A confidential CIA report reveals that Iran maintains a strong missile arsenal and can withstand months of American blockade in the Persian Gulf.
Serious doubts about the effectiveness of the US strategy towards Iran are raised by the new confidential CIA assessment, which is in stark contrast to Donald Trump’s public assurances of Tehran’s “collapse”. According to the Washington Post revelations, US intelligence agencies estimate that the Iranian regime not only retains critical military capabilities, but still disposes of much of its ballistic missile arsenal and thousands of drones, despite severe bombing by the US and Israel. The report also warns that the naval blockade in the Persian Gulf may not lead to immediate economic strangulation, as Tehran appears ready to withstand prolonged pressure, maintain internal repression and continue to threaten international navigation in the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran could withstand the US naval blockade for at least three to four months before facing more serious economic difficulties according to a confidential CIA analysis delivered this week to administration policymakers.
Iran can endure
According to a Washington Post report citing four people with knowledge of the document, the specific conclusion that appears to raise questions about US President Donald Trump’s optimism about the success of the blockade and the end of the war.
The analysis by the US intelligence community, whose assessments of Iran have often been more sober than the administration’s public statements, also found that Tehran retains significant ballistic missile capabilities despite weeks of intense bombing by the US and Israel, according to three of the people familiar with the document.
Iran retains about 75 percent of its prewar stockpile of mobile launchers and about 70 percent of its prewar stockpile of missiles, a U.S. official said. The official said there are indications that the regime has managed to restore and reopen almost all underground storage facilities, repair some damaged missiles and even assemble some new missiles that were nearly ready when the war broke out.
Trump’s assessment
Trump presented a more upbeat picture in his Oval Office remarks Wednesday, referring to Iran: “Their missiles are almost eliminated, they probably have 18 or 19 percent, but not many compared to what they had.”
Three current and one former U.S. officials confirmed key points of the intelligence analysis, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the issue.
Commenting on the impact of the blockade, a senior U.S. intelligence official said: “The blockade the president has imposed is causing real, worsening damage – disrupting trade, crushing revenue and accelerating systemic economic collapse. Iran’s army has been severely degraded, its navy has been destroyed and its leaders are in hiding.”
“What remains is the regime’s thirst for civilian suffering – starving its own people to prolong a war it has already lost,” added the official, who was not authorized to speak on the record.
Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other officials have routinely portrayed the war as a crushing U.S. military victory, despite the fact that Iran has rejected Washington’s demands that it abandon uranium enrichment, turn over its uranium stockpiles, reopen the Strait of Hormuz and take other measures. Trump called the blockade “unbelievable” on Wednesday. “The Navy was unbelievable. The job they did … it’s like a wall of steel. Nobody gets through,” he said.
A day earlier, he had said Iran’s economy was “collapsing,” its currency was “worthless” and that it “can’t pay” its soldiers.
One of the U.S. officials who spoke to The Washington Post said that, in his view, Iran’s ability to withstand prolonged economic hardship is far greater even than the CIA estimates.
“The leadership has become more radical, determined and increasingly confident that it can withstand more than the political will of the United States and maintain internal repression to contain any resistance” inside Iran, the official said. “By comparison, we see similar regimes enduring for years under ongoing embargoes and wars based solely on air power,” he added.
The report’s picture
Since the war began on Feb. 28, Iran has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, a vital passage for transporting oil from the Persian Gulf.
A week after the ceasefire was reached on April 7, Trump imposed a naval blockade on Iran, which applies to all ships entering or leaving Iranian ports. The move followed the collapse of US-Iran peace talks in Pakistan. “I think Iran is in a very bad situation. I think they are quite desperate,” he said at the time. “I don’t care if they go back [to the negotiations] or not. If they don’t come back, that’s fine with me.”
On Sunday, Trump launched a mission he called “Operation Freedom” to help merchant ships pass through the Strait, including with a U.S. Navy escort, only to say on Tuesday that the operation had been suspended because of “great progress” in the peace talks.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry confirmed Wednesday that it was considering a U.S. proposal to end the war and would forward its response through Pakistani mediators.
CIA analysis may underestimate Iran’s economic resilience
The CIA’s analysis may even underestimate Iran’s economic resilience if Tehran succeeds in smuggling oil through overland routes. Convoys and rail transport cannot replace the volume of ships and sea routes, but may provide an economic cushion, one of the U.S. officials said.
“There is a belief that they could start moving some of the oil by rail through central Asia,” the official said.
As for Iranian weapons, the confidential intelligence assessment says Iran’s stockpile of missiles and mobile launchers remains huge.
Iran is estimated to have had about 2,500 ballistic missiles before the war began, as well as thousands more unarmed drones. Iran has used these weapons to launch retaliatory strikes against U.S. allies in the Gulf, as well as against U.S. military installations across the region.
A Washington Post investigation found that Iranian airstrikes have damaged or destroyed at least 228 buildings or equipment at U.S. military installations in the Middle East, a level of destruction far greater than what has been publicly acknowledged by the U.S. government.
Also according to one of the U.S. officials, t he timeline for when Iran can begin producing ballistic missiles in significant quantities again has become shorter.
However, for controlling traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, missiles are less important than cheaper drones, according to analysts both inside and outside the administration. And unlike medium-range missiles that can hit, for example, Israel, these drones can be built in small bunkers and easily concealed facilities, another U.S. official said.
“All it takes is one drone to hit a ship and no one will give insurance” to oil tankers, said Danny Sitrinovis, a senior researcher at the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies.
In early April, the U.S. intelligence community estimated that more than half of Iran’s missile launchers remained intact and that the country had thousands of disposable drones in its arsenal, the Washington Post and CNN reported, citing sources familiar with the matter.
Sitrinovis, the former head of the Iran department at Israel’s military intelligence agency, said that even if the blockade lasted several months, it would not force the regime to bow to Washington’s demands. “The problem is that they don’t think they should capitulate,” he said.
In short, he said, despite U.S. and Israeli military successes in Iran, the outcome of the war could still end in strategic failure.
“What began as a war that was supposedly aimed at overthrowing the regime and neutralizing its nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities,” Sitrinovich wrote Wednesday in X, “may instead leave the Iranian regime stronger than before – strengthened by the lifting of sanctions, still retaining significant missile capabilities, continuing support for its proxies, and almost certainly maintaining uranium enrichment on its soil.”
