The World Is Running Out of Air Defenses: Inside Week Three of the Iran War

As the third week of the Iran war draws to a close, one thing has become increasingly clear: this may not end quickly. Despite repeated assertions that Tehran’s military capabilities have been completely degraded, and expectations that the regime will capitulate, the Islamic Republic is still standing, the Strait of Hormuz is still closed, and the war shows no sign of ending.

The Economist put it best, noting that although President Donald Trump says he has “destroyed 100% of Iran’s Military Capability,” the 0% that remains is playing havoc with the global economy. And the longer this war goes on, the more likely it is that the escalations seen so far will look mild compared to what comes next, with consequences felt not just in the Middle East but in every economy around the world.

The defining constraint of this phase is not Iranian intent but Western capacity. Across Europe, the United States, and the Gulf, the interceptors that shoot down ballistic missiles and drones are running out. That single shortage is what turns a regional war into a global one.

Key Takeaways

Interceptor stockpiles across European, American, and Middle Eastern arsenals are empty or nearly empty; Rheinmetall’s CEO warns that if the war lasts another month, there will be almost no interceptors available.
Iran knocked out roughly 17% of Qatar’s LNG export capacity, about 3.5% of the world’s entire supply, using fewer than ten ballistic missiles across two small barrages.
Repairs to Qatar’s Ras Laffan facility will take three to five years and cost an estimated $26 billion, with no quick replacement for the lost capacity.
Strikes on energy infrastructure are now standard practice for every combatant, hitting targets in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Israel within days of each other.
Iran’s leadership is being decapitated: Ali Larijani, Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib, and others have been killed, with the IRGC hardliner Hossein Dehghan elevated to the top security post.
Washington is lifting sanctions on Russian and possibly Iranian oil to calm markets, a move critics say could fund Iran’s war effort with limited price relief.
A threatened U.S. strike on Iran’s South Pars gas field risks a humanitarian crisis inside Iran and a retaliation that could wipe out up to one-fifth of global LNG.

A Global Economy Under Strain

The economic shock is already visible at the pump. The Washington Post reported that oil prices had risen by 23.6% for Americans. If that sounds severe, the picture abroad is worse: prices rose by roughly 32% in Australia, 33% in Laos, and around 40% in Nigeria.

The pain extends well beyond fuel hikes. The war has reached the stage where governments are actively rationing energy and doing everything they can to reduce demand. In Thailand, the government called on the public to cut their use of air conditioning to save power. Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and the Philippines have taken the extraordinary step of moving some workers to a four-day workweek.

Whether these measures will be enough to stave off the worst of the expected downturn remains to be seen, especially because targeting oil infrastructure has become the war’s preferred tactic, embraced by every participant. Each new strike on a refinery or export terminal compounds the supply crunch and ratchets prices higher across the world.

Fires Everywhere: The War on Energy Infrastructure

In a prior episode, the focus was Israel’s strike on South Pars, the largest natural gas deposit in the world, and Iran’s retaliatory strike on Qatar’s Ras Laffan Industrial City, the liquefied natural gas facility that handles Doha’s side of the two nations’ shared deposit. The conclusion then was simple: the gloves were off, and things were about to get worse. How much worse was not yet clear.

Once the dust settled and Qatar assessed the damage, the picture was grim. QatarEnergy CEO Saad al-Kaabi told Reuters that the strikes on Ras Laffan had knocked out about 17% of Qatar’s total LNG export capacity, equivalent to roughly 3.5% of the world’s entire supply. Two of the country’s 14 LNG trains and one of its two gas-to-liquids facilities were damaged, sidelining roughly 12.8 million tonnes per year of output.

Al-Kaabi said repairs would take three to five years and that QatarEnergy may have to declare force majeure on long-term contracts covering supplies to China, South Korea, Italy, and Belgium. Force majeure is a legal clause allowing a company to suspend or cancel contractual obligations due to extraordinary circumstances beyond its control, such as a war.

Why the Damage Cannot Be Quickly Undone

Al-Kaabi told Reuters that the damaged facilities would cost approximately $26 billion to rebuild. The bigger problem, however, is not the money; it is that there is no quick replacement for the lost capacity.

Kristy Kramer, head of LNG Strategy and Market Development at the consultancy Wood Mackenzie, told the natural gas outlet LNGIndustry that global markets had been preparing for a short disruption, followed by a controlled restart that would restore supply to pre-conflict levels by mid-2026. Given the latest developments, that outlook now appears increasingly unlikely.

