Calibrating Iran’s Counterattack and Its Implications

As I predicted earlier, Iran’s response will be different from Iraq and Syria when the nuclear reactors of both countries were attacked by Israel in 1981 and 2007. Iran’s response will be fast and “bold”, although technically it has limitations, as I wrote recently. Strategically, Iran will respond like Putin’s response shortly after Zelenski smuggled hundreds of drones into Russia and launched attacks on several Russian military bases on Russian soil (not on Ukrainian soil that has been occupied by Russia).

First, Iran will be reactive and will immediately show its “teeth” to Israel in particular and to the world in general that Iran will never be silent against various threats and attacks. A quick response will be taken, regardless of the results of the response to Israel. And secondly, Iran will increasingly doubt the role of the major western countries in the plan for a new agreement regarding the cessation of Iran’s nuclear enrichment, because it is considered that it can be canceled at any time on the one hand (like in 2017) and Israel will remain outside the agreement on the other hand, where Israel will continue to look for opportunities to attack Iran, exactly like the attack in June 13, 2025, two days before the Oman meeting.

As it turned out, Iran didn’t have to wait long. Friday night Middle East time (14/6/2025), again as I predicted, Iran launched more than a hundred ballistic missiles and several drones into Israeli soil. Most of these missiles were repelled by the Israeli defense system, including of course the Iron drone and several advanced American-made defense systems, such as the Arrow 2 and Arrow 3 Interceptors. And like the Iranian missile attack in October 2024, some were still able to escape the reach of the Israeli air defense system, either because of the self-selection system in the Iron Dome or because it was truly beyond control.

Indeed, one of the weaknesses of the Iron Dome is the volume of attacks. Iran understands that very well. In the term of geostrategic experts, Iran is trying to make the Iron Dome in an “overwelmed” condition, if the attacks come in sufficient volume, even very much, for example, more than 100 missiles. In such conditions, the Iron Dome will carry out an independent selection system for which missiles should be prioritized for interception and which ones should be left alone. So, inevitably, one or two missiles will be missed, if hundreds come, because they are considered or estimated to fall in a location that is not too strategic or a location that will not cause too many casualties.

This is actually also one of the reasons why Hamas was successful in breaking into Israel’s air defense system two years ago. In addition to the “intelligence failures” factor from Israel, the missiles launched by Hamas opened up the opportunity for some of these missiles to escape the reach of Iron Dome and other defense systems owned by Israel (mostly made by America). And again, whether Israel admits it or not, this factor is also what made Israel have to target one of Iran’s missile installations and storage warehouses the other day, namely to reduce the volume of missile ownership by Iran.

In other words, Israel’s main concern is Iran’s possession of nuclear weapons. If that happens, the “balance of military power” in the Middle East will immediately change. Israel will no longer be the only country in the Middle East that has nuclear weapons or in American geopolitical language, Israel will no longer have a “military edge” in the Middle East.

However, there is another concern, namely related to the limited anticipatory power of the Iron Dome. A large number of missile attacks will make the Iron Dome “overwelmed”, thus opening up opportunities, although not large, for Iranian, Hezbollah, Hamas, or Houthi missiles to enter Israeli territory. And again, Iran also understands Israel’s fears. So in the past few years, Iran has continued to increase its missile production capacity, especially the hypersonic type and the Medium-Range Ballistic Missiles (MRBMs), missiles with a range of 1000 km (621 miles). Even some of its production is reported to be the result of cooperation with North Korea.

From the data officially announced by Iran through several government media last year, Iran has quite a lot of this type of MRBMs missiles, both liquid propellant (Shahab 3 Missile) and solid propellant (Qassem Bassir Missile). The number is unknown. However, geostrategic and military experts agree and believe that Iran has both types of ballistic rockets in quite large volumes. Not only to be on guard in case of war with Israel, but also to supply Iran’s proxies in the Middle East, such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and Houthi.

