The Islamic Republic just proved President Trump right. After years of claiming their missiles couldn’t reach beyond 2,000 kilometers, Iran launched two intermediate-range ballistic missiles toward Diego Garcia, a critical U.S.-U.K. military base in the Indian Ocean, some 2,500 miles from Iranian soil. The attack failed, but the message was unmistakable: Tehran has been lying about its capabilities all along, and Europe is now directly in the crosshairs.
Just days before Operation Epic Fury began, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi looked Western cameras in the eye and insisted his country “intentionally kept the range of our missiles below 2,000 kilometers so we don’t have that capability.” He claimed Iran harbored no hostility toward America or Europe. That fiction died Friday when those missiles streaked toward a base housing American bombers and nuclear submarines.
Israeli Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir didn’t mince words. “These missiles were not intended to hit Israel,” he said. “Their range reaches the capitals of Europe — Berlin, Paris and Rome are all within direct threat range.” IDF spokesman Nadav Shoshani put it even more bluntly on social media: “Just 3 days before the war, the Iranian regime said they don’t obtain long-range missiles. Today, their lies were exposed once again.”
What changed? According to experts, the death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei removed the one restraining voice in Tehran. Khamenei had repeatedly rejected IRGC commanders who wanted to extend missile ranges to 5,000 kilometers. With him gone, the Revolutionary Guard is running the show, and they’re making their capabilities known. Jason Brodsky, policy director of United Against Nuclear Iran, told Fox News Digital that the Trump administration was “absolutely correct” in citing Iran’s missile threat as justification for military action. “It also shows how dangerous it is to solely rely on Iranian nuclear weapons fatwas and the supreme leader’s public rhetoric in formulating U.S. policy,” Brodsky warned.
The parallel development of Iran’s space program adds another layer of concern. The same booster technology used to put satellites into orbit can be married to medium-range missiles to create true intercontinental capability. Ilan Berman, vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council and author of “Iran’s Deadly Ambition,” noted that “we were seeing a clear convergence of the regime’s strategic programs: its ballistic missile work, its space capabilities and its nuclear program.” Left unchecked, Iran would have attained intercontinental range sooner rather than later.
Europe’s leaders have no excuse for looking away now. Berman calls their failure to recognize the threat “willful blindness” and an “undue faith in diplomacy and arms control” that never had a chance of containing Tehran’s ambitions. The United Kingdom has already condemned the attack and confirmed that RAF jets are defending British interests in the region. Permission has been granted for U.S. forces to use British bases for defensive operations.
One missile reportedly failed in flight. The other was targeted by a U.S. warship’s SM-3 interceptor, though it’s unclear whether the interception succeeded. What is clear is that Iran’s regime cannot be trusted to keep its word, limit its ambitions, or respect the security of nations it claims to have no quarrel with. President Trump saw this coming when others wanted to look away. The question now is whether Europe will wake up before it’s too late.
Providence watches over the bold.
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