Israel wants President Donald Trump to push for limits on Iran’s ballistic missiles. Experts say Iran will not be deterred.
President Trump threatens Iran, calling supreme leader ‘very concerned’
President Trump has issued a new warning to Iran and its supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei ahead of expected talks over Iran’s nuclear program.
With the United States on the brink of a military attack on Iran as it negotiates a nuclear deal to avert an attack, Israel wants the Trump administration to insist on limits on Iran’s ballistic missile stockpile and funding for armed groups, a demand that experts say could stall negotiations and lead to war.
President Donald Trump told reporters on February 6 that a deal in which Iran commits only to eliminating its nuclear weapons and makes no other concessions would be “acceptable.”
President Trump added, “To be clear, nuclear weapons are prohibited.”
Iran has expressed its willingness to accept an agreement that concerns only the nuclear issue.
“We will not discuss other issues with the United States,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Arakchi said after the first day of talks between U.S. and Iranian negotiators in Oman on February 6, calling it a “good start.”
This red line could put high-stakes negotiations on a collision course with Israel. Israel insists that Iranian ballistic missiles and military support for regional proxies such as Hamas and Hezbollah must also be on the table.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to visit Washington, D.C., on February 11 to urge President Trump to impose these additional conditions on Iran. “Prime Minister Netanyahu believes that any negotiations must include limiting ballistic missiles and ending support for the Iranian axis,” his office said in a statement on February 8.
In June 2025, the United States dropped more than a dozen penetrating bombs on Iranian nuclear facilities. President Trump has renewed his threat of another attack in recent weeks as the government’s brutal crackdown on Iran’s biggest protests in decades leaves thousands dead.
Ballistic missiles are key to Iran’s defense
The problem with these non-nuclear demands, experts say, is that they require Iran to completely restructure its national security strategy and decades-old defense doctrine.
“The ballistic missile program is a key pillar of Iran’s defense strategy,” said Brian Carter, research manager for the American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats Project, which focuses on Iran and its regional partners. “For the Iranians to agree to (restrictive) conditions would amount to a complete rethinking of Iran’s security policy over the past decade or longer.”
“We don’t know what the U.S. specifically wants in terms of restrictions, but that’s an unrealistic expectation,” he said.
It is not clear what kind of limits Israel wants to impose on Iran’s ballistic missile stockpile, including how many missiles it can maintain and how far they can reach. Iran has both intermediate-range ballistic missiles with ranges of about 620 to 1,860 miles, and short-range ballistic missiles with shorter ranges.
From Iran’s perspective, missile range limits “are like taking away our ability to retaliate and deter, when there is no limit to Israel’s ability to attack us,” said Jim Lamson, a senior fellow at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute.
Capping the range of Iranian intermediate-range ballistic missiles that can reach Israel does not address the risks posed to U.S. military bases in the region that Iran can reach with short-range missiles. At least 40,000 U.S. troops were stationed in the region as of June last year, and if attacked they would be a prime target for Iranian retaliation.
“We cannot attack the mainland United States, but if we are attacked, we will target bases in the region,” Arakuchi said on February 6.
Iran’s reliance on ballistic missiles as a central pillar of its military strategy dates back to the Iraq War in the 1980s. “They learned the hard way,” Lamson said.
In the years since, Carter said, Iran has developed an “asymmetric” military strategy centered on ballistic missiles and regional forces, “exploiting our defense posture and attacking where there is an opening.”
Both Mr. Carter and Mr. Lamson likened demands that the United States give up its ballistic missiles to Iran to asking the United States to give up its aircraft carriers, a central aspect of its military and defense strategy. As President Trump threatened to attack Iran, he dispatched one of the country’s aircraft carriers, the Abraham Lincoln, and three accompanying warships to the Middle East.
Ramson said that even if Iran agreed to limits on its ballistic missile capabilities, there would be additional challenges in verifying compliance.
He added that it was “impossible” that Iran would accept “the intrusive monitoring and verification of its ballistic missile development and production facilities” that would be required to oversee the restrictions.
Iran’s missile force has deteriorated, but it is unclear to what extent
Israel’s attack on Iran during the 12-day war last June significantly reduced its stockpile of ballistic missiles, but it is not clear how much Iran has been able to replenish its arsenal.
Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, then commander of U.S. Central Command, told senators in 2022 that Iran had more than 3,000 ballistic missiles. Israel estimates that Iran fired 370 missiles at Israel during the war last June, about half to a third of its stockpile, and has about 1,500 missiles remaining.
