As Israel pummels Iran, what are Tehran’s options for retaliatory strikes against its foe?

Associated Press

As Israel pounds Iran with air strikes targeting military facilities and its nuclear sites, officials in Tehran have proposed a variety of steps the Islamic republic could take outside launching retaliatory missile barrages.

Those proposals mirror those previously floated by Iran in confrontations with either Israel or the United States in the last few decades. They included disrupting maritime shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, potentially leaving the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and other attacks by militants.

Here’s a look at what those options could mean – both to Iran and the wider Middle East.

Targeting the Strait of Hormuz

The Strait of Hormuz is the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf, through which some 20 per cent of all oil traded globally passes.

The strait is in the territorial waters of Iran and Oman, which at its narrowest point is just 33km (21 miles) wide. The width of the shipping lane in either direction is only 3km (2 miles). Anything affecting it ripples through global energy markets, potentially raising the price of crude oil. That then trickles down to consumers through what they pay for petrol and other oil products.

There has been a wave of attacks on ships attributed to Iran since 2019, following President Donald Trump’s decision to unilaterally withdraw the US from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and reimposing crushing sanctions on Tehran.

US forces routinely travel through the strait, despite sometimes-tense encounters with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, a paramilitary force answerable only to Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The US Navy’s Bahrain-based 5th Fleet conducts those operations, known as freedom of navigation missions, to ensure the waterway remains open to business. Iran views those passages as challenging its sovereignty – as if it operated off the coast of the US.

Since the Israeli attacks began, Iranian officials have repeatedly raised the possibility of blocking the strait – which is likely to draw an immediate American response.