When the war between Israel and the United States against Iran began on February 28, Donald Trump assumed it would be a short offensive. Iran It had practically no anti-aircraft defenses and the flights of the American bombers were presented as a triumphant walk through the Iranian sky. According to American media reports, the president of the United States made the decision to start the war after listening to the Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahuwho assured him that there would be a regime changethe town would rise up against the ayatollahs and the Kurdish minority he would launch an attack against the ayatollahs.
It would be a matter of days. It wasn’t like that.
The Iranian response has exceeded all expectations. According to US intelligence sources, the Revolutionary Guard still retains approximately half of the missile and drone capacity, the thickness of his enriched uranium and control of the direction of the country. It has shot down fighter planes or disabled them at their airfields.
Now it is also beginning to be revealed that it has systematically and very effectively attacked the bulk of the United States military bases on the soil of its allies in the region: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Jordan…Some have stopped being used for the moment.
This is demonstrated by investigations by CNN and The Washington Post. Using satellite images, verified official Iranian media images and testimony from Pentagon officials, CNN has concluded that Iran has damaged at least 16 US military facilities in eight countries in the Gulf and the Middle East. The attacks would have focused on assets of high strategic value: radars, communications systems and AWACS aircraft.
The basis of Al Udeid, and Qatarone of the nerve centers of the US air command in the region, would have suffered significant damage. At the base of Prince Sultan Saudi Arabia, they destroyed a E-3 Sentry aircraft, considered one of the crown jewels of surveillance systems and valued at close to 500 million dollars. In Irakthe basis of Ain al-Asad suffered damage to hangars and radar systems after the impact of Iranian ballistic missiles. In Kuwait, Ali Al-Salem was hit in a coordinated attack that damaged fuel depots inside the air base. In Bahrainthe naval base NSA Bahrainwhere the US Fifth Fleet operates, was targeted by maritime and aerial drones in a combined attack. and in Jordan, Torre 22, key logistical enclave near the Syrian border, suffered critical damage to its communication systems after a bombing.
The diary The Washington Post has also compiled the damage received by the United States, based on verified photos published by Iranian media. This is what the damage looks like:
From left to right, and from top to bottom: Naval Support Activity Bahrain, Isa Air Base, Riffa Air Base, Erbil International Airport, Harir Air Base, Ali al-Salem Air Base, Camp Arifjan, Camp Buehring, Shuaiba Port, al-Udeid Air Base, Prince Sultan Air Base, al-Dhafra Air Base / The Washington Post / Iranian media
“There is broad recognition, including by US officials, that the Iranian attacks have caused real and localized degradations in certain facilities“, points out to EL PERIÓDICO Pierre Pahlavi, professor and deputy director of the Department of Defense Studies of the Canadian Forces College and the Royal Military College of Canada, belonging to the Department of National Defense of the Government of Canada. It provides the caveat that the information has not been confirmed by the United States Department of Defense or the US Central Command (CENTCOM). “That said, the underlying phenomenon is real and deserves attention. The damage has less to do with catastrophic destruction than with operational degradation: landing strips disabled by impacts, degraded radars y logistical tensions. “This reflects a deliberate Iranian approach: precision strikes designed not to annihilate, but to temporarily neutralize key nodes at relatively low cost.”
Chinese satellites
The blow geostrategic for the United States is important. The Arab allies of the Gulf could rethink their exclusive dependence on Washington in matters of security. Iran has demonstrated the ability to degrade critical US infrastructure in a coordinated and relatively cheap manner.
The effectiveness of these attacks can be explained by a combination of factors, argues expert Pierre Pahlavi. First, Iran has made gradual but significant advances in the precision of its missiles and the coordination of attacks, especially through the combined use of ballistic missiles, drones, and decoys. Second, the limitations of missile defense systems must be understood in structural terms: American systems such as the THAAD (high altitude anti-missile defense system) They are very capable, but not impenetrable. They are vulnerable to saturation dynamics (sending swarms of drones for example), depend on limited interceptor inventories and they are unevenly distributed in a very broad regional deployment.
There has also been an improvement in Iranian precision strikes compared to last year’s June war. CNN claims that Tehran acquired a Chinese satellite which allows you a precise observation of the objectives. He Financial Times He claims that Iran’s targeting capabilities may have been bolstered by Chinese satellite support. There is, however, no confirmed evidence of direct real-time targeting assistance or direct operational integration.
“That some projectiles manage to penetrate the defenses is not an absolute failure of the United States: it is a mathematical inevitability,” argues Pahlavi. “In terms of strategic impact, these attacks do not seem sufficient to provoke a American strategic withdrawal from the region. The United States maintains overwhelming capabilities and is structurally resilient in the face of this level of attrition.” What these attacks do achieve, however, is something more subtle: imposing costs, exposing vulnerabilities, and forcing tactical adaptationshe points out.
For Iran, the implications could be even deeper. The demonstrated ability to penetrate, even partially, US defenses reinforces a narrative of resistance and competition, strengthening the regime’s resolve. On the contrary, for Washington, the initial premise of minimal impact, a brief, controlled confrontation with limited exposure, has been questioned.
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