OPENING
The War Before the Next War
Iran’s attacks on American bases across the Middle East are usually described as retaliation. That interpretation misses their strategic purpose. Tehran is trying to weaken the network of radars, interceptors, airfields and naval facilities that would stand between Iranian missiles and Israel in another regional war. The campaign is preparation as much as punishment.
The immediate audience is regional. After the death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Iran needed to show Arab governments that the change in leadership had not made the country passive or strategically disoriented. But the larger objective is military. Tehran does not believe its confrontation with Israel is over. Israeli officials say openly that another campaign may be coming, while negotiations with Washington have failed to settle the nuclear and missile disputes at the center of the conflict.
Iran is therefore trying to change the conditions under which the next war would be fought. It does not have to destroy every American installation in the region. It has to make enough of them unreliable, expose the limits of the defensive network and increase the cost of keeping US forces close to Iran. If the next exchange with Israel comes, every damaged radar, displaced command post and depleted interceptor stockpile improves the odds that more Iranian missiles will get through.
The clearest evidence of that strategy is the pattern of attacks. Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan have all come under pressure. The targets are not interchangeable. Together they form the regional system that warns of launches, coordinates interceptions, sustains aircraft and keeps the US Navy close to the Gulf. Iran has been testing that system piece by piece.
01
The Bases Now Off the Board
The most consequential damage is at Naval Support Activity Bahrain, home of the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet. Iran’s opening barrage on February 28 struck the fleet headquarters, barracks, warehouses and communications towers. The Navy estimates that repairs will cost roughly $400 million. Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Daryl Caudle later told sailors that the service would not be returning soon. Fleet logistics have been pushed back to Diego Garcia, more than 2,000 miles from the Gulf.
The distance matters. Bahrain placed the Fifth Fleet inside the theater it was responsible for policing. Diego Garcia is safer, but safety comes at the price of time, range and responsiveness. Ships still operate in the Gulf, yet the infrastructure supporting them is farther away. Food shortages aboard deployed vessels and the continued displacement of military families are not merely administrative problems. They show that a strike can impose costs long after the immediate damage is repaired.
Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar presents a different problem. The largest American installation in the region lost its AN/FPS-132 early-warning radar on March 3 when an Iranian ballistic missile penetrated Qatar’s defenses. The radar, valued at roughly $1.1 billion, could detect launches at ranges approaching 5,000 kilometers and feed warning data across the Gulf. Satellite imagery showed damage to both the radar complex and adjacent communications infrastructure. Repairs are underway, but the system has not been fully restored.
Other attacks have been less dramatic but strategically cumulative. Kuwait’s Ahmad al-Jaber Air Base sustained radar damage, while Ali Al Salem suffered more limited effects. Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan lost a hangar and sustained damage across at least 20 structures. Al Dhafra in the UAE was struck directly, and its THAAD battery intercepted only part of the incoming fire. Reviews of satellite imagery have identified damage at nine US-linked sites and repeated attacks on radar installations across the region.
No single strike removes the American military from the Middle East. That is not the standard Iran needs to meet. The United States built a network with overlapping facilities so that the loss of one base would not end a campaign. Iran is attacking the value of that redundancy. As more sites become damaged, constrained or politically difficult to use, the remaining bases carry more of the burden.
Photo: Tech. Sgt. Scott Reed, U.S. Air Force, public domain (cropped)
02
The Interceptor Problem
Damaged bases can be repaired. Expended interceptors are harder to replace quickly. The Center for Strategic and International Studies estimates that the United States has used roughly two-thirds of its prewar Patriot interceptor inventory in less than six months. Its estimate places the remaining stock between 759 and 827 missiles, down from approximately 2,400 before the war. THAAD inventories may have fallen from about 452 interceptors to somewhere between 234 and 278.
The exact totals are uncertain. Stockpile figures are estimates, expenditure rates change and the Pentagon has rejected claims that the campaign is running short of what it needs. The broader constraint is still difficult to dismiss. Patriot and THAAD interceptors cannot be replaced at the rate they are being used in a sustained regional war, and there are no equivalent systems ready to take over their role against ballistic missiles.
