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ISRAEL and, in this case, its proxy the US launched their war on Iran two weeks ago. Despite President Donald Trump claiming victory multiple times, no end to the hostilities is in sight because of Tehran’s asymmetric response. The stated objectives of the illegal war were the destruction of Iran’s nuclear programme (which, last year, Trump claimed his B2 bombers had decimated during the ‘12-day war’), the degradation of its missile production and launch capability and regime change.
All Tehran needed to do was survive to claim the upper hand in the conflict. Yes, just survive. It seems to have done better than merely survive. At least so far. It hit back, and continues to do so, despite the strikes that took out its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several key military and IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) figures. And its retaliation commenced within hours of the Israel-US attack. Its decentralisation of command and assets with their strike target lists seems to have delivered after the decapitation attack.
Bombs from planes and missiles have been slamming into Iran in their thousands. Yet, Iran retains its capacity to retaliate and, surprisingly retains, despite having no air cover, its command and control coherence. Statements have by and large been from the same page, implying its communications network has survived the massive aerial assault.
Experts point out that Iran is larger than the combined landmass of France, Germany, Spain and the UK. Quite a lot of its terrain is rocky and mountainous. Therefore, even an air force the size of the US operating from UK bases on the mainland and Diego Garcia and Israeli bases and aircraft carriers have so far failed to attain the main military aims of silencing Iran’s missile launchers.
It was clear to Iran’s astute military planners that a strategy was needed to cope with this challenge.
There is a reason for that, as many experts have pointed out. They say that Iran observed the 2003 Gulf War with great interest. The US air superiority meant that within a matter of weeks Iraq’s military infrastructure and equipment from airports, air force, radars, tanks and missile launchers and artillery were degraded to the point where they had zero impact on the war. All this happened before the land invasion.
It was clear to Iran’s astute military planners that a strategy was needed to cope with this challenge as crippling international sanctions meant they would not be able to have an air force that could provide them air cover and protection from far superior (numerically and technologically) enemy air forces.
The nearly decade-long Western-backed war that began with Iraq’s attack on Iran and ingress into it taught the Iranians how to defend themselves against a better-equipped enemy in a ground war and also withstand air attacks. That war saw the rise to eminence of the IRGC as a military fighting force, not just a paramilitary force to protect the aims of the 1979 Revolution.
The main lesson learnt from the 2003 Gulf war was not to repeat Iraq’s folly. Iran would not have the assets/ resources to protect its military assets on the ground as they’d be sitting ducks for the Israeli-US joint aerial attack. They took a leaf out of the North Vietnamese playbook. They took their entire warfare capacity underground, often buried in tunnels hundreds of metres under mountains of granite or similar hard rocky formations where, some experts, including those formerly of the US military, believe they were out of reach of even the massive ordnance penetrators or ‘bunker-buster’ bombs. Side by side, these tunnels are said to have many concealed openings which are covered by sand to enable missile launches. Missiles and drones are produced in underground units.
Also, Iran has so far prosecuted a multipronged war on those attacking it or those it believes are complicit in the aggression by attacking with its effective drones and missiles, economic targets in the Gulf. So far, though, its main targets have been US bases and assets in the region including reportedly a billion-dollar hi-tech radar. Interceptor missile radars have also been degraded.
This weekend’s US air attack on the Iranian oil terminal on Kharg Island in the northern Gulf has raised the spectre of Tehran’s retaliatory strikes against the Arab Gulf’s energy infrastructure. This could threaten to cripple oil supplies which could have resumed after some agreement on the opening of the Strait of Hormuz.
A surprising decision was the US despatch of sending a nearly 2,500-strong Marine Expeditionary Force to the Middle East. This number is far from what may be required to consider a ground operation. A former US Navy admiral has said that Iran retains the capacity to mine the Strait of Hormuz which would take many months to clear even if there were no hostile fire coming from Iran.
Another former UK diplomat and former British security analyst says that Iran has the ability to deliver from underwater shore tunnel openings both manned and unmanned submersible vehicles (small submarines and underwater drones) which can play havoc in the strait. He says the claims of ‘decimating’ some of Iran’s best and most lethal missiles that are yet to be used are as credible as of Hezbollah having become a spent force in Lebanon. You believe it at your own peril. The Houthis have also started to stir on the Red Sea.
Without doubt, Iran has so far suffered huge losses. But its ongoing asymmetric response is threatening to derail the global economy and plunge the region into more chaos. The US economy can’t remain immune either. With Congressional mid-term elections due in November, surely poor US numbers will influence decisions.
This week Trump had an hour-long phone conversation with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. In two weeks, he is due to arrive in China. One hopes President Xi Jinping can talk some sense into the US leader.
Smaller nations such as Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkiye, too, can play, and are said to be playing, a role for a diplomatic solution. Coupled with Iran’s effective asymmetric warfare these efforts may pave the way for something positive.
The writer is a former editor of Dawn.
Published in Dawn, March 15th, 2026
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