Overview

As US strikes rain down on Iranian territory under Operation Epic Fury, millions of Americans are asking a straightforward question: can Iran strike back at the United States itself? The question is understandable — in a conflict with a nation that has repeatedly declared the US an enemy and chanted "Death to America" as a political slogan for four decades, the possibility of a missile reaching American soil is a visceral concern.

The short answer is no. Iran does not currently possess the capability to strike the continental United States with a ballistic missile. The distance from Tehran to New York is approximately 10,200 km. The distance to the US West Coast (Los Angeles) is roughly 12,500 km. Iran's longest-range deployed missile, the Khorramshahr, has an estimated maximum range of approximately 2,000 km — less than one-fifth of the distance needed to reach the closest point of the US mainland (CSIS Missile Threat Project, 2025).

However, the longer answer is more nuanced. Iran has made steady progress in extending missile range over decades. Its space launch program demonstrates rocket propulsion technology that is theoretically applicable to intercontinental missiles. And the current conflict may provide exactly the motivation Tehran needs to accelerate programs that were previously constrained by diplomatic considerations. This article examines Iran's current capabilities, the gap between what it has and what it would need, the intelligence community's assessment of timelines, and what Iran can actually threaten right now — which, while it does not include the US homeland, encompasses an enormous and strategically critical area.

Current Missile Inventory

Iran operates the largest and most diverse ballistic missile arsenal in the Middle East, with an estimated 3,000+ missiles across multiple families. These systems are organized into range tiers, each serving a distinct strategic purpose.

Missile SystemTypeFuelRange (est.)Warhead (est.)CEP (est.)
Fateh-110SRBMSolid300 km450 kg~100 m
Fateh-313SRBMSolid500 km450 kg~30-50 m
ZolfagharSRBMSolid700 km580 kg~50-100 m
Shahab-3MRBMLiquid1,300 km760-1,200 kg~2,000 m
EmadMRBMLiquid1,700 km750 kg~500 m
Sejjil-2MRBMSolid2,000 km500 kg~1,000 m
KhorramshahrMRBMLiquid2,000 km1,500 kg~1,500 m
Kheibar ShekanMRBMSolid1,450 km~500 kg~300 m
Fattah-1MRBMSolid1,400 km~450 kgUnknown (hypersonic claim)

The critical observation is that no deployed Iranian missile exceeds 2,000 km range. The systems are overwhelmingly short-range (under 1,000 km) and medium-range (1,000-2,000 km) — designed for regional targeting of US bases, Israel, Gulf states, and neighboring countries, not for intercontinental strikes. Iran categorizes these as medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs), and the terminology matters: an ICBM, by standard definition, has a range exceeding 5,500 km. Iran is approximately 8,000-10,000 km short of ICBM capability in its current deployed inventory (IISS Strategic Dossier, 2025).

Shahab Series and Sejjil Missiles

The Shahab missile family represents Iran's earliest attempts at extending missile range beyond the tactical battlefield. The lineage begins with the Shahab-1 (essentially a Scud-B clone, 300 km range, acquired from Libya and North Korea in the 1980s during the Iran-Iraq War) and progresses through the Shahab-2 (Scud-C variant, 500 km) to the Shahab-3, which represented a major leap in capability when first tested in 1998.

The Shahab-3 is based on the North Korean Nodong-1 design, itself derived from Soviet Scud technology but scaled up significantly. With an estimated range of 1,300 km and a payload of 760-1,200 kg (depending on configuration), the Shahab-3 brought Israel into Iran's strike range for the first time. However, its liquid-fuel propulsion requires hours of preparation before launch (fueling, erection, targeting), making it vulnerable to pre-emptive strikes during a crisis. Its accuracy, with a circular error probable (CEP) of approximately 2,000 meters, limits it to striking area targets — cities, airfields, industrial complexes — rather than specific military installations.

The Sejjil-2 (also transliterated as Sajjil) represents Iran's most significant indigenous achievement in medium-range rocketry. First successfully tested in November 2008, the Sejjil is a two-stage solid-fuel missile with an estimated range of 2,000 km. Solid fuel is strategically important because it can be stored in the missile indefinitely, allowing launch on minutes' notice rather than the hours required to fuel a liquid-propellant system. This dramatically improves survivability and complicates enemy targeting. The Sejjil's range matches or slightly exceeds the Khorramshahr, making it Iran's longest-range confirmed system. However, it has not been tested frequently, and questions remain about whether it has been produced in significant numbers or achieved reliable operational status (Congressional Research Service, "Iran's Ballistic Missile Capabilities," 2025).

