We wrote this last in March 2025 - we told all those afraid of Iran that it was, for Israel, a Paper Toger
To the Gulf states close to Iran, it is certainly a tiger. Iran can easily recruit a million soldiers and send them to the battlefield.
In addition, it possesses a huge stockpile of surface-to-surface ballistic missiles of various ranges, which pose a real threat to the Gulf states.
Iran’s naval forces outnumber those of the Gulf states by tens or even hundreds of times. For years, it has been conducting amphibious warfare training, in preparation for the deployment of ground forces in the event of a conflict.
All of this is true for the Gulf states, but for Israel the situation is completely different. Israel is about 1,500 km from Iran, so most of the threats mentioned are irrelevant to it.
THE THREAT TO ISRAEL
Iran’s only way to attack Israel is through long-range surface-to-surface ballistic missiles – relatively vulnerable means.
Remember the words of the commander of the Iranian Air Force, Amir Ali Hajizadeh? He stated: “If we expose one missile city every week, it will take more than two years to count them.”
According to an Iranian source, there are at least 96 such missile bases. A simple calculation, assuming that there are 1,000–5,000 missiles per facility, then this amounts to 52,000 to 104,000 surface-to-surface ballistic missiles of various ranges, powered by liquid fuel.
HOW EFFECTIVE ARE THESE MISSILES?
It turns out that a large part of the stockpile of these missiles is 30 years old and powered by fuel liquid, which makes them less reliable. Moreover, most of them are not precision missiles. Recently, Iran has begun a process of upgrading them to improve their accuracy.
Why has this upgrade suddenly become critical?
The first Iranian attack on Israel, in Operation 'Just Promise', failed mainly due to a lack of synchronization between the launches. In the second attack, some of the problems were solved, but the surprise effect that Iran had hoped for was still not achieved.
According to reports, Iran's original intention was to simultaneously launch hundreds of missiles at Israel, but this did not actually happen.
WHAT ABOUT THE FUTURE?
Iran is aware that it is transparent to the intelligence capabilities of Israel and the United States. They are not naive - this is precisely why they move their heavy weapons to underground bunkers and into the mountains.