Ballistic Missiles Allow Iran to Act More Boldly

Excerpt

While the world focuses on the threat posed by Iran’s growing nuclear program and its terror proxies, Iran’s ballistic-missile program is underwriting the expansion of both. Over the past decade, Iran has transformed much of its ballistic-missile arsenal, the largest in the Middle East, from mere tools of terror to battlefield-ready systems. Iranian missiles are more precise, mobile, lethal and abundant than ever before—giving the regime more dangerous options when it wants to throw its weight around.

Iran spent decades mastering the art of covert and deniable military action by using proxies. It still does that, as we’ve seen since Oct. 7, but Iran also has a newfound confidence, which has reduced its threshold for the use of overt and attributable force.

Mr. Taleblu is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.