Iran’s ability to threaten its neighbors and US interests in the region have been dramatically reduced, a senior US admiral says.
“Iran has a significantly degraded threat, and they no longer threaten regional partners, or the United States, in ways that they were able to do before, across every domain,” Admiral Brad Cooper, who heads US Central Command tells a Senate committee. “They’ve been significantly degraded.”
Cooper notes that Iran’s armed proxies launched over 350 attacks on US troops and diplomats in the 30 months before the recent war, an average of one every three days, killing four American soldiers.
“Today, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis are all cut-off from Iran’s weapons supply and support,” Cooper asserts. “This result was not foreordained.”
Cooper also says American forces have stopped using high-end munitions to shoot down Iran’s drones.
The nation’s limited stockpiles of expensive weapon systems, including advanced missile interceptors, became a lightning rod during the Iran war. American forces were using them to defend against Iranian drones. But Cooper says the US military is now using lower-cost munitions.
The admiral says Iran only has 10 percent of its drones left. Despite a fragile month-long ceasefire, skirmishes have flared between Iranian and American forces.
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