Iran Threatens Wider Strikes on Gulf Airports, Pipelines and Civilian Targets If U.S. Attacks
Iran has issued a stark warning: if the United States and Israel restart their air campaign, Tehran will respond with strikes not only on American bases and warships but on airports, pipelines and other civilian targets in the neighboring countries of the Persian Gulf, the Wall Street Journal exclusively reported on October 23.
The warnings, issued publicly and in private diplomatic communications, are aimed at deterring any attack with tough talk — but they also signal a real threat, as Iran retains significant missile and drone stocks and the ability to use them. Analysts estimate Iran has hundreds to thousands of ballistic missiles, and U.S. and regional officials believe it has resumed production of ballistic missiles in limited numbers using stockpiled components and working in underground facilities.
Iranian officials told mediators that another U.S. attack would trigger a broader assault on Gulf economies, according to people familiar with the communications who spoke to the Journal. Tehran has also threatened more lethal attacks on American forces, including attempts to sink U.S. warships and kill their crews, the people said.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi wrote in the Financial Times that renewed attacks "will put civilian lives and the well-being of all regional states and the global economy at great risk." Brigadier General Yadollah Javani, the Revolutionary Guard's deputy commander for political affairs, said Wednesday that Iran could cut submarine internet cables passing beneath the Strait of Hormuz.
In the opening phase of the war, Iran inflicted significant damage on U.S. air bases, embassies and the headquarters of the U.S. 5th Fleet in Bahrain. It also hit energy and industrial facilities in the United Arab Emirates, a major gas plant in Qatar and airports in Dubai, Kuwait and Bahrain.
The Pentagon said in September the U.S. had destroyed up to 90 percent of Iran's drone, ballistic missile and naval industrial base. Washington is trying to move more servicemembers and diplomatic staff out of harm's way across the region; aboard the aircraft carrier USS George Washington, American forces are loading munitions and readying aircraft for possible fresh action. "The consensus in Tehran now believes that deterrence requires imposing immediate, sustained and substantial costs on its adversaries," said Sina Toossi, an Iran expert at the Center for International Policy, a Washington think tank.
(GSM, based on the Wall Street Journal)
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 美军 B-52 轰炸机飞越波斯湾上空（资料图）。照片：Senior Airman Keifer Bowes（美国空军），公有领域，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / A U.S. Air Force B-52H Stratofortress in flight over the Persian Gulf (file photo). Photo: Senior Airman Keifer Bowes, U.S. Air Force, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