The Emad, first tested in 2015, is essentially a Shahab-3 variant with a maneuverable reentry vehicle (MaRV) — a guided warhead that can adjust its trajectory during the terminal descent phase, improving accuracy to an estimated CEP of 500 meters and complicating interception by missile defense systems. The Emad's 1,700 km range and improved accuracy make it more militarily useful than the base Shahab-3, but it remains a liquid-fueled system with the associated operational limitations.

Khorramshahr and Extended Range Claims

The Khorramshahr (named after the city besieged during the Iran-Iraq War) is Iran's heaviest medium-range missile and the system most frequently cited in discussions of potential ICBM development. First tested in January 2017, the Khorramshahr features a liquid-fuel engine (believed to be based on Soviet RD-250 technology, possibly obtained through North Korean intermediaries) and a significantly larger airframe than the Shahab series.

The Khorramshahr's estimated range of 2,000 km with a 1,500 kg payload makes it theoretically capable of carrying a nuclear warhead — the system's large throw-weight is one of the reasons it receives particular attention from Western intelligence agencies. However, 2,000 km is still firmly in the medium-range category. To reach the US mainland, the Khorramshahr's range would need to increase by a factor of five to six — a leap that would require entirely different propulsion technology, staging, and reentry vehicle design.

Iran has paraded updated variants designated Khorramshahr-4 (also called Kheibar Shekan, meaning "Fortress Buster"), which Iranian officials claim features improved range and accuracy. However, Western assessments generally treat Iranian range claims with skepticism. The DIA's 2025 assessment notes that Iran has a pattern of announcing capabilities that are still in development or testing, and that independently verified flight tests have not confirmed ranges significantly beyond 2,000 km for any Iranian system.

There have been periodic Iranian claims of missiles with ranges exceeding 2,000 km. In 2017, IRGC Aerospace Force commander Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh stated that Iran had limited its missile range to 2,000 km as a voluntary political decision and could extend it if desired. This statement was widely interpreted as both a negotiating signal (during JCPOA-related discussions) and a veiled threat. Whether Iran actually possesses the technical capability to simply "turn on" longer range is debated — some analysts believe the Sejjil's solid-fuel technology could be scaled to a three-stage design reaching 3,500-4,000 km, while others argue that the engineering challenges of multi-stage rockets at intercontinental range are qualitatively different from incremental range extensions.

The 10,000 km ICBM Question

Building an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the continental United States from Iran requires solving a set of engineering problems that are fundamentally different from those involved in medium-range missile design. The gap between a 2,000 km MRBM and a 10,000+ km ICBM is not merely quantitative — it involves qualitative technological jumps in several areas simultaneously.

Multi-stage propulsion: An ICBM requires at least two stages (and typically three) of powerful rocket engines that ignite in sequence, with clean stage separation at hypersonic speeds in near-vacuum conditions. Iran has demonstrated two-stage solid-fuel technology (Sejjil) and has experience with liquid-fuel engines. However, neither the propulsion power nor the staging reliability required for ICBM flight has been demonstrated. The first stage alone would need to be dramatically more powerful than anything Iran has tested — comparable to the first stages of the US Minuteman III or Russian RS-28 Sarmat.

Reentry vehicle survival: An ICBM warhead reenters the atmosphere at speeds of Mach 20-25 (approximately 7 km/s), generating surface temperatures exceeding 3,000 degrees Celsius. The reentry vehicle must protect its payload (conventional or nuclear) from these extreme conditions while maintaining enough accuracy to hit a meaningful target at intercontinental distance. Iran's experience with reentry vehicles is limited to medium-range systems that reenter at much lower velocities and thermal loads. Developing and testing an ICBM-class reentry vehicle is a major engineering program in its own right.

Guidance accuracy: At intercontinental range, even small guidance errors compound into enormous miss distances. An ICBM traveling 10,000 km needs inertial guidance (and potentially stellar or GPS updates) accurate enough to deliver a warhead within a tactically meaningful distance of its target. Iran's current guidance technology produces CEPs measured in hundreds of meters to kilometers at ranges under 2,000 km. Scaling this to intercontinental range while maintaining accuracy is an unsolved problem for Iran's defense industry.

Testing infrastructure: ICBM development requires flight testing across the full range profile, which for Iran would mean launching missiles that overfly multiple countries or conducting tests over open ocean at distances requiring downrange tracking facilities Iran does not possess. Any ICBM test would be immediately detected by US early warning satellites and would trigger an international crisis, making covert development extremely difficult. North Korea, the closest parallel case, required multiple failed tests over many years before achieving partially successful ICBM launches.

Space Launch Vehicles and Dual-Use

Iran's space launch program provides the most direct evidence of technologies that could theoretically be applied to ICBM development, which is why every Iranian satellite launch triggers concern from Western governments and missile defense analysts.

