Iran will not acquiesce to U.S. demands regarding its missile program, a senior Iranian defense official said, warning that the country is prepared to respond decisively should Washington choose to try out war for a second time.<\/p>\n
Sheida Sabzehvari, Tehran Times<\/strong><\/p>\n Speaking to Al Jazeera, Rear Admiral Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran\u2019s Defense Council\u2014a body affiliated with the Supreme National Security Council\u2014said Iran\u2019s missile capabilities have always been, and will remain, a red line. \u201cThey are non-negotiable,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Still, Shamkhani left the door open to a diplomatic breakthrough, but only under clear conditions. \u201cIf negotiations are conducted realistically and without excessive demands,\u201d he said, \u201cthey can move in a direction that serves everyone\u2019s interests.\u201d<\/p>\n Iran and the United States began a fresh round of nuclear talks earlier this month aimed at limiting Iran\u2019s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. Iranian officials have repeatedly warned the American side against raising non-starters: zero uranium enrichment, Iran\u2019s missile program, or Tehran\u2019s ties with regional Resistance groups.<\/p>\n Asked about Washington\u2019s expanding military posture in the Persian Gulf\u2014including President Donald Trump\u2019s decision to deploy a second aircraft carrier\u2014Shamkhani said: \u201cAny adventurism against Iran will be met with a strong, decisive, and appropriate response.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s options on Iran are increasingly narrow. His administration has already exhausted economic warfare through sanctions, overseen a direct military confrontation, and attempted to exploit unrest to engineer a political rupture inside the country.<\/p>\n The current talks were revived largely due to the efforts of regional states, which urged Tehran to give diplomacy another chance despite Trump\u2019s decision to attack Iran in June 2025 while earlier negotiations were underway. Those same countries were alarmed more recently by Trump\u2019s threats to strike Iran under the pretext of \u201chelping\u201d armed rioters who infiltrated peaceful economic protests last month, killed more than 2,500 civilians and security personnel, and torched public and private property across the country.<\/p>\n Iran warned at the time that even a limited strike would be treated as all-out war. Officials said U.S. bases across the region would be targeted, missiles would rain down on the occupied territories, and the Strait of Hormuz could be closed. Resistance groups in Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen also signaled they would enter the conflict if Washington attacked.<\/p>\n Sources told the Tehran Times that Trump ultimately shelved his plans not because of diplomatic appeals, but after U.S. military officials warned that American forces would be unable to defend their regional assets once Iran retaliated.<\/p>\n For Trump, the talks now offer a different utility: a chance to claim a diplomatic win ahead of the U.S. midterm elections. That prospect has gained importance as his campaign-trail promises to bring peace to Ukraine and Gaza remain unfulfilled. Compounding the pressure, Trump\u2019s aggressive tariff policies have strained relations with European allies and key partners such as South Korea and India\u2014countries Washington relies on in its strategic competition with China. While the tariffs may benefit U.S. industry in the long term, their immediate effect has been higher costs for American consumers.<\/p>\n Any agreement with Iran, however, hinges on Washington respecting Iranian redlines\u2014chief among them missile capabilities and uranium enrichment for civilian use. Iranian officials have, meanwhile, indicated they are prepared to offer incentives that could make a future deal more attractive than the 2015 JCPOA, which Trump abandoned during his first term before launching his \u201cmaximum pressure\u201d campaign.<\/p>\n Why Washington is so fixated on missiles<\/strong><\/p>\n The U.S. fixation on missiles is neither abstract nor defensive. Ali Larijani, Iran\u2019s security chief, has previously disclosed that Washington wants to cap Iran\u2019s missile range at 300 kilometers\u2014a figure chosen with Israel squarely in mind.<\/p>\n Under directives from the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, Iran already limits its missile development to a 2,000-kilometer ceiling. Even at that range, Iran cannot strike the U.S. mainland. Its deterrence doctrine instead focuses on regional targets\u2014an objective it could still achieve even under a 300-kilometer cap.<\/p>\n Major U.S. installations such as Qatar\u2019s Al Udeid Air Base\u2014the forward headquarters of CENTCOM\u2014as well as Al Dhafra in the UAE and facilities in Erbil, Iraq, all fall within that radius. With naval assets and fast-attack vessels, Iran could also threaten U.S. bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Oman.<\/p>\n The real consequence of a 300-kilometer limit would be strategic disarmament vis-\u00e0-vis Israel. With distances of 1,000 to 1,600 kilometers separating Iran from the occupied territories, such a restriction would strip Iran of deterrence against a regime that has killed at least 80,000 people and attacked seven countries, including Iran, since 2023.<\/p>\n That deterrence proved decisive last summer. During the joint U.S.-Israeli bombing campaign in June 2025, Iran\u2019s air defenses experienced gaps. Yet Iran still forced both regimes into a ceasefire through the unprecedented damage its missile strikes inflicted on Israeli cities.<\/p>\n According to reports, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself joined Arab, Turkish, and Pakistani officials in urging Trump to avoid further escalation last month\u2014an acknowledgment that Israel is not prepared to withstand sustained Iranian strikes, even for a period as short as the 12-day confrontation it endured.<\/p>\n Despite this, Netanyahu has continued pressing Washington to extract concessions from Tehran on missiles, enrichment, and regional alliances. The Tehran Times understands agreed to resume talks only after making clear that non-nuclear issues and the dismantling of its nuclear program were off the table. While Washington avoided these triggers during the first round of talks in Oman on February 6, the negotiations will collapse if the U.S. reverses course.<\/p>\n Recent Hebrew-language media reports suggest Israel is not seeking an immediate war\u2014but does not want a deal either. \u201cAny deal with Iran is a bad deal,\u201d one analyst said on Channel 11. \u201cWar is one option. Another is that the talks simply go nowhere.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Iran will not acquiesce to U.S. demands regarding its missile program, a senior Iranian defense official said, warning that the country is prepared to respond decisively should Washington choose to try out war for a second time. Sheida Sabzehvari, Tehran Times Speaking to Al Jazeera, Rear Admiral Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran\u2019s Defense Council\u2014a body […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":4160,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,68,71],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analysis-and-notes","category-analytical-news-report","category-important-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iranview24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iranview24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iranview24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iranview24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iranview24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4159"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/iranview24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4161,"href":"https:\/\/iranview24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4159\/revisions\/4161"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iranview24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iranview24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iranview24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iranview24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}