Does Iran have the military capacity to sustain retaliatory strikes against US, Israel?

Tehran and other Iranian cities came under heavy fire on Saturday as the US and Israel launched “pre-emptive” strikes against the West Asian country bordering Türkiye.

The US-Israel joint strikes aim to take out Iranian leadership, nuclear facilities, and missile infrastructure. The civilian death toll is already rising as a US-Israeli bombing on a girls’ school in southern Iran killed at least 40 people in initial strikes.

US President Donald Trump asked the Iranian people to “topple their rulers,” while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the operation necessary to eliminate an “existential threat”.

Iran has retaliated with the “first wave” of missile and drone attacks on Israel, with some reaching Israeli airspace and triggering sirens across the country.

Separately, Iran hit US bases in Qatar, Kuwait, the UAE, Bahrain and Jordan.

Despite the swift response, experts warn that Tehran is fighting back with significantly degraded capabilities following the 12-Day War with Israel in June 2025.

The 2025 war destroyed roughly one-third of Iran’s missile launchers and depleted long-range missile stocks. 

The Iranian government has also faced a depletion in its political capital in recent months. Mass protests over economic conditions have eroded the appearance of political cohesion in the country.

Reports say Iran has paid special attention to rebuilding its military capability lost during last year’s war against Israel.

“It has been widely reported that Iran has been rapidly replenishing its ballistic missile supplies since its 12-Day War with Israel last June,” Matthew Bryza, former US ambassador and an Istanbul-based international affairs specialist, tells TRT World.

“Iran retains 2,000 or so ballistic missiles,” he says, while noting uncertainty over attack drones that Iran has reportedly supplied to Russia for use in Ukraine.

According to Oral Toga, a researcher at the Ankara-based Centre for Iranian Studies (IRAM), Iran’s post-2025 inventory has fallen from about 2,500 to 1,500 missiles, while two-thirds of its launchers have also been destroyed.

“However, thanks to an industrial base capable of producing several hundred missiles per month and underground ‘missile cities’ built over decades, Iran is assessed to have significantly replenished its stockpiles,” he tells TRT World.

Quoting Israeli intelligence analyses conveyed to the US, Toga says there were still approximately 2,000 heavy ballistic missiles in the Iranian inventory prior to Saturday’s strikes.

In the so-called first wave of retaliation, Iran launched around 35 ballistic missiles at Israel, while simultaneously hitting multiple US bases across Gulf nations, he says.

The primary objective of the US-Israeli strikes is to dismantle Iran’s missile architecture.

“But rendering mobile launchers and dispersed underground sites completely inoperative is technically extraordinarily difficult,” Toga says.

Therefore, Iran retains the capacity to carry out additional ballistic missile strikes in the “coming hours and days”.

In other words, Tehran is currently at a diminishing, but far from zeroed-out capacity, he says.

Iran’s proxy forces, from Iraq to Lebanon

Iran’s so-called ‘Axis of Resistance’ stands largely battered, as each member of the loose network of militants from Iraq to Lebanon and Yemen has taken serious hits over the last two years.

For example, Hezbollah has suffered devastating losses since 2024.

But whether Tehran is able to revive Shia militant group to use it as a proxy in the fight against Israel is “unclear” at the moment, says Bryza.

“Israel has reportedly attacked presumably Hezbollah positions in Lebanon today, after having devastated Hezbollah’s leadership and command-and-control systems last year,” he says.

Toga sounds more sure. He insists that Hezbollah has lost much of its leadership already. 

“There is an active disarmament process underway in Lebanon. So do not expect the Hezbollah of 2006,” he says.