Iran’s rapidly expanding ballistic missile arsenal poses a greater danger to ‘Israel’ than its nuclear program, according to a senior military analyst at The Jerusalem Post, pushing back against recent US intelligence assessments that downplay the missile threat.
The analysis by Yona Jeremy Pope, the newspaper’s military correspondent and security analyst, comes in response to a Washington Post report published over the weekend. That report, based on leaks from CIA officials, claimed that Iran’s ballistic missile threat “has been significantly reduced” a narrative Pope warned “could undermine one of ‘Israel’s’ key victory narratives in the war.”
Behind the Washington Post story, Pope wrote, “lies a series of complete misunderstandings about what the various parties are saying about the ballistic missile,” including what the CIA actually believes, the true nature of the threat, and what objectives Israel could realistically have achieved during the war.
From an Israeli military perspective, Pope added, President Trump’s vague messaging and imprecise use of numbers “only add to the confusion regarding what matters to the Israeli military.” He argued that the essential starting point is understanding “why this war was launched from an Israeli military perspective.”
‘The Complex Truth’
Pope noted that political leaders on both sides “often struggle to speak objectively and resort to simplistic slogans” – such as the claim that “there was no choice but to attack Iran at that time, due to the imminent threats.” In reality, “the truth is more complex,” and the primary driver for launching the war was “to reduce Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities.”
According to information obtained by The Jerusalem Post, Israeli Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir, ahead of key decisions made last February, presented a detailed argument to top U.S. military officials – including Joint Chiefs Chairman General Dan Keane and CENTCOM chief Admiral Brad Cooper – arguments that ultimately reached President Trump.
Zamir’s assessment acknowledged that “Israel and the United States could, in theory, wait for several months, as Iran had not yet crossed the red line of ballistic missiles that the Israeli military could not counter.” In fact, “Israel’s original plan was not to attack Iran’s ballistic missile program until sometime between June and November 2026,” Pope wrote.
However, Zamir warned that Iran is “advancing too rapidly,” and that postponing an attack “would severely damage the war effort later on.”
Iran’s Missile Production Surge
Iran is currently “producing an additional 200 to 300 ballistic missiles per month” and has “replaced roughly half of its lost missiles and half of its lost launchers in just eight months, bringing its total number of missiles to 2,500.”
Zamir’s calculations suggested that waiting another six months could give Iran “around 4,000 missiles,” while a one-year delay “could mean Iran could have more than 6,000 missiles.” That would cause “much greater damage” and lead to “a severe shortage of interceptor missiles for Israel very early on,” potentially forcing Israel and the United States to “scale back their attacks on Iran’s missile and other capabilities much sooner than would make strategic sense.”
From the Israeli military’s perspective, this was the overriding reason for going to war with Iran: “to reduce Iran’s current and future ballistic missile capabilities to prevent them from reaching an existential threat level.”
Pope stressed that “the war was not primarily about the nuclear issue. The Israeli military barely attacked any nuclear sites, most of which have not been rebuilt since their destruction in June 2025.”
“The goal was not to completely eliminate the ballistic missile threat,” he explained, “but rather to significantly reduce Iran’s missile arsenal and delay its ability to amass enough missiles for several years, which could overwhelm Israel’s air defenses.”
Conflicting Damage Assessments
No one appears to know where President Trump obtained his figure that 80% or more of Iran’s missiles were destroyed. The CIA’s own estimate, Pope noted, is that “only 25% of the missile launchers and 30% of the missiles were destroyed.”
Part of the discrepancy stems from the fact that “no one knows for sure,” and all assessments rely on aerial or satellite imagery, which can offer clues but remains inconclusive – particularly regarding underground missile sites. The situation is especially fluid because Iran “surprised both Israel and the United States with the speed with which it was able to dig out and expose underground missile sites, which were then bombed and covered with rubble.”
‘Ballistic Missile Threat Is Greater Than Nuclear Threat’
“Israel’s need to launch another strike in the coming years is likely due more to the conventional ballistic missile threat than the nuclear threat,” Pope concluded. He added that the nuclear question “is not even clear as to whether Iran will try to rebuild it,” and that “the nuclear threat can be neutralized through an agreement between Iran and the United States for a decade or more.”
Source: Jerusalem Post