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Can A Missile From Iran Reach The US?
With tensions in the Middle East heating up in 2025, as Israel and Iran traded missiles, and with the United States taking direct involvement in June, resulting in an attack on three nuclear sites, many around the world are concerned. It’s well known that Iran has a massive arsenal of missiles, and it’s already fired a small portion of its stockpile at Israeli cities. As things heat up on all sides of the conflict, many in the West can’t help but notice that Iran has a huge supply of missiles at its disposal that it’s more than willing to use against its enemies.
It’s logical to worry, now that the U.S. isn’t merely sitting on the sideline in the conflict. Iran boasts a stockpile of some 3,000 ballistic missiles of varying types, which doesn’t include the nation’s land-attack cruise missiles it’s developing at great speed. Given the sheer number of Iranian missiles, some may fear strikes against targets in the United States, but there’s little cause for concern, thanks to the vast distance between the two nations.
As of 2025, Iran doesn’t possess any missiles capable of covering the distances between the United States and itself. While it has several models of medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBM), it possesses no intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), so the homeland is safe for now. What isn’t safe are the tens of thousands of American personnel and assets spread throughout Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, many of which are well within the reach of Iran’s missiles.
Iran’s missiles boast impressive ranges that threaten the region, not the U.S.
While the total number of Iran’s missiles remains known only to the nation itself, there have been plenty of assessments and press releases that indicate Iran has yet to develop a missile with enough range to strike the U.S. Just looking at the Western-most point in Iran, Sīlū Ma’qūl, West Azarbaijan Province, and the Easternmost location in the United States, Lubec, Maine, the shortest distance is 11,687.58 miles. There’s no way an Iranian missile can travel that far.
Iran’s missile stockpile includes short, medium, land-attack cruise, and satellite launch vehicles, which aren’t used for attack purposes. Of these, the missile with the greatest range is the Khorramshahr family of medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBM). These have a range of between 1,243 and 1,864 miles, which is only 15.95% of the distance they’d need to travel to hit a lighthouse in Maine. That’s only if the missile were fired from the nation’s Westernmost point, which is unlikely.
If you’re thinking the Islamic Republic of Iran Navy can pick up the slack, it has no capability to do so. While Iran desires a blue-water navy, its naval assets are limited to the region. Some of its vessels can fire missiles, but these are either used for air-defense or are anti-ship missiles, neither of which is designed to strike targets on the ground. Because of these limitations, Iran has no means of directly striking the continental United States with any of its missiles, and were that to change, they’d still be susceptible to U.S. anti-missile defense systems.
American personnel and assets in the region are within range
While the United States is safe from Iranian missiles, the nation’s assets around the globe are not. Iran demonstrated this in June 2025, when it fired a barrage of short and medium-range ballistic missiles at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar. The nation’s air defenses took out the threat, but such things could be overwhelmed. Estimates of U.S. personnel in the region vary, but as of October 2024, the number had increased to around 43,000, accompanied by over a dozen warships.
Iran’s Khorramshahr MRBMs are more than capable of striking any target in the Middle East, the Sanai Peninsula, Eastern Africa, Southern and Western Europe, as well as large areas of Eastern Asia and the Indian subcontinent. While they’re spread throughout these regions, there are approximately 40,000 U.S. Army service members in Europe and Africa, accompanied by nearly 35,000 Department of the Army (DA) civilians and nearly 70,000 family members. Those are just the Army’s figures, so the total is considerably higher when the Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps are taken into account.
Iran can and has struck targets at this range using a variety of its different types of ballistic missiles, and while nobody was injured in the June 2025 retaliatory attack on the airbase, that doesn’t make anyone in those regions immune. Should the conflict intensify if the ceasefire crumbles, Iran could conceivably strike numerous American targets in the region. That would certainly intensify the conflict, opening the door for additional salvos of Iranian missiles, which are thankfully yet to be armed with nuclear warheads that the nation currently lacks.
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