Iran’s move is certainly understandable on the one hand and the response in the form of a counterattack with ballistic missiles was also predicted on the other hand, including by Israel of course. Reflecting on the statement of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei and the Iranian envoy to the UN Security Council the day after the Israeli attack, for Iran, what Israel has done is a form of “declaration of war” against Iran. So there is no other response that Iran can give other than showing that Iran is also very ready for war. Even in Tehran and major cities of Iran since June 14, 2025, black flags have begun to appear as a warning sign that Iran will face war and residents are asked to stay away from strategic Iranian military locations.

In addition to the military response, as I have previously written, Iran also said that the closure of sea transportation routes in the Strait of Hormuz is currently “on the table”. Of course that does not mean that the Strait of Hormuz will be closed immediately. But the option for that is already on Iran’s list of reactions, if the escalation increases on the one hand and the major countries increasingly support Israel on the other. However, from the existing developments, the geopolitical division is not much different from previous times. Iran still gets support from its strategic partners in the UN Security Council, especially Russia and China. So this option is expected to only lie on the table. In other words,  it will not be taken by Iran in the near future.

So where is this tension headed? Will it end with the outbreak of open war in the Middle East, which will drag the world’s major countries into a far more massive turmoil than the Russia-Ukraine war? US, in this case the Donald Trump administration, does not seem to be entirely on the side of “Bibi” Netanyahu. Indeed, Trump does not seem to have much of a problem with the surprise attack carried out by Israel. But on the other hand, Trump is also seen as not being too happy with the attack, because it disrupts his plans to bring Iran to the negotiating table.

In other words, as with Donald Trump’s character and political style, along with the motto often attached by his subordinates that Trump is “the great deal maker”, Trump’s agenda, whether he admits it or not, was disrupted by Israel’s surprise attack. Therefore, although he did not openly express his disagreement, US immediately stated that first, the Donald Trump administration was not involved at all in the attack. Second, US again appealed to Iran to return to the negotiating table as soon as possible. And third, no less importantly, US also reiterated that Iran should not have nuclear weapons.

From these points, two things are implied. First, US, especially Trump who is reportedly no longer very close to Netanyahu, does not want to be dragged into a bigger war in the Middle East, just because of Netanyahu’s actions who indeed intends to “dive” US into Israel own war. The limits of this attitude are clearly visible from the statements of Donald Trump and Marco Rubio that US expects a de-escalation process to occur as soon as possible and still prefers diplomacy to war.

This attitude is somewhat different from Trump’s attitude shortly after Zelenski launched an attack on Russian soil. At that time, Trump actually gave Russia the opportunity to counterattack by saying “let them fight for a while”. And it was proven that Russia retaliated immediately after that. This statement is also very understandable and can be interpreted that Trump is indeed more “leaning” to Putin than to Zelenski. It was also because of this factor that Zelenski finally took a stance to launch a drone attack on Russian soil without much coordination with US, only with NATO and Europe.

Second, Trump wants the agreement to stop Iran’s nuclear enrichment to take place within the schedule and scheme of the agreement made by his government, not driven, let alone determined by Israel’s attitude. The call to return to the negotiating table, or in Trump’s language, “I prefer agreement” and not to take a hard stance on Iran if Iran retaliates against Israel, is almost similar to Trump’s attitude to Putin after Zelenski attacked Russia with hundreds of drones. This means that Trump is not really on the same boat as Netanyahu, even though their goal is the same, namely stopping Iran’s nuclear enrichment.

Meanwhile, the view of other countries, such as France, England, Germany, India, and Canada, for example, supports Israel’s attack because it is considered an effort to defend itself from external threats. Opposite these countries, there are Russia, China, Turkey, and other developing countries on Iran’s side, where Israel’s attack is considered an illegal and criminal attack. So with such a constellation, it is estimated that Iran will continue to look for ways to sporadically retaliate against Israel, of course with a fairly limited capacity, namely via missiles and drones, because it still gets enough international support for that. On the other hand, Israel is no different. Israeli military and intelligence operations will continue to be carried out sporadically against Iran and the Houthis.