Despite being outmatched by Israel’s advanced arsenal, Iran retains several military options should the fragile ceasefire first announced by President Donald Trump collapse.
On Monday, Trump announced that the US had brokered a “complete and total” truce between the two countries, but since then there have already been signs that the deal is on shaky ground.
By Tuesday morning, Trump was urging restraint on Truth Social, calling on both countries to “not violate” the ceasefire. He later urged Israel to avoid “dropping those bombs,” or risk committing a “major violation.”
Ongoing covert operations and missile launches have already chipped away at its credibility, Andreas Krieg, a Gulf specialist at the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies at King’s College London, told Business Insider.
“The ceasefire that took effect following US and Qatari mediation is brittle and fragile,” Krieg said. “It rests more on political signaling and public posturing than on concrete enforcement mechanisms.”
He added: “In practice, the ceasefire has mostly existed on social media, with each side using digital platforms to declare restraint while continuing activities that fall short of open warfare.”
Mining or threatening the Strait of Hormuz
“There is a case where a ceasefire could hold,” Chris Doyle, director of the Council for Arab British Understanding, told BI, “but there’s also a case sort of saying that both sides want to be the last to fire.”
If the ceasefire collapses, Iran’s most powerful geopolitical lever remains the Strait of Hormuz — a vital 21-mile-wide chokepoint through which 20% of the world’s oil flows.
Iran has long threatened to block it.
While Iran lacks the legal authority to shut down the Strait of Hormuz outright, it could cripple global energy markets by making the waters barely navigable.
“Under normal circumstances, this might be seen as a self-destructive option given Iran’s own dependence on revenue from oil exports through that corridor,” Jacob Parakilas, a research leader for Defence Strategy, Policy and Capabilities at RAND Europe, told Business Insider.
“But if Israeli strikes cause enough damage to Iranian oil infrastructure, that calculation might well change,” he said, adding that Iran could use missile-armed small boats, drones, and naval mines.
“This arsenal could pose a significant challenge to navigation,” said Sidharth Kaushal, a sea power expert at the Royal United Services Institute think tank.
Kaushal said the US Navy is equipped to counter this, but the time needed to do so would be costly for all involved.
A full closure of the Straits could push Brent crude past $110 a barrel, according to Goldman Sachs.
Attacks on US bases
Iran launched a missile strike on Monday on Al Udeid, the largest US base in the region. This was before the ceasefire was announced.
While Qatar said its air defense systems intercepted the missiles, and no casualties were reported, the attack showed Tehran’s willingness to target US bases.
The US has bolstered its regional strength by deploying carrier strike groups and missile defense systems and repositioning aircraft, including B-2 bombers, away from vulnerable sites like Al Udeid.
However, Doyle believes that Iran is unlikely to escalate directly against the US.
Instead, he said that Iran’s strategy could be to prolong the conflict with Israel, aiming to outlast its will politically and economically.
He described this as a war of attrition, rather than one of decisive strikes. “Whilst these dangerous weapons are still being used, anything can happen,” he said.
Proxy groups
Beyond direct military action, Iran has long relied on its network of proxy forces — Hezbollah in Lebanon, Shia militias in Iraq and Syria, and the Houthis in Yemen.
These offer Tehran plausible deniability and the ability to hit Israel or US assets without direct confrontation.
But Iran’s proxies are not what they once were.
Israel’s offensives have decimated Hamas’ military leadership and driven Hezbollah into retreat after heavy airstrikes and an incursion into southern Lebanon. Meanwhile, President Bashar Assad has been ousted in Syria.
The deaths of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of the political wing of Hamas, have further degraded Tehran’s reach.
Edmund Fitton-Brown, a senior advisor to the Counter Extremism Project, cautioned that Tehran may already be close to exhausting its proxy playbook.
These groups “are already doing everything they can,” he said.
“Iran cannot supply the proxies — the Houthis are under siege,” he added. “The main threats to the Americans would be from the Iraqi proxies, and even they may act independently rather than under direct Iranian command.”
Activating these forces en masse also risks broader escalation, especially if unconventional weapons are used.
Ballistic missile capabilities
While Iran’s air force can’t compete with Israel’s, its ballistic missile arsenal has expanded into the largest in the region.
Tehran now possesses an estimated 3,000 missiles, including a growing stockpile of solid-fueled, precision-guided medium-range weapons like the Fattah-1 and Kheibarshekan, which were both used in an attack on Israel last October.
But experts say these, too, have been significantly reduced.
Iran’s “ballistic missile supply is not infinite and has already decreased significantly,” Yaniv Voller, a senior lecturer in Middle East Politics at the University of Kent, said.
Fitton-Brown agreed: “They’ve mainly been depleted because they’ve been used — and the Israelis have taken aim at military-industrial sites.”
No good options
Browne Maddox, director of the Chatham House think tank, wrote in a Sunday briefing that few of the choices available to Iran are attractive to it.
But it may still go for them “rather than be seen to be forced back to the table,” she said.
It’s also a delicate matter for the country domestically.
Being forced by the US to give up its nuclear enrichment — a key demand of the Trump administration — “would very likely be perceived by Iranians as surrender,” she said.
One option for Tehran, she said, is to draw out negotiations while quietly rebuilding its nuclear program, taking advantage of ongoing disagreements in the Trump camp over how best to proceed.
But all its military options risk a devastating US or Israeli response.
“Iran doesn’t have good options,” Fitton-Brown said. “It’s run out of them.”
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