\n Iran\u2019s attempt to strike a US-UK base over 2,000 miles (over 3,000 kilometers) off its coast has renewed questions about Tehran\u2019s military capabilities and how far its missiles can reach.\n <\/p>\n
\n On Friday morning local time, Iran launched two intermediate-range ballistic missiles<\/a> at Diego Garcia, a joint US-UK military base in the Indian Ocean, a US official told CNN, adding that neither of them struck the base. This marks what appears to be the first known attempt to target the base, which was deliberately built in a remote location beyond the reach of many adversaries.\n <\/p>\n \n While the attack was unsuccessful, it shows that Iran may not be adhering its self-imposed missile range limit of 2,000 kilometers, raising concerns about whether Tehran could hit US and European interests farther away than previously thought.\n <\/p>\n \n Jeffrey Lewis, distinguished scholar of global security at Middlebury College, told CNN that Iran was developing an intercontinental ballistic missile that was \u201creoriented to space launch\u201d after then-Supreme Leader Ali Hosseini Khamenei<\/a> \u201cimposed a 2,000-kilometer range limit\u201d in 2017.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThey were waiting for Khamenei to change his mind or, well, die,\u201d Lewis said. \u201cNow he\u2019s dead.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Trita Parsi, the co-founder of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, believes the US homeland is safe from Iranian strikes, but he told CNN that the attempted attack \u201csuggests that other bases that the US thought is outside of the range of Iran may actually be within the range,\u201d along with American ships \u201cthat have been kept 3,000 kilometers away.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Parsi also wonders whether this incident could cause some European countries that have allowed the US to use its military bases to reconsider.\n <\/p>\n \n Earlier this month, the UK agreed<\/a> to a US request to allow American forces to use its military bases for operations against Iranian missile sites. Meanwhile, Romania has allowed US refueling planes, as well as US surveillance and satellite equipment, to be at its bases, according to Reuters<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIt does put certain European bases in within their range,\u201d Parsi said, adding, \u201cI don\u2019t know if that\u2019s going to cause a rethink on the European side but it definitely increases the risk for them.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed<\/a>, including in his first comments after the US struck Iran late last month, that Tehran has been building missiles that \u201ccould soon reach the American homeland.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n However, an unclassified assessment<\/a> from the Defense Intelligence Agency from 2025 said that Iran could develop a \u201cmilitarily-viable\u201d intercontinental ballistic missile by 2035 \u201cshould Tehran decide to pursue the capability.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Sources also told CNN late last month that there was no intelligence to suggest that Iran is pursuing an intercontinental ballistic missile program to hit the US at this time.\n <\/p>\n \n Parsi said the unsuccessful strike on Diego Garcia raises \u201cquestion marks whether (Iran) may also have other types of weapons that we did not believe that they have that they might be using.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Iran has several missiles with a range of 2,000 kilometers, including the Sejjil and Khorramshahr weapons, along with the long-range Soumar cruise missile that has a range of up to 3,000 kilometers, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies<\/a>,\n <\/p>\n \n Sam Lair, research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, told CNN that Iran\u2019s \u201cspace launch vehicles, including the (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps\u2019) solid-propellant Ghaem-100, could clearly reach longer ranges than their regional missile force if they were used ballistically rather than as a space launch vehicle.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cPeople often forget space launch is fundamentally the same technology as ballistic missiles,\u201d he continued.\n <\/p>\n \n Lair also said the Iranians perhaps extended the range of a missile with lighter explosive material.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cMaybe a khorramshahr with a very small payload, like too small to do anything,\u201d Lair said.\n <\/p>\n \n Meanwhile, Parsi questioned whether Iran has the \u201ctargeting intelligence\u201d and missile accuracy to successfully strike farther targets.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThere\u2019s large parts of that area, not Diego Garcia itself, in which the Iranians don\u2019t have the ability to generate their own targeting intelligence because they don\u2019t have eyes there essentially through their satellites, etc.,\u201d Parsi said. \u201cSo that intelligence is most likely coming from the Russians and the Chinese, and this is another one of those elements of this war that apparently the administration is taken by surprise by.\u201d\n <\/p>\n