Watch on WarFronts

Watch the full video analysis on the WarFronts YouTube channel, presented by Simon Whistler.

Daniel Toleman, a research director at the same firm, added that even if supplies returned to 2025 levels, the market would still face significantly lower demand in Asia, lower storage injections in Europe, and sustained upward pressure on gas and LNG prices. Furthermore, each additional month of disruption removes around 1.5% of all annual global LNG availability. The longer the war continues, the deeper the structural hole in the world’s gas supply becomes, and the harder it will be to climb out.

The Shrinking Shield: Interceptors Run Dry

The most alarming detail is how little force Iran needed. From what has been observed, Iran achieved the Ras Laffan damage with fewer than ten ballistic missiles spread across two small barrages, a modest expenditure for a country that still holds a significant missile arsenal. If Tehran could do this once, with so few weapons, and break through local air defenses in the process, then nothing prevents Iran from doing it again, either at Ras Laffan or at energy infrastructure elsewhere in the Gulf.

And the ability to stop it is shrinking by the day. In a recent interview with CNBC, Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger said that European, American, and Middle Eastern interceptor stockpiles are empty or nearly empty, and that if the war lasts another month, there will be almost no interceptors available.

Al-Kaabi appeared to grasp the full danger when he told Reuters that everyone in the world, whether Israel, the United States, or anyone else, should stay away from oil and gas facilities. But in the middle of a war where every side is hunting for a decisive blow, his warning has had very little impact.

Strikes Across the Gulf and Israel

The evidence of fading air defenses kept accumulating. Apart from Ras Laffan, Saudi Arabia confirmed on Thursday that Iran had targeted the Red Sea port of Yanbu, currently the only export outlet for the kingdom’s crude oil. Sources told Middle East Eye that the damage was minimal, and Reuters later reported that oil loading had resumed within hours.

But there is a less reassuring reading. To strike Yanbu, an Iranian drone had to fly over the entire country of Saudi Arabia, crossing from the Persian Gulf coast to the Red Sea coast. In all that time, it was not brought down by air defenses, and it is not even clear the drone was detected.

Iran also struck Israel directly, hitting the Bazan oil refinery complex in the northern port city of Haifa with a ballistic missile on Thursday. Bazan is the largest oil refining facility in the country and a critical piece of Israel’s energy infrastructure. According to Türkiye Today, in 2024 the facility supplied 65% of Israel’s diesel fuel for transportation, 59% of its gasoline, and 52% of its kerosene. Power was briefly disrupted in the north before being restored; no fatalities were reported, but four people were injured.

Energy Minister Eli Cohen said the damage to the grid was localized and not significant.

A Repeat Target and an Uncomfortable Question

This was not the first time Iran had hit Bazan. During the Twelve-Day War in June 2025, an Iranian missile struck the same complex, killing three employees and forcing a shutdown that lasted weeks; the facility only fully resumed operations months later. The fact that Iran has now struck it a second time, in a different war, underscores Tehran’s enduring capacity to inflict damage.

It also raises an uncomfortable question: why was a facility that produces half of Israel’s fuel supply not better protected after the first time it was hit? Part of the answer likely lies in the same problem highlighted throughout this conflict. Interceptor stockpiles are running low, and there are only so many batteries to go around. Even a nation as defense-focused as Israel cannot shield every critical site at once when the magazines are nearly empty.

Washington’s Contradictions and the South Pars Threat

Trump’s response came late on Wednesday night in a Truth Social post that tried to do several things at once. He blamed Israel for acting alone, insisted that neither the U.S. nor Qatar had any knowledge of the strike, and said Israel would not hit South Pars again. He then warned Tehran that if it attacked Qatar’s energy infrastructure, the United States would destroy the entirety of the South Pars gas field.

Part of that statement was soon contradicted. Axios reported that Washington was aware of the strikes but not involved, while The Wall Street Journal separately reported that Trump had approved Israel’s plan to attack the gas field. Why the contradiction? One likely reason is that Iran’s retaliation against Qatar landed harder than Washington expected.

Once Ras Laffan was hit and 3.5% of global LNG supply went offline, Trump needed distance from the strike that provoked it; claiming ignorance insulates the White House from the domestic and international backlash of rising energy prices.

