During five intense days last month, Iran launched waves of drones and missiles at U.S. troops on three bases in Jordan, hoping to break through the formidable American air defenses.<\/p>\n
Using advanced missiles that can suddenly change course, Iran pummeled the bases\u2019 defensive systems, forcing the Americans to burn through scarce supplies of Patriot interceptors.<\/p>\n
On the fifth day, the Iranians broke through.<\/p>\n
A missile struck prefabricated housing units at one of the bases on July 17, killing three U.S. soldiers<\/a> and wounding more than 100. Pentagon officials later acknowledged that scores of other troops were injured and several aircraft damaged in attacks in Jordan that week.<\/p>\n \u201cWe shot down almost all the missiles,\u201d Secretary of State Marco Rubio said when asked about the fatal attack. \u201cOne leaked through.\u201d<\/p>\n The strikes reveal a deadly confluence of two important trends: First, Iran has become a more skilled adversary as the war has progressed, learning how to evade U.S. air defenses as it widened the battlefield to include most of the Middle East and enlisted allies like the Houthis in Yemen and militias in Iraq.<\/p>\n Second, the Pentagon\u2019s supply of interceptors has quickly dwindled, with the weapons becoming more precious each day of the off-and-on conflict.<\/p>\n The two trends drive home a point that has slowly emerged in the months since the war started, that a global superpower with a mighty military footprint can still be held at bay by a lesser adversary willing to wage asymmetric warfare to find any advantage it can.<\/p>\n The Pentagon has used more than 1,500 Patriot interceptor missiles<\/a> in the war and has fewer than 1,700 interceptors left, according to two people briefed on the stockpile levels who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military details. The United States produced about 600 interceptors in all of 2025.<\/p>\n The rapid depletion is occurring as Iranian forces study another war. In Ukraine, Russia has used combinations of ballistic and cruise missiles to distract Ukrainian air defenses, and then rushed in drones.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Iranians are making it more difficult on air defenses when you have a range of both missiles and drones coming in,\u201d said Seth G. Jones, the president of the defense and security department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.<\/p>\n \u201cThey have effectively leveraged the Russian tactic,\u201d he said, \u201cto make it more difficult to protect across locations in the Gulf.\u201d<\/p>\n On a single day during that deadly week last month, according to two U.S. officials, American forces in the Middle East fired about 50 Patriot interceptors, which cost about $4 million each.<\/p>\n The Pentagon has continued to face a powerful threat, which it has tried to minimize, in the months since major combat ended in early April.<\/p>\n Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters on April 8 that Iran\u2019s missile program was \u201cfunctionally destroyed,\u201d that its launchers and missiles were \u201cdepleted and decimated and almost completely ineffective.\u201d<\/p>\n Most of Iran\u2019s missiles and launchers were stored in vast underground facilities that U.S. and Israeli forces heavily bombed during the first five weeks of the war. But Iran dug out many of those sites and resumed firing, bringing shipping in the Strait of Hormuz to a near standstill and threatening American troops in the region.<\/p>\n President Trump and his national security advisers assumed the fight would be short and would not jeopardize the Pentagon\u2019s stockpiles of Patriot interceptors, said Vali Nasr, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.<\/p>\n But Tehran, he and other Iran experts say, had been waiting for this moment since the conflict began more than five months ago. During a 12-day war in June 2025, Iran\u2019s leaders had seen how quickly Israeli and American forces burned through ballistic missile interceptors to knock down barrages of Iranian drones and missiles.<\/p>\n Iran\u2019s deadliest strikes against U.S. forces in Jordan targeted Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Azraq, a Jordanian military installation that the U.S. Air Force has increasingly used as a major hub<\/a> for dozens of aircraft and several thousand service members.<\/p>\n Many U.S. troops previously stationed in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates were moved before and during the war to bases like Muwaffaq Salti in Jordan that were farther from Iran and deemed safer from drone and ballistic attacks.<\/p>\n In the days immediately after the strike on July 17, American military commanders strengthened air defenses in Jordan and elsewhere in the region, said a senior U.S. military official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters but declined to provide more details.<\/p>\n U.S. military specialists who have also studied drone and missile attacks in Ukraine have been working with the military\u2019s Central Command for months, sharing lessons learned from that campaign. Two of the three soldiers killed in Jordan were assigned to air defense units based in Germany that became part of that effort.<\/p>\n This new reality is having geopolitical consequences.<\/p>\n In late July, Mr. Trump asked Mr. Hegseth about the dwindling American weapons supplies, U.S. officials said, confirming reporting by The Washington Post<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Pentagon has maintained publicly that it does not have a shortfall. \u201cClaims of U.S. munition shortages are false,\u201d the chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement. \u201cWhen the fake news media irresponsibly amplifies these lies, the real-world consequence is clear: Our enemies are emboldened to provoke \u2014 or attack \u2014 American troops.\u201d<\/p>\n Two weeks ago, Mr. Trump called off bombing raids against Iran<\/a> after he said the leaders of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar had asked him to pursue diplomatic talks to end the war, which has killed an estimated 1,700 Iranian civilians.<\/p>\n In a phone call, Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, told Mr. Trump that major airstrikes would probably prompt Iran to retaliate against energy sites and other infrastructure in the kingdom and its neighbors, according to a Saudi official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential discussions.<\/p>\n With the United States running low on interceptors and Iran\u2019s demonstrating that it could pierce those defenses, the threat of serious damage was very real, the Saudi official said. Prince Mohammed urged Mr. Trump to de-escalate, the official said.<\/p>\n The Jordan attack was not the first time Iran has adapted its skills and tactics in this war.<\/p>\n