In May 2025, Iran deployed the Qassem Basir missile. Defense Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh described it on state television as a solid-fuel, medium-range ballistic system with a 750-mile range, enhanced guidance, and superior maneuverability capable of evading Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), Patriot, and Israeli Arrow missile defenses. Iranian outlets such as Mehr News and Tehran Times add that the missile operates without GPS, maintains precise targeting under heavy electronic jamming, and strikes targets with high accuracy in terminal phase. Independent analysts confirm the missile integrates optical and thermal imaging systems for terminal guidance and relies on data gathered from Iran’s April and October 2024 attacks on Israel to sharpen its performance.
While the June 2025 “Twelve-Day War” between Israel and Iran focused Western attention on Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities, it would be premature to conclude Israel or U.S. interests in the region can contain the Iranian missile threat.
It would be premature to conclude Israel or U.S. interests in the region can contain the Iranian missile threat.
Hezbollah, for example, may be down but it is not out. Hezbollah now shifts its operational posture under new leadership. Arabic sources note that following the 2024 death of Hezbollah Executive Council head Hashem Safieddine, the group elevated younger commanders like Sheikh Ali Damoush to recalibrate its strategy. These sources—less visible in Western media—describe internal debates about balancing deterrence against Israel with the risks of exposing Hezbollah’s own missile and drone arsenal to pre-emptive attack. At the same time, they acknowledge that Iran has granted Hezbollah access to advanced missile systems, exploiting porous routes through Syria.
The Lebanese government has placed disarmament of Hezbollah on the political agenda, setting a deadline for the end of 2025. Western outlets have reported the broad outlines of this proposal, but Arabic-language coverage provides additional detail: The plan hinges on phased integration of certain Hezbollah units into the Lebanese Armed Forces, with foreign funding contingent on compliance. Hezbollah has rejected the initiative outright, framing it as a betrayal of Lebanon’s “resistance identity.” In his August 5, 2025, speech, Secretary General Naim Qassem rejected disarmament, and said that Hezbollah would renew missile strikes following any Israeli military action. This suggests either imminent conflict in Lebanon to enforce President Joseph Aoun’s demand for all weaponry to be placed under Lebanese Armed Forces control, or that Hezbollah might maintain or even reconstitute its arsenal should internal or international pressure waiver.
Beyond the immediate theatre, Iran is also deepening its military partnership with China. While Western commentary focuses on arms sales and technology transfer, Iranian defense periodicals use the term “joint defense network” to describe coordinated radar and sensor integration. This cooperation eventually may link missile guidance systems directly to air-defense assets, tightening the protective envelope around Iran’s launchers and complicating any pre-emptive strike calculus. In parallel, Iran has resumed satellite launch vehicle testing for the first time since the war with Israel, with the Nahid-2 satellite now in orbit. Official coverage in Persian underscores the dual-use nature of this program, discussing its applicability to missile re-entry vehicle testing.
The Lebanese government has placed disarmament of Hezbollah on the political agenda, setting a deadline for the end of 2025.
If victories against Iran and Hezbollah are to be made permanent, the United States, the moderate Arab bloc, and Israel must support the Lebanese government and its disarmament timetable. They should assist the Lebanese government with verifiable monitoring and enforcement mechanisms, including technical assistance to secure border crossings and dismantle smuggling routes. Regional cooperation with Gulf states and Egypt can underpin a shared early-warning system, pooling satellite, signals, and open-source intelligence to track mobile launchers and convoys in real time. Israel must also continue to publicize the scale of Hezbollah’s wartime losses—5,000 fighters killed and 13,000 wounded, as confirmed in its own leadership’s statements—to erode the group’s domestic legitimacy and to frame disarmament not as capitulation but as a path to Lebanese sovereignty.
If they do not, it may be back to the future: What emerges from this mosaic of Arabic and Persian reporting is a picture of an adversary learning quickly from recent setbacks. Iran is replacing quantity with quality in its missile forces, Hezbollah is adapting its force structure under new leadership, and Tehran is embedding itself in a Chinese-assisted defense architecture.