Iran has developed two operational space launch vehicles: the Safir (a two-stage rocket that placed Iran's first satellite, Omid, into orbit in 2009) and the Simorgh (a larger two-stage vehicle designed for heavier payloads). In April 2020, the IRGC surprised analysts by successfully launching a small satellite using the Qased, a two-stage vehicle that used a solid-fuel first stage (possibly derived from the Shahab-3/Ghadr family) and a novel second stage.

The space launch connection to ICBM development is real but frequently overstated. A space launch vehicle (SLV) and an ICBM share fundamental propulsion technology — both are multi-stage rockets that must achieve high velocities. However, they differ in critical ways. An SLV needs to reach orbital velocity (~7.8 km/s) but does not need to deliver a payload to a specific ground target on a ballistic trajectory. An ICBM needs to achieve a specific speed and trajectory angle to deliver a reentry vehicle to a predetermined impact point, then the reentry vehicle must survive atmospheric reentry and guide itself to the target. An SLV payload goes up and stays up; an ICBM payload goes up and must come back down precisely (NTI, "Iran Missile Overview," 2025).

The Simorgh SLV, with its estimated capability to place 60-100 kg into low Earth orbit, demonstrates first-stage propulsion roughly equivalent to what would be needed for an ICBM's boost phase. However, multiple Simorgh launches have failed, and even successful satellite launches do not resolve the reentry vehicle, guidance, and reliability challenges specific to ICBM weaponization. The US Intelligence Community has consistently assessed that Iran's SLV program contributes to but does not constitute an ICBM capability — a distinction that matters for understanding how far Iran actually is from threatening the US mainland.

US Intelligence Assessment

The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the broader US Intelligence Community have provided periodic assessments of Iran's missile trajectory, and these assessments are the most authoritative (if imperfect) guide to when Iran might develop an ICBM.

The most recent publicly available assessment, from the DIA's 2025 Annual Threat Assessment, states that Iran "does not currently have the capability to build an ICBM" and estimates that Iran "could develop and test an ICBM capable of reaching the United States by the mid-2030s if it chose to do so and allocated significant resources to the effort." This timeline assumes Iran makes a political decision to pursue an ICBM — something it has not demonstrably done, in part because the diplomatic and security costs of testing such a system would be enormous (DIA Annual Threat Assessment, 2025).

Previous US intelligence assessments have shifted over time. In the early 2000s, the CIA assessed that Iran could have an ICBM by 2015 — an estimate that proved overly pessimistic (from the threat perspective) as Iran apparently deprioritized long-range missile development in favor of expanding and improving its medium-range arsenal. The 2007 National Intelligence Estimate lowered the threat assessment, and subsequent reports have consistently pushed the projected timeline further into the future. This suggests either that Iran's ICBM program is less advanced than worst-case assessments assume, or that Iran has made a strategic decision that medium-range missiles serve its security needs adequately.

The current conflict could change this calculus dramatically. If Operation Epic Fury demonstrates that Iran is vulnerable to US military action without possessing either nuclear weapons or the means to strike the US homeland, the strongest argument for self-restraint (that pursuing ICBMs would provoke the very attack it aims to deter) collapses. The post-conflict period may see Iran accelerate both nuclear weapons and ICBM development as a matter of existential national security — the exact opposite of what the strikes were intended to achieve.

What Iran CAN Hit Right Now

While Iran cannot reach the US mainland, the territory within its current missile range encompasses a strategically enormous area and hundreds of millions of people. Understanding what Iran can hit is more immediately relevant than what it cannot.

At 2,000 km from Tehran (the approximate maximum range of the Khorramshahr and Sejjil-2), Iran's strike envelope includes:

The immediate military relevance is clear: Iran can strike every US asset and ally in the theater of operations. The 45,000+ American troops deployed to Gulf bases are within range of missiles that Iran has already demonstrated in combat — the January 2020 strike on Al-Asad Air Base and the retaliatory strikes of February 28, 2026, prove this is not a theoretical capability but an operational one. The question of whether Iran can hit the US mainland, while emotionally compelling, is strategically secondary to the fact that Iran can hit Americans where they are right now.

MIRV and Reentry Vehicle Limitations

Multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs) — the technology that allows a single missile to carry several warheads, each aimed at a different target — represent a capability that Iran does not possess but has shown interest in developing. MIRVs are relevant to the ICBM question because they dramatically increase the destructive potential of each missile and complicate missile defense by multiplying the number of incoming warheads per interceptor engagement.

Iran's current reentry vehicles are single-warhead designs. The Emad's maneuverable reentry vehicle (MaRV) is a guidance improvement, not a MIRV — it carries one warhead that can adjust its trajectory, not multiple warheads aimed at separate targets. Developing MIRV capability requires solving miniaturization challenges (making warheads small and light enough to fit multiple units on a single missile), designing a "bus" mechanism that releases warheads at precise points along the ballistic trajectory, and having warhead designs compact enough to justify the engineering investment. For conventional warheads, MIRV technology offers limited benefit because the individual warheads would be too small to cause significant damage. MIRVs become militarily significant primarily with nuclear warheads — another reason the nuclear question and the missile question are inseparable.