This creates an exchange Iran can exploit even when most of its weapons are intercepted. A cheap drone may never reach its target and still force a defender to reveal a radar, launch an expensive interceptor or keep personnel under alert. A high interception rate proves that the defenses work. It does not prove that the balance is sustainable.
That distinction matters because Iran does not need a clean breakthrough. It needs to force American and allied commanders to become more selective. When every launch is treated as a threat, magazines empty. When some launches are allowed through to preserve ammunition, bases and radars become more vulnerable. Either response imposes a cost.
The military problem is therefore larger than the number of damaged buildings. Iran is pressing the entire defensive chain: the sensors that identify an attack, the command systems that coordinate a response and the interceptors that stop it. Weakness at any point increases the chance that the next salvo will do more damage than the last.
Photo: Robert Barney, U.S. Air Force, public domain (cropped)
03
Why There Is No Deal
Two serious attempts to stop the war have failed, and both ran into the same underlying dispute. Washington wants limits that would reduce Iran’s ability to build a nuclear weapon and threaten the region with missiles. Tehran wants guarantees against another attack without surrendering the capabilities it believes prevent one. Each side is asking the other to give up the thing it considers essential before trust exists.
Pakistan brokered a two-week pause on April 8. Four days later, talks in Islamabad collapsed. Vice President Vance said the United States needed an affirmative commitment that Iran would not seek a nuclear weapon. Iran refused to stop enriching uranium. Its demands included the release of $6 billion in frozen assets, an end to Israeli attacks on Hezbollah and control of the Strait of Hormuz with the right to charge for passage. Trump announced a naval blockade of Iranian ports days later.
The second attempt produced a memorandum of understanding on June 17. It established a 60-day framework covering navigation, the nuclear file, missiles and sanctions. The framework remains alive on paper. In practice, Iran said in August that it would not hold direct talks with Washington unless its conditions were met first. By early September, the two sides were exchanging fire again over attacks on shipping.
Iran’s terms explain the deadlock more clearly than its public statements about diplomacy. Tehran says its ballistic-missile program is not negotiable. It wants recognition of its rights, reparations and firm guarantees against future aggression. It has also made a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah a condition of broader talks.
That final demand links the diplomatic track to the military one. Israel is still degrading Hezbollah while the Lebanese government is debating how to bring the organization’s weapons under state authority. Israel is unlikely to pause long enough to meet Iran’s condition, and Iran is unlikely to sign an agreement that leaves Hezbollah exposed. The failed talks do more than prolong the conflict. They give Tehran a reason to keep preparing the battlefield.
The succession in Tehran makes compromise harder. Mojtaba Khamenei inherited power after his father was killed in the opening strike on February 28. A leader who entered office through a decapitation attack has little reason to regard a written promise of nonaggression as sufficient protection. Israeli leaders continue to say that major operations remain ahead. From Tehran, those statements do not sound like negotiating pressure. They sound like advance notice.
04
Hezbollah and the Logic of Escalation
Hezbollah is where Iran’s regional strategy and its preparation for another direct war meet. Hamas remains under severe pressure in Gaza, but Hezbollah has always been the more valuable part of Iran’s network. It possesses deeper political roots, a larger arsenal and a position next to Israel that no other Iranian partner can reproduce.
That asset is now in trouble. Hezbollah has not restored deterrence against Israel and cannot point to the kind of battlefield result that once helped justify its weapons inside Lebanon. The Lebanese government is pursuing disarmament, even if implementation has been limited, while Israel continues to strike the organization and restrict its recovery. Hezbollah is being pressured from outside Lebanon and challenged from within it.
This does not mean Hezbollah is about to disappear. It retains a constituency, political representation and a social network that will survive military losses. What has weakened is the bargain that made its separate arsenal defensible: tolerance for military autonomy in exchange for protection against Israel. An organization may survive even after the argument for its weapons has begun to fail.
For Iran, that distinction creates urgency. If Hezbollah loses its military role while Tehran remains passive, Iran does not simply lose firepower. It loses the most important forward position in the regional architecture it spent decades building. Escalation could therefore become more attractive as Hezbollah grows weaker, particularly if Tehran believes waiting will leave it with fewer options later.
