WASHINGTON — Although weakened and facing a domestic crisis, Iran’s regime still has substantial firepower that could potentially inflict damage on American interests and allies in the region, disrupt the global economy and trigger a protracted conflict in response for a U.S. military attack, according to former U.S. officials, foreign diplomats and regional analysts.
The prospect of Iranian retaliation has factored into President Donald Trump’s deliberations over whether to order a military attack in Iran, following strikes on its nuclear program last June, as well as discussions between the U.S. and its allies in the Middle East, according to current U.S. officials.
While Iran retaliated in June against Israel and a U.S. base in Qatar, it stopped short of more dramatic actions that could have caused casualties among American forces or destabilized Persian Gulf economies. Iran’s response to U.S. military action could play out very differently this time if Trump makes that decision, the former officials, diplomats and analysts said, particularly if Iranian leaders perceive a threat to their survival.
“What could be different this time is that they do try to regionalize this, as opposed to just going after Israel or going after U.S. bases,” said Joseph Votel, a retired four-star Army general who oversaw U.S. forces in the Middle East in Trump’s first term.
Votel, now a senior fellow with the Middle East Institute, said one possibility is Iran would try to target oil refineries in the Persian Gulf states, in a bid “to drag everybody into this, and turn this into a much more protracted conflict.”
The U.S. and Iran are expected to hold another round of diplomatic talks as soon as Thursday, according to administration officials. Administration officials have indicated that Iran must make major concessions on its nuclear program, including abandoning uranium enrichment, to avert possible U.S. military action.
Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, who is leading the Iran talks along with the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, said over the weekend “there were red lines: zero enrichment, we have to have the material back.”
Asked in a Fox News interview why Iran isn’t cutting a deal with the U.S. under such intense military and economic pressure, Witkoff said Trump has asked him the same question. “He’s curious as to why they haven’t, I don’t want to use the word capitulated, but why they haven’t capitulated,” Witkoff said.
Trump is considering a range of military options if diplomatic efforts fail — from limited strikes targeting nuclear and missile sites to a wider assault designed to weaken or even topple the regime, NBC News has previously reported.
But what Trump views as “limited” may not be interpreted that way by Iran, particularly if Iranian leaders believe the regime’s survival is at stake, according to former U.S. officials, foreign diplomats and regional analysts.
“If they see this as an existential threat… their reaction will certainly be disproportionate,” one Middle Eastern diplomat said of Iran’s leaders.
Iran has suffered debilitating setbacks over the past year with the fall of the Assad regime in neighboring Syria, the decimation of its Hezbollah proxies in Lebanon and the U.S. and Israeli bombing of its nuclear and missile programs in June.
But Tehran still has a significant supply of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones, and it could try to retaliate with strikes across the Persian Gulf in a bid to sow economic instability and cause alarm among U.S. allies such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
Iran could calibrate its response depending on the scale of the U.S. attack and could ratchet up its actions if leaders perceive an attempt by the U.S. to topple the regime, said Joseph Costa of the Washington, D.C.-based Atlantic Council think tank.
“Iran might calculate it must increase the costs of war,” said Costa, who helped oversee war planning as a senior official at the Pentagon during the Biden administration.
Last month, some Arab state leaders privately expressed concern to administration officials about Trump striking Iran at the time because they weren’t confident their countries were prepared to respond to any Iranian retaliation, NBC News reported. In recent days, however, those leaders have been reassured that the U.S. will ensure they are protected from any retaliation from Iran, according to three veteran Middle Eastern diplomats.
Trump on Monday criticized reports indicating that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine has raised concerns about a lack of adequate air defense munitions in the region to respond to a retaliatory attack from Iran.
“General Caine, like all of us, would like not to see War but, if a decision is made on going against Iran at a Military level, it is his opinion that it will be something easily won,” Trump posted on Truth Social, his social media site. “I am the one that makes the decision, I would rather have a Deal than not but, if we don’t make a Deal, it will be a very bad day for that Country and, very sadly, its people, because they are great and wonderful, and something like this should never have happened to them.”
The U.S. has bolstered air defenses in the region, including in Qatar and Saudi Arabia, to help mitigate the impact of any retaliatory attack from Iran, according to two people familiar with the matter. They said the large contingent of naval forces arrayed around the region, including the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, and the Ford aircraft carrier, which is expected to arrive in coming days, contribute to not only offensive but defensive forces in the region should the U.S. mount an attack and Iran respond.
The U.S. also has numerous squadrons of jet fighters and other military hardware deployed around the region.
The possibility of American strikes, which could potentially be a joint operation with Israeli forces, could pose grave dangers to the more than 30,000 American troops stationed in the region, the former U.S. officials, foreign diplomats and regional analysts said. And They said defending those troops could be an enduring problem in the region for weeks or months.
More than 35,000 forces are stationed in and around the Middle East, on large sprawling bases in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan Kuwait and others. Many of those service members are accompanied by their families at those installations, including the Navy’s Fifth Fleet in Bahrain.
For now, however, the massive buildup of military hardware in the region could significantly blunt any Iranian retaliation, said Mark Cancian, a senior advisor with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Last month, when anti-regime protests swept across Iran and President Trump threatened to intervene, the U.S. had enough military capability in the region to launch a punitive strike, but not enough to adequately protect allies and partners, he said. Now, he said, it appears the U.S. does.
Hossein Kanani, a former officer in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, told NBC News that if the U.S. attacks, Iran would take aim at U.S. bases in the region overseen by U.S. Central Command, including in Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. He also said that Tehran might go after European military installations elsewhere if those countries took part in a campaign against Iran, through no European country has indicated it could join the U.S. in any military operation in Iran.
“As you know we don’t like to have any conflict between Arab countries and Iran,” said Kanani, speaking by video call from Tehran. “We just only directly attack the bases of the United States and Israel. And European countries, maybe NATO.”
Iran’s U.N. mission in New York did not respond to a request for comment.
Iran has three ways of striking back at the U.S. and, potentially, its allies, experts said. They said its leadership could use missile strikes, proxy attacks, including activating Hamas, Hezbollah or the Houthis, for example, or terrorist attacks around the world.
“The U.S. forces in theater provide substantial protection against missile and proxy attacks, though no defense is perfect,” Cancian said, adding that if Iran launched a terrorist attack somewhere outside of the region, that would likely amount to an attack against civilians that would provoke deep international outrage.
After the June air strikes in Iran, authorities in Germany and Denmark uncovered a plot linked to Iran targeting Jewish institutions and Jewish individuals in Germany, Israel issued a warning about possible Iranian attacks in the United Arab Emirates and U.S. officials issued a terrorism advisory warning about potential Iranian plots on U.S. soil.
“There’s risk in all of this. None of this is fail safe,” Votel said.
