Dangerous gamble: Iran’s evolving missiles get closer to US warships. What changed?

Dubai: Iran has spent much of its six-month war with the United States trying to make the Strait of Hormuz dangerous for commercial shipping. Now it is taking a far bigger risk: Firing increasingly sophisticated missiles directly at American warships.

At least three times in the past week, Iranian forces have launched missiles at US naval vessels, including an aircraft carrier, in attacks that produced much closer calls than previous attempts, according to The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the incidents.

US Central Command said the American vessels successfully evaded the attacks.

But US officials are increasingly concerned that Iran has improved its ability to track and target moving warships — a difficult military task that requires locating a vessel and continuously updating its position as a missile approaches.

So what has changed, and why is Tehran willing to risk a devastating US response?

One important difference appears to be the weapons Iran is using.

The recent attacks involved medium-range ballistic missiles equipped with manoeuvrable warheads, according to the Journal.

Unlike a conventional ballistic warhead following a largely predictable trajectory towards a fixed target, such systems can manoeuvre during flight, potentially allowing them to pursue a moving target.

Iran has recently highlighted its Qassem Basir ballistic missile, which Tehran says has improved accuracy and can strike moving targets. It has not been independently established that the missile was used in all the recent attacks on US ships.

Whatever the precise weapon involved, American officials believe the closer calls suggest Iran’s targeting capabilities may have improved.

That is perhaps the biggest unanswered question.

Hitting a moving warship is far harder than striking a fixed target, requiring accurate tracking and the ability to update the vessel’s position as the missile closes in.

Even an advanced missile needs sufficiently accurate information about where a warship is located before it can successfully engage a moving target.

US officials are examining whether Iran may be receiving targeting assistance from Russia or China, according to the Journal. There has been no public evidence establishing that either country helped Iran with the recent attacks.

The possibility nevertheless worries Washington because better surveillance, satellite imagery or other intelligence could make Iranian missiles substantially more dangerous to US naval forces.

Because Iran is running out of easier ways to change the course of the war.

A large US naval force is enforcing a blockade that has severely restricted Iran’s ability to export oil, depriving Tehran of its principal source of foreign currency.

US sanctions are adding to the pressure, while Iran’s currency has plunged and inflation has soared.

“Iran is escalating because they don’t see other options,” Marc Sievers, a former US ambassador to Oman, told the Journal.

The strategy does not require Iran to defeat the vastly more powerful US Navy.

Instead, Tehran can try to make maintaining the blockade increasingly expensive and dangerous.

Every missile attack forces American vessels to defend themselves, potentially consuming costly interceptors. It also forces Washington repeatedly to decide how much risk it is prepared to accept to keep ships operating close to Iran.

But there is an enormous difference between firing at an American warship and actually hitting one.

A successful strike causing major damage or US casualties could trigger a fierce American response and send the conflict back into full-scale warfare.

Yet Iran may see leverage even in that danger.

Damaging a US vessel could shake financial markets, alarm Gulf states and confront President Donald Trump with an uncomfortable choice: Retaliate heavily and risk another escalation, or respond more cautiously and face accusations of weakness.

That calculation has become even more sensitive with the US midterm elections less than two months away.

Washington has already demonstrated the price Iran could pay.

After Iranian ballistic missiles targeted US naval vessels, American forces began attacking Iranian oil tankers. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has made the policy explicit: attempts to strike US warships will cost Tehran tankers.

Iran has responded by widening its own attacks.

The Revolutionary Guards said on Wednesday that they targeted 10 vessels around Hormuz after US attacks on Iranian tankers. Iran also launched missiles at a US base in Jordan.

The result is an increasingly dangerous cycle: Iran targets US warships; Washington attacks Iran’s oil lifeline; Tehran retaliates against more ships and military targets.

For all the damage Iran has suffered, geography still gives Tehran leverage.

The Strait of Hormuz remains one of the world’s most important energy corridors. Washington can destroy missile launchers, escort merchant vessels and move its warships farther offshore, but permanently removing Iran’s ability to threaten shipping is far more difficult.

That helps explain why Tehran appears willing to take greater risks there even as its economy comes under mounting pressure.

The gamble is extraordinary.

Iran cannot match the United States ship for ship or missile for missile. But if its weapons are becoming capable of getting closer to American warships, Tehran does not need to win a naval battle to change Washington’s calculations.

It only needs to make every US ship operating around Hormuz a more dangerous — and potentially more politically costly — proposition.