The United States, along with its Israeli partners, continues to make considerable progress toward its military objectives of removing Iran’s primary military means to threaten the region in the third week of Operation Epic Fury. Despite these operational successes, however, Tehran and its proxies retain the ability to attack US forces.
In an operational update on March 16, the commander of US Central Command (CENTCOM), Admiral Brad Cooper, reiterated what he described as CENTCOM’s “well-defined” and “clear” military objectives of “eliminating” Iran’s missile, drone, and naval threats. Despite less-clear and, at times, conflicting political goals issued by the Trump administration, the military objectives stated by military leaders have remained largely consistent. So far, the United States and Israel have continued making consistent progress in degrading those capabilities, with US forces striking over 7,800 targets by March 18.
To understand where progress has been made toward accomplishing these objectives and what challenges persist, it is helpful to review US operations against each element of Iranian military power and examine what capabilities the Tehran regime and its terror proxies in the region retain.
Perhaps the clearest, if not unsurprising, example of CENTCOM’s operational success has been against the Iranian navy. US forces had destroyed over 120 Iranian vessels by March 18, and have targeted other Iranian naval assets such as mine storage and production facilities. US forces also conducted strikes on March 17 targeting hardened missile sites along Iran’s coast to degrade the regime’s ability to target vessels in or near the Strait of Hormuz. However, Iran could still threaten military and commercial vessels with any surviving land-based missiles, drones, fast-attack craft, and mines.
CENTCOM and its Israeli partners have also made considerable progress in degrading the Iranian missile and long-range one-way-attack (OWA) drone threat. Iranian missile launches were down 90 percent by last week, while OWA attacks had dropped by 95 percent, according to the Pentagon. American and Israeli forces continue to conduct persistent strikes against Iranian missile launchers and facilities, an effort that is not only crucial for attriting Iranian missile capacity but also for suppressing the regime’s ability and willingness to risk these remaining high-value assets by launching attacks before they can be detected and destroyed. Additionally, Admiral Cooper stated on Tuesday that Iranian ballistic missile and drone production has been targeted extensively as well, doing damage to the regime’s ability to reconstitute these capabilities.
While these effects on Iranian naval, missile, and drone capabilities represent significant operational successes, they have come at a cost. Admiral Cooper noted that Iran has launched attacks against military and civilian targets in a dozen countries across the region since the start of the war. Thirteen US service members had died in the operation by March 17, with seven American soldiers killed by Iranian attacks in the opening days of the war, and an additional six US Air Force crew members lost when their refueling aircraft went down over Iraq on March 12. More than 200 additional service members had been wounded or injured across seven countries by March 16, according to a US military spokesman.
Additionally, despite the significant reduction in Iran’s ballistic missile and drone launches, Iranian and proxy drone attacks remain a significant threat to US forces in the region. US forces in Iraq, for example, have sustained consistent attacks from Iranian proxies, with the US Embassy in Baghdad and a separate American facility near Baghdad International Airport being targeted by rockets and drones, some of which have struck their targets.
Perhaps most concerningly, multiple videos have emerged showing Iranian proxies using first-person view (FPV) drones to conduct reconnaissance of, and at least one attack against, US diplomatic and military facilities in Baghdad. This is a relatively nascent capability for these groups, which have largely relied on rockets and fixed-wing OWA drones with pre-programmed targets to attack US forces in recent years.
Large-scale use of FPVs by Iraqi militias would allow them to detect and attack exposed American personnel and equipment in real-time. FPVs would also allow them to conduct more effective intelligence, reconnaissance, and surveillance of American positions. This tactic could enable more complex attacks that incorporate both rockets and drones in an attempt to overwhelm American defenses.
Pictures of the US Embassy in Baghdad from last week showed what appeared to be American defensive equipment struck by a drone, indicating that these proxy forces may already have the capability to strike specific high-value targets. An expanding use of FPVs would pose a dangerous new challenge to US forces defending these facilities and require rapid adaptation.
Additionally, Russia has reportedly provided Iran with satellite intelligence on US positions and improved drone technology, which Moscow ironically developed from previously provided Iranian drones, as well as its own battlefield experience in Ukraine. This information would not only increase Tehran’s capability to target US forces with drones and ballistic missiles but also could improve Iran’s ability to successfully strike those targets with enhanced OWA drones. Likewise, should Tehran share Russian intelligence on US positions with its proxies in Iraq, those militias could use that new knowledge to conduct more deadly rocket and drone attacks against US military and diplomatic facilities in the country.
Ukraine, which is the most experienced country in the world at countering both FPV and larger fixed-wing OWA drones, has offered the United States and its regional partners equipment and expertise to better defend against these Iranian drone threats. A similar offer was reportedly made to the United States months before Operation Epic Fury began, but the Trump administration apparently turned it down. Thankfully, despite President Donald Trump’s public dismissals of these offers, that help has started arriving, with Ukrainian advisors now assisting the US and its partners in the region.
US forces and their Israeli partners have made remarkable strides in degrading Iranian military capabilities and have made consistent progress towards achieving their military objectives of depriving Iran of its ability to threaten the region with its missile, drone, and naval arsenal. That, however, does not mean that Tehran is defeated.
Though greatly diminished, Iran still retains the ability to consistently launch ballistic missile and drone attacks against US forces and America’s regional partners. Tehran’s terror proxies, despite suffering serious blows of their own, remain an acute asymmetric threat to US forces in Iraq, which are deployed in static positions that have been observed and attacked by these Iranian proxies for years. Finally, like all adversaries, the Islamic Republic and its terror network are learning and adapting to the changing battlefield by employing new tactics and systems to attack American and partner forces. Some of those capabilities are being enhanced with help from Moscow.