There is a counterargument. Iran’s own missile stocks, launchers and production sites have been damaged. Hezbollah’s weakness may encourage caution rather than intervention. Tehran may decide that preserving what remains is more important than entering another fight on unfavorable terms. That possibility is real, but it competes with a leadership that believes Israel intends to strike again and that delay is steadily reducing Iran’s leverage.
Iran’s pattern of fire suggests that it is trying to resolve that tension by preparing first. It can avoid an immediate general war while degrading the bases and defensive systems that would matter in one. The attacks buy time, but they are also an attempt to make that time useful.
05
The Last Frontier
Jordan is one of the last heavily used American positions in the region that Iran has not managed to knock offline. Its territory has absorbed a sustained volume of missiles and drones since February, yet its bases remain functional. Bahrain and Qatar have suffered more consequential disruption, while other Gulf facilities cannot be used at full capacity without increasing the risk to personnel. As those options narrow, Jordan becomes more important.
Nothing fundamental about Jordan changed. The strategic environment around it did. Admiral Charles Bradford confirmed that the Pentagon moved personnel from Iraq to Jordan to place them farther from Iranian missiles. Muwaffaq Salti Air Base is a logistics hub for C-17 transports and hosts roughly 60 combat aircraft. As conditions at Gulf bases deteriorated, Jordan quietly absorbed more of the American regional posture.
Iran has been testing that position throughout the war. More than 200 missiles and drones have reportedly been fired at or through Jordan since February 28. Jordanian air defenses intercepted 108 of 119 incoming projectiles during the first week. The overall interception rate has been estimated at between 85 and 90 percent, yet three American service members have still been killed and 29 wounded.
An interception rate of 85 percent sounds like a defense that is holding. It can also be read as a measure of consumption. Every successful engagement uses a Patriot or THAAD round from an inventory that is difficult to replace. Iran does not have to defeat Jordan’s defenses in a single attack. Continued pressure can force the United States and Jordan to spend scarce interceptors against much cheaper threats.
Jordan also faces a political cost. US grants provide at least 8 percent of the national budget, approximately $1.47 billion, while the country is managing refugees, high energy prices and a devastated tourism season. Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi insists that Jordan is not a party to the war, even as Iranian weapons cross or enter Jordanian territory. The government wants to remain an American host without becoming an active belligerent.
That balance is the vulnerability Iran can target. Tehran does not have to destroy Muwaffaq Salti. It can make the base expensive to defend, dangerous to operate and harder for the Jordanian government to justify. Each interception over Jordan adds a small amount of military and political pressure.
Jordan is far enough from Iran to support American operations and close enough to help defend Israel. If Iran can significantly degrade the bases there, it will have weakened another layer of the regional shield. Until then, Tehran must apply pressure without provoking the wider confrontation it is trying to prepare for.
CONCLUSION
The Prediction
The evidence does not make a third round inevitable. It does make one increasingly plausible. As of September 7, 2026, my prediction is that Iran, the United States, Israel and Hezbollah will enter another period of major regional escalation before the end of the year.
The prediction rests on three judgments. Iran does not believe Israel is finished. The negotiations have not produced an agreement that either side can trust. And Hezbollah’s deterioration gives Tehran reason to fear that waiting will leave it weaker. The attacks on American bases fit those judgments because they improve Iran’s position without requiring it to begin the larger war immediately.
There are clear ways this prediction could be wrong. Iran’s missile inventory may be smaller than it claims, its surviving launchers may be too vulnerable to sustain another campaign, and damaged production sites may be recovering more slowly than outside observers can see. Tehran may also decide that Hezbollah’s losses argue for restraint, or the June framework may produce enough sanctions relief to outweigh the value of another confrontation.
Those are the indicators to watch. A sustained decline in Iranian launches, movement toward verifiable limits on enrichment, meaningful sanctions relief or a durable arrangement in Lebanon would all weaken the case for renewed war. Continued attacks on radars and bases, the dispersal of American forces and public Israeli preparations would strengthen it.
Iran does not need to remove the United States from the Middle East before fighting Israel again. It needs to reduce the speed, confidence and depth of the American response. That is what the current campaign appears designed to do. Before round three begins, Tehran is trying to decide where the United States will be able to fight it from.