The US Operation on Iran’s Coast and the Meaning of Its Target Selection
Since 7 July the United States has continued its strikes on Iran’s coasts. The operation began after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) struck Qatari- and Saudi-flagged tankers in the Strait of Hormuz on 6 July, and within a few days it had expanded to cover more than three hundred targets. The fragile ceasefire established by the Islamabad Accord signed in mid-June was in effect broken in the field before a month had passed. Yet the meaning of this operation should be sought less in the number of targets struck than in their geography and function. For the set of targets an army chooses, and its activity in theatre, often provide stronger evidence of its intentions than political statements do. The picture emerging today on Iran’s coasts points not to a limited reprisal but to a transition to a new phase that could prove far more comprehensive. The real question, therefore, is not how many targets have been struck but what this selection of targets means.
What does the US target selection mean?
The centre of gravity of the strikes is concentrated along the narrow coastal strip surrounding the Strait of Hormuz. Alongside Bandar Abbas, Jask, Konarak, Chabahar and Bushehr, port points such as Sirik, Kangan, Assaluyeh and Mahshahr, together with the islands of Qeshm, Abu Musa and Kish, stand out among the places struck. US Central Command describes these targets as coastal radars, shore surveillance systems, anti-ship missiles, mine-laying capabilities, unmanned aerial vehicles and the Revolutionary Guards’ fast attack craft flotillas. All of these elements are parts of the arrangement that enables Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz and disrupt maritime traffic in the Gulf.
This target selection points not to punishment but to a systematic operation to break access denial. The elements struck constitute the different links of the engagement chain extending to Iran’s ability to detect and strike a vessel. Coastal radars and surveillance systems handle detection, command-and-control networks the handover of targets, and anti-ship missiles, fast attack craft and mines the actual engagement. The United States is suppressing every link of that chain at once. Indeed, in this wave one-way attack unmanned surface vessels were used for the first time; it was announced that three unmanned surface vessels struck the submarine and ship maintenance facility at Bandar Abbas Naval Base, and more than sixty IRGC fast attack craft were destroyed around the strait. The justification of freedom of navigation is real but incomplete. For this set of targets has a dual function. The operation weakens Iran’s striking capacity on one hand and, on the other, the southern air defence that protects that capacity. It thereby also eases aircraft access to the interior. A zone in which air defence and coastal missile defence have been neutralized can create favourable conditions for more comprehensive air offensives that might be mounted later. But this does not mean such an offensive will certainly take place; it indicates only that one of the significant obstacles before it has been removed.
What suggests that the operation goes beyond a limited reprisal is the targets that reach inland from the coast. For the first time since April, bridges and railways outside the coastal line have been struck. The targeting of the Aqqala railway bridge in Golestan province and the closure of the Torbat railway in Razavi Khorasan have effectively severed the Tehran-Mashhad line. These targets have no connection whatever with shipping traffic at Hormuz. The bridges in question concern Iran’s internal supply lines, its ability to shift forces and, during the period of naval blockade, the northern rail corridor reaching to Central Asia and Russia. These strikes therefore go beyond a tactic confined to the Strait of Hormuz and point to an effort to shape the theatre. A power that clears the coast while also cutting the interior lines is displaying an approach of encirclement, not of punishment.
The most striking aspect of the target map, however, is the facilities not yet struck. Satellite imagery shows roof repairs at the Taleghan-2 facility in Parchin and intense vehicle movement at the underground tunnel complex near Natanz. Taleghan-2 is a facility long associated by Western analysts with nuclear weapons research. The repair work there suggests that the most sensitive part of the programme is continuing its activities. By contrast, the enrichment facilities at Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan have not been targeted in this wave of strikes. Since the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has no access to the sites, the true condition of these facilities also remains largely uncertain. This choice can be interpreted in two ways. The first is a measured approach on Washington’s part, intended to keep the door to negotiation ajar. President Donald Trump has indeed stated in the same days that an agreement is still possible. The second, and more troubling, is that this choice forms part of a sequencing designed to produce results. Neutralizing air defence and sea-denial capacity before striking hardened underground targets is classic operational planning. Trump’s pointing to the same underground complex, Mount Kolang Gaz La about a mile from Natanz, as one of the likely targets of a larger operation strengthens the second reading. Even so, a declaration of threat cannot by itself be taken as proof of actual preparation for an operation.
On the other hand, this reading of preparation should not overshadow a far more immediate and concrete purpose of the operation. While clearing coastal targets, the United States is simultaneously establishing its own regime of control over the strait. Ship escorting, the naval blockade brought back into force on 14 July and the twenty percent transit fee Trump has proposed for cargoes passing through Hormuz are the instruments of that control. The Islamabad Accord itself, after all, ran aground on ambiguity over who would administer the strait. The real issue, therefore, is not whether Hormuz is open or closed. The essence of the contest is who will set the rules of passage, that is, whether sovereignty over the strait remains with Iran or with the United States. Targeting Iran’s instruments of control on the coast is precisely the precondition for that sovereignty to change hands.
In this framework the targets struck serve three interlocking functions. The operation responds to the tanker attacks on one hand and, on the other, effectively increases control over the Strait of Hormuz. These two functions are supported by field data. The third and most contested function is that it opens the way to a possible strike on the remaining elements of the nuclear programme and on electricity infrastructure — in other words, that it makes such an option militarily feasible. Washington holds simultaneously the option of keeping the operation at its present level and the option of turning it into a more comprehensive attack. The coastal phase forms the common ground of both options. For that reason today’s limited appearance does not by itself determine what decision will be taken tomorrow.