The threat itself carries serious risks. South Pars supplies 80% of Iran’s domestic natural gas, powering household heating, cooking, and electricity for tens of millions of people. Destroying it would create a humanitarian crisis inside Iran on a scale difficult to contain or ignore internationally.

How Far Iran Says It Will Go

Iran has made clear it would not absorb such a blow quietly. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi wrote on X that Iran’s response to the Israeli strike had employed a “FRACTION” of its power, with “fraction” rendered in all caps, the Iranians appearing to adopt Trump’s trademark style. Araghchi insisted that the only reason for Iran’s restraint this week had been respect for the possibility of de-escalation, and added that Iran would show zero restraint if its infrastructure were struck again.

If that threat is real, and Tehran’s track record over the past three weeks suggests it should at least be taken seriously, then a U.S. strike on South Pars would almost certainly trigger a much larger response against Gulf energy infrastructure. Last time Iran attacked Ras Laffan, it destroyed 3.5% of the world’s LNG production. If it truly let loose against the facility, one-fifth of all global LNG could be wiped off the map.

A couple of days ago that statement would have been hyperbole. Now the world knows better: when Iranian ballistic missiles crash down toward that installation, air defense interceptors struggle to respond. The impact of such an escalation would be catastrophic to global oil markets.

Lifting Sanctions to Calm the Markets

The situation is already so severe that Washington has taken steps that would have been unthinkable a month ago. On March 12th, the Trump administration temporarily lifted sanctions on Russian oil shipments stranded at sea, issuing a 30-day waiver through April 11th to calm markets. The move freed up an estimated 130 million barrels for global supply, but it failed to bring prices down.

On Thursday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent went further, telling Fox Business that the administration may lift sanctions on Iranian oil already on the water, roughly 140 million barrels. The logic, as Bessent explained it, is that lifting restrictions would allow countries like India, Japan, and Malaysia to receive fuel while forcing China to pay market price.

Experts are skeptical, warning it would have limited impact on prices and could boost funds flowing to the Iranian regime. David Tannenbaum, director of Blackstone Compliance Services, a consultancy specializing in maritime sanctions, told the BBC: “This is bananas. Essentially we’re allowing Iran to sell oil, which could then be used to fund the war effort.” To his point, Iranian oil tankers are the only ships allowed through the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran is already exporting oil during this conflict; those exports just happen to be under a sanctions regime.

Leadership Challenges: A Decapitated Regime

The war is also gutting Iran’s leadership. The secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Ali Larijani, widely considered the most powerful figure in the country since the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in an Israeli airstrike this week. Larijani was not just important to the regime; some Western commentators viewed him as a potential Delcy Rodríguez-like figure for Iran.

Rodríguez is Venezuela’s acting president, who took over after former President Nicolás Maduro was seized by American Delta Force operators in January and has since steered Venezuela in a decidedly pro-Western direction. Many Iran experts rejected the comparison, but the point stands: Larijani was a pragmatist who seemed as if he could be reasoned with.

According to Iranian media, Tehran has chosen his replacement: former defence minister Hossein Dehghan. Dehghan is a career IRGC figure whose biography reads like a catalogue of confrontations between Iran and the United States. According to Jason Brodsky, policy director at United Against Nuclear Iran, Dehghan played a role in the 1979 seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran and served as commander of IRGC forces in Lebanon and Syria in 1983, when Hezbollah bombed a U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 241 American service members.

The IRGC Tightens Its Grip

Dehghan is the IRGC’s man, and his appointment signals that the Revolutionary Guard’s influence over Iran’s wartime decision-making has only grown stronger since Larijani’s death. If there was any hope in Washington or among Gulf capitals that Tehran might use its involuntary leadership change to explore negotiations, Dehghan’s selection shows otherwise. This is a regime that just replaced its top security official with someone who has spent his entire career in the orbit of the hardliners. The promotion also paints a target on his back: the U.S. and Israel have shown they are willing and able to reach senior figures inside Tehran, and Dehghan has now climbed several spots on their lists.

Larijani was not the only senior figure lost this week. On Wednesday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian confirmed that Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib had been killed in an Israeli airstrike, the third top official assassinated in the space of two days. Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz announced the killing and said he and Prime Minister Netanyahu had authorized the military to target any senior Iranian official without further approval.

