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Sidharth Kaushal, a senior fellow at London-based think tank the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi), says that it was "long understood the Iranians had an Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile programme before this war started". He explained that assumption on the basis of two possible reasons. First, longer-range missiles would be required if Iran wanted to develop a nuclear weapon - which it has persistently denied, despite Western accusations. The second is that Iran has needed to develop longer-range rockets for its own space programme.

We know Hezbollah backed down in 2024 to preserve its existing missile stocks, which contain Scuds they were given by Assad, and Iranian Fateh 110 short-range ballistic missiles,” he said. “It is hard to secretly obtain ballistic missiles because they need to be stored with temperature control, undergo maintenance, usually at centralised military bases. Moving Scuds is not easy, particularly if Israel was watching the Lebanese-Syrian border crossing.” He added: “It is plausible that immediately after the fall of Assad, Syrian army officers traded missiles with Hezbollah for a chance to escape to Lebanon.”

A better language for de-escalation is unlikely now to come from the US or from Iran, but to come from third parties, and I think everybody is banking on this position from the European Union, China, or Britain to be more rational and concerned about the fallout."