Iran’s top military official, Major General Mohammad Bagheri, attended a tour of the site, and claimed his forces could unleash a “capability that is 10 times greater than the one deployed during Operation True Promise II” – when Tehran fired 200 ballistic missiles at Israel last October during the first open exchange of fire between the longtime adversaries.
The regime is seeking to restore deterrence after Israel’s success in weakening allied militias such as Hezbollah and Hamas, and strikes on Iran’s own military sites during last year’s exchanges, analysts say, amid threats of further attacks from Israel and the US.
“(Trump) would much prefer to work this out diplomatically without a war,” said US Secretary of State Marco Rubio last week. “But if you force him to choose between a nuclear Iran or taking action, the president has been clear he will take action.”
Trump himself has said “Iran will be held responsible” for Houthi attacks as the US escalates air strikes against the Iran-backed Yemeni group, and builds up forces in the region.
Missiles mounted on trucks at the underground facility (Photo: Iranian military)
The regime is seeking to maintain parallel tracks of diplomacy combined with deterrence, said Saeed Azimi, a journalist and analyst based in Tehran.
Dr Raz Zimmt, a security analyst and Iran researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, said recent displays by the Iranian military suggest increasing concern they could come under attack.
Those fears may be well founded, Dr Zimmt suggested, with Israeli leaders discussing a “window of opportunity” to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities while the regime’s allies and domestic capabilities are weakened, with the assumption that they will eventually recover.
Projectiles above Jerusalem on 1 October as Iran launched a missile attack on Israel’s commercial hub Tel Aviv (Photo: MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP via Getty Images)
Even in a weakened state, the threat of Iranian retaliation would not be taken lightly by Israel, said Dr Zimmt.
Tehran has other options to deter or punish an attack, said Ken Katzman, a former CIA official specialising on Iran now at the Soufan Centre think tank.
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The regime has also been prepared to launch attacks on US targets, such as a missile strike on the al-Asad airbase in Iraq in 2020 after Trump ordered the assassination of military chief General Qassem Solemani during his first term.
Dr Farzan Sabet, managing researcher and specialist on Iran military analyst at the Geneva Graduate Institute, said Iran had numerous potential lines of attack.
“Iran can also use various capabilities to obstruct maritime energy traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, which would increase global oil prices.”
In the case of a combined Israeli-US attack on Iran’s nuclear sites, the analyst said he would expect the regime “to reconstitute and rehabilitate as quickly as possible their nuclear program with some of the material that remained … and try to build a nuclear warhead.”
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