Iran has also claimed development of "hypersonic" reentry vehicle technology with the announcement of the Fattah-1 missile in June 2023. Iranian officials described it as a hypersonic missile capable of penetrating any missile defense system. Western analysts remain skeptical of these claims, noting that all ballistic missiles are technically hypersonic during reentry (exceeding Mach 5), and that what typically distinguishes a "hypersonic weapon" — the ability to maneuver at hypersonic speeds within the atmosphere over extended distances — has not been demonstrated by Iran in any verified test. The Fattah-1 appears to be a medium-range ballistic missile with an improved maneuverable warhead, not a true hypersonic glide vehicle comparable to Russia's Avangard or China's DF-ZF (CSIS Missile Threat Project, 2025).

Missile Defense Implications

The question of whether Iran can hit the US mainland is inseparable from the question of US missile defense capability. Even if Iran were to develop an ICBM at some future date, the United States maintains a layered missile defense architecture specifically designed to intercept a limited ICBM attack from a country like Iran or North Korea.

The Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system, operated by the Missile Defense Agency, deploys 44 Ground-Based Interceptors (GBIs) at Fort Greely, Alaska (40 interceptors) and Vandenberg Space Force Base, California (4 interceptors). These interceptors are designed to destroy incoming ICBM warheads during the midcourse phase of flight (in space, between boost and reentry) using hit-to-kill technology — essentially hitting a bullet with a bullet. The system's effectiveness against a sophisticated ICBM with decoys and countermeasures is debated, but against the small, unsophisticated arsenal Iran might develop in the 2030s, the GMD system provides a substantial defensive layer.

Additionally, the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense system deployed on US Navy destroyers and cruisers, using the SM-3 Block IIA interceptor, has demonstrated the ability to intercept ICBM-class targets in testing. Forward-deployed Aegis ships could provide boost-phase or ascent-phase intercept opportunities against Iranian ICBM launches, further reducing the threat. The Aegis Ashore site at Deveselu, Romania, while primarily oriented toward European defense, adds another layer.

The net assessment is that even if Iran achieves ICBM capability in the 2030s, the US homeland would be defended by multiple layers of missile defense specifically designed for this scenario. Iran would need to simultaneously develop an ICBM, deploy it in sufficient numbers to overwhelm defenses, develop countermeasures sophisticated enough to defeat GMD interceptors, and do all of this covertly enough to avoid pre-emptive military action. The probability of Iran achieving all of these conditions is assessed as very low within any foreseeable timeline.

Bottom Line

The direct answer to "Can Iran hit the US mainland?" is no, not today, and not for years to come. Iran's missile program, while the most advanced in the Middle East, is fundamentally a regional capability designed to deter and punish adversaries within a 2,000 km radius — not to project power across oceans.

However, framing the Iran threat exclusively in terms of ICBM capability misses the point. Iran does not need to hit the US mainland to impose enormous costs on the United States. It can strike American military personnel at bases across the Middle East. It can attack oil infrastructure and shipping lanes that affect global energy prices and the US economy. It can activate proxy networks to target US interests from Lebanon to Iraq to Yemen. It can conduct cyber attacks against critical infrastructure. And it can potentially direct or inspire terrorist attacks against targets worldwide.

The ICBM question matters for long-term strategic planning and missile defense investment. But in the context of the current conflict, the missiles Iran already has — deployed, tested, and now combat-proven against US bases in Qatar, Kuwait, UAE, and Bahrain — are the immediate threat. Those missiles cannot reach New York or Los Angeles, but they can reach the 45,000 Americans serving in the Persian Gulf, and they can reach the oil infrastructure that keeps the global economy running. That capability is sufficient to make this conflict extremely costly for the United States, even without a single warhead landing on American soil.

Sources

  1. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), "Annual Threat Assessment 2025: Iran's Military Capabilities." dia.mil
  2. Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Missile Threat Project: "Iran Missile Overview," updated January 2026. missilethreat.csis.org
  3. International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), "Strategic Dossier: Iran's Ballistic Missile and Space Launch Programmes," 2025 edition. iiss.org
  4. Congressional Research Service (CRS), "Iran's Ballistic Missile and Space Launch Programs," Report R44017, updated December 2025. crsreports.congress.gov
  5. Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), "Iran: Missile Overview and Technical Assessments," 2025. nti.org

Last updated: February 28, 2026. This article is revised when new evidence materially changes what can be stated with confidence.