As the United States and Iran trade air and missile strikes for the ninth straight night, Tehran is proving it can withstand the firepower Washington is employing and still respond with a lethality that the US military hasn’t seen since the early days of the war.
Iranian missile and drone strikes on US forces in Jordan and Iraq have left at least three US troops dead, another missing, and more wounded.
The Pentagon is not revealing its equipment losses, but Tehran is claiming large numbers of US Black Hawk helicopters destroyed and base infrastructure like aircraft hangars heavily damaged in its days of attacks.
And as the US strikes Iranian infrastructure like bridges, ports and power stations, Gulf states like Kuwait and Bahrain, where the US maintains bases, are seeing their infrastructure damaged by Iranian drones and missiles.
But Iran is showing no signs the US has degraded those capabilities in a way that an end to the renewed fighting is anywhere in sight.
Experts told CNN in May that Iran likely had 1,000 missiles still left in underground storage sites, along with thousands of drones.
Even US Vice President JD Vance has admitted US airstrikes alone won’t be enough to achieve one of the Trump administration’s main goals of keeping the Strait of Hormuz open.
And now Iran has shown US troops face those same dangers around the region – with deadly consequences.