The distinction between a decisive strike and a coercive operation aimed at bringing the strait under control will be revealed by signs in the field. Uninterrupted pressure on coastal air defence, the deployment of long-range bombers and aerial refuelling assets to the region, and an intensification of reconnaissance and early-warning flights are the classic indicators of an approaching comprehensive operation. Conversely, maintaining the strikes only to the extent needed to secure maritime traffic would indicate a wish to keep escalation at the level of control and coercion. The picture to date contains both tendencies at once. On one side, the targeting of bridges and interior lines evokes the logic of a broader operation aimed at shaping the theatre; on the other, the fact that nuclear facilities and critical infrastructure have not been targeted shows that Washington has not yet crossed the threshold. Which targets are added to the list in the coming days — and in particular whether the pressure on air defence expands from the coastal line towards the interior lines protecting the nuclear facilities and critical infrastructure — will therefore reveal the operation’s true direction far more clearly than today’s political statements.
Another notable feature of the picture is that the operation is being conducted exclusively under US leadership. While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signals a third Israeli strike, Washington does not want Israel involved in this wave. That stance carries a message in itself. The United States aims to keep the tempo of escalation in its own hands and not to leave control of the nuclear card to Tel Aviv. In this way the negotiation option is preserved and the timing of any strike is tied to Washington’s calendar rather than Israel’s. This distinction suggests that the strikes are not a mere venting of anger but a controlled instrument of pressure.
What does Iran’s target selection mean?
The analysis so far has focused on US targets. Yet the same method applies to Iran’s strikes. Their strategic meaning too is read in the selection of targets. Iran knows that it cannot confront US air power directly. It therefore targets not the aircraft themselves but the logistics and sustainment infrastructure that keeps those aircraft flying. The strikes carried out in the Gulf show this plainly. Fuel depots and munitions facilities at bases in Kuwait and Jordan, refuelling points in Bahrain, aircraft maintenance and command centres in Qatar, and radar and supply infrastructure in Oman have been targeted. All of these targets are directed at the logistics, supply and early-warning capabilities that make American air operations possible. By eroding these elements, Iran aims to limit both the United States’ ability to project air power over Iran and its capacity to defend the Gulf. In short, while the United States seeks to increase access to the interior by neutralizing Iran’s coastal defence, Iran seeks to make the sustainability of that access costly by targeting the American logistics and sustainment network. Although claims about the damage at the bases struck often cannot be verified by independent sources, the character of the target selection reveals this strategic purpose.
The reverberations of the targets struck in Tehran feed directly into the domestic political contest around the Accord. For the Paydari Front and the circle around Saeed Jalili, these strikes strengthen the thesis that the accord was a capitulation from the outset. In their view the United States never intended to implement the agreement. Accordingly, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the reconstruction of the nuclear programme are presented as a legitimate response. Indeed, the Revolutionary Guards Navy’s announcement that it had unilaterally closed the strait strengthens the hardline wing’s effort to create a fait accompli in the field. By contrast, the pragmatic line represented by President Masoud Pezeshkian, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi argues that precisely the scenario they warned of has come to pass. The Central Bank’s warnings that serious bottlenecks in food and medicine supply may occur by the end of August push this wing towards protecting the accord. Yet every new wave of strikes narrows the pragmatists’ room for manoeuvre a little further while strengthening the hardline discourse. Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei’s deliberate ambiguity, meanwhile, keeps the balance between war politics and diplomacy suspended. US target choices thereby become one of the elements shaping the power struggle inside Iran.
In sum, the targets struck on Iran’s coast were neither chosen at random nor merely a reprisal. The available data point most clearly to a coercive operation aimed at seizing control over Hormuz. The same set of targets also opens the way to a possible strike on hardened nuclear facilities and critical infrastructure. Yet there is as yet no data that would separate these two purposes definitively. For the steps taken to bring the strait under control and the preparations that lay the ground for a comprehensive strike on the nuclear facilities largely overlap. The present target map therefore does not prove that the next phase will begin; it only makes such an option militarily feasible.
Stronger indications of the possibility of a strike should be sought less in the targets themselves than in specific political statements, such as Trump’s threat against Mount Kolang Gaz La, and in Iran’s efforts to rebuild its nuclear facilities. What is more, whether this step is taken is ultimately a political rather than a military decision, and Washington is deliberately keeping the option open. The United States is escalating vertically, increasing the number of targets, the geography and the variety of platforms used. Iran, for its part, is pursuing a strategy of horizontal escalation, spreading the conflict to host countries in the Gulf and to commercial shipping. This asymmetry does not mean that the side striking more targets in the field will necessarily gain the upper hand. For Iran, meanwhile, every new wave of strikes strengthens the hardliners’ hand and narrows the pragmatic wing’s room for manoeuvre. The process is thus moving back towards precisely the spiral of conflict the Islamabad Accord was meant to prevent. Indeed, tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz fell in mid-July to its lowest level in two months. In this respect today’s target map is both an inventory of the military options in Washington’s hands and a silent strategic warning directed at Tehran.
This article was first published in IRAM on July 16, 2026.
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