portal, Iran still retains the ability to launch unconventional attack at sea through the use of drones, mini-subs and shadow fleet vessels, and also sow sea mines in the Strait of Hormuz. However, going by the recce and firepower that the US is claiming to be carrying into the Iranian waters, it’s a matter of days before the underwater threat is neutralised.
THE HARD GRIND ON THE GROUND
Thus the only credible arm that is left intact is the ground army—from both the Iranian army and the dreaded Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. They have not offered any resistance since there has been no threat of a ground invasion from the US-Israeli side or from any of Iran’s Arab neighbours. With some 2,000 artillery guns, about 1,300 multi-barrel rocket launchers, about 800 tanks of various types (including vintage US Pattons and British Chieftains of the Shah era to modified and upgraded Russian T-72s), that many or more armoured fighting vehicles, and about 6,00,000 active combatants, the two ground armies do pose a threat to any enemy who ventures on a ground invasion. Moreover, it would be nearly suicidal for the US or Israel to launch a ground offensive, even with the US’s ability to airlift ground forces all the way from homeland or elsewhere.
But that works both ways. With all the ground army strength at its disposal, Iran has limited or no capability to launch a ground offensive against Israel, whose territory is separated by about 1,800 km of Iraqi, Syrian and Jordanian territory. Indeed, the huge Iranian army continues to be a threat to its Arab neighbours, but with no substantial air support being available to the invaders, the defender can easily thwart any ground offensive.
What is finally left is the threat of the Iranian-armed Hezbollah. It will continue, but Iran’s capacity to arm it with drones and rockets has already been crippled. The Hezbollah’s firepower has been vastly reduced with Israeli offensives into its bases in southern Lebanon, Syria and elsewhere. Moreover, it is largely armed with drones and rockets, both of which are easily intercepted.
Nearly two weeks into the war, the military objective of eliminating Iran as a threat to the US, Israel or any of the Arab countries has been more or less achieved. As Cicurel estimated, “as Iran continues to lose the war, the regime will rely on small, infrequent missile attacks and struggle to sustain higher daily launch volumes….”
What is left is some mop-up operations to neutralise the armed militias and eliminate the remaining few missiles and their launchers, leaving the ground army alone to provide stability to the post-war Iran polity. But the thousand-missile question is: will Trump and Netanyahu be wise enough to quit the war at this moment of victory? Or will triumphalism seize their war-mongering minds and make the Middle East a worse messpot than what George Bush Jr created in Iraq?