Tehran is drawing up scenarios for expanding the conflict if President Donald Trump follows through on previous threats to strike Iranian infrastructure. Sources close to the regime, cited by the Financial Times, say the options under consideration include attacks against U.S. military targets in Europe.
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Two people with close ties to the Iranian regime said the country’s forces had assessed the possibility of striking U.S. installations in Southeastern Europe. This includes Bulgaria, which last month authorized U.S. aerial refueling aircraft to use Bezmer Air Base.
One of the sources said Cyprus could also become a target if the United States launches a new offensive. In March, a drone struck a British air base on the island.
In addition to military targets, Iranian forces have also analyzed possible attacks on undersea fiber-optic cables running through the Strait of Hormuz if the confrontation escalates.
The Financial Times reports that officials in Tehran are increasingly convinced that the resumption of the war is only a matter of time. Talks on reopening the Strait of Hormuz have stalled, while Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, recently appointed more radical figures to key military and security positions.
In Washington, Trump said on Tuesday that “no talks or negotiations” with Tehran were currently planned.
Warnings of the war spreading beyond the Middle East have also come from commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. They have signaled that, if another large-scale conflict breaks out, the list of Iranian targets may not be limited to U.S. bases, energy facilities and infrastructure in the region.
Last month, the Revolutionary Guard also issued a warning to the United Kingdom, stressing that any base used to launch strikes against Iranian territory would be treated as a “legitimate target.”
A source close to the regime described Tehran’s approach in these terms: “If the U.S. goes too far, Iran will defend itself at any cost, go beyond the region and strike Europe as well.”
Sidharth Kaushal, a researcher at the Royal United Services Institute, considers the threat posed by Iranian missiles to U.S. targets in Europe to be real, although he assesses it as limited.
According to him, targets in Southern and Southeastern Europe could be reached by Iran’s medium-range ballistic missiles, including models in the Shahab series. However, the expert emphasized that the effectiveness of these weapons would decline significantly at greater distances.
Iran has previously shown that it is willing to attempt strikes against targets located far beyond its borders.
Washington accused Tehran of launching several missiles toward Diego Garcia, the joint U.S.-British base in the Indian Ocean, after the war was started by the U.S. and Israel in February. The installation is located around 4,000 kilometers from Iran, but none of the missiles reached the target.
In March, Turkish authorities announced that NATO air-defense systems had intercepted several ballistic missiles launched by Iran. During the same month, a drone struck the British base at Akrotiri in Cyprus.
Western officials suspected at the time that the drone was Iranian, but assessed that it had been launched by regional groups allied with Tehran rather than directly from Iranian territory.
The Financial Times sources also mention last month’s attack against a U.S. base in Jordan, in which three American service members were killed. According to them, this was the most accurate long-range strike carried out by Iran and served as evidence of its capacity to attack over great distances.
However, experts warn that directly launching missiles at European targets would expose Iran to considerable risks.
Douglas Barrie, a representative of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said the alleged attacks on Diego Garcia demonstrated that Iran’s arsenal included weapons with a range of more than 2,000 kilometers.
He added that it remained unclear how many missiles of this type Tehran possessed and whether Iranian authorities would be willing to use them solely to send a political signal.
According to experts, one alternative Iran may view as more effective is to act through allied forces in the region. These include Shiite militias in Iraq, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.
Within the regime itself, there is concern that Tehran’s confrontation with the U.S. may have gone too far.
Iranian analysts have interpreted the appointment of Mohsen Rezaei, a former commander of the Revolutionary Guard, to a senior security position as a sign that the harder-line faction is gaining strength. At the same time, the prospects of reaching a long-term agreement with Washington are fading.
One of the Financial Times sources summed up Tehran’s message in these words: “The message is: Don’t get angry, because I am angrier than you.”