Khatib had served as intelligence minister since 2021. The Jerusalem Post noted his appointment was significant because he had spent much of his career inside the IRGC’s intelligence apparatus; his move to the civilian Intelligence Ministry was seen as cementing the Guard’s control over domestic surveillance and counterintelligence. According to the IDF, Khatib had directed arrests and killings of protesters during the recent unrest and helped shape the regime’s intelligence assessments during the crisis.

Killings like these may not immediately topple the regime, but they deny Iran experienced decision-makers at the exact moment they are needed most. For Washington and Jerusalem, that is the objective.

Nowruz Under the Shadow of War

Finally, there is the Iranian holiday of Nowruz. By the time this update goes out, the holiday will be underway, coinciding with Eid al-Fitr, the celebration marking the end of Ramadan. Under normal circumstances, the overlap would have made this one of the most festive weeks in recent memory, though festive is not the mood in Iran right now.

Nowruz, which translates to “new day,” marks the spring equinox and the start of the new year on the Iranian calendar. The weeks leading up to it usually focus on preparation, but this year the conflict has turned it into a moment of bitter reflection. One woman told the BBC that every day has felt so long she had lost track of time, making it difficult to prepare for the holidays. Her son said many people had lost their jobs, and he feared for the country’s infrastructure, which had been hammered in airstrikes.

Not everyone has stopped trying to live normally. A young woman named Parmis told the BBC she still went out to get her nails done on March 17th. While she was at the salon, a loud explosion went off, but no one flinched.

No Celebration of Renewal

For some families, there will be no celebrations at all. On Thursday, the regime executed three men it accused of killing police officers during the January protests, the first hangings carried out in connection with the demonstrations. Among them was Saleh Mohammadi, a 19-year-old who had been on Iran’s national wrestling team and competed internationally. The Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights said the three had been sentenced to death based on confessions obtained under torture, and warned that hundreds of others currently face charges that could carry the same sentence.

And then there are the families of those killed in the airstrikes: the parents of the girls who died when an American Tomahawk missile struck a school near the naval base in Minab; the families of the more than 1,300 civilians that the U.S.-based group Human Rights Activists in Iran says have been killed since the war began. For them, this Nowruz will not be a celebration of renewal. It will be a reminder of everything they have lost. For the sake of the Iranian people, and for the rest of the world, the hope is that this war comes to an end soon.

Presented by

Simon Whistler

Simon Whistler is one of YouTube's most prolific educational creators. WarFronts is his deep dive into military history and conflict analysis.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much of the world’s LNG supply did Iran take offline by striking Ras Laffan?

QatarEnergy CEO Saad al-Kaabi told Reuters the strikes knocked out about 17% of Qatar’s total LNG export capacity, equivalent to roughly 3.5% of the world’s entire supply. Two of Qatar’s 14 LNG trains and one of its two gas-to-liquids facilities were damaged, sidelining about 12.8 million tonnes per year of output. Al-Kaabi said repairs would take three to five years and cost approximately $26 billion.

Why is the interceptor shortage so significant for the course of the war?

Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger said European, American, and Middle Eastern interceptor stockpiles are empty or nearly empty, and that if the war lasts another month there will be almost no interceptors available. With air defenses depleted, even small Iranian barrages can break through, as demonstrated when Iran struck Ras Laffan with fewer than ten ballistic missiles and a drone crossed the entire width of Saudi Arabia to hit Yanbu without being brought down.

What is South Pars, and why is the threat to destroy it so dangerous?

South Pars is the largest natural gas deposit in the world and supplies 80% of Iran’s domestic natural gas, powering heating, cooking, and electricity for tens of millions of people. Trump warned the US would destroy the entire field if Iran attacked Qatar’s energy infrastructure again. Destroying it would create a humanitarian crisis inside Iran and, by Iran’s own threats, could trigger retaliation that wipes out up to one-fifth of all global LNG supply.

Who is replacing Ali Larijani, and what does his appointment signal?

According to Iranian media, former defence minister Hossein Dehghan, a career IRGC figure, is replacing the assassinated Larijani as the regime’s top security official. Per analyst Jason Brodsky, Dehghan was linked to the 1979 US embassy seizure and commanded IRGC forces in Lebanon and Syria during the 1983 Beirut Marine barracks bombing that killed 241 Americans. His selection signals that Revolutionary Guard hardliners have tightened their grip on wartime decision-making.

How has the war affected ordinary Iranians as Nowruz arrives?

The conflict has turned Nowruz, the Iranian new year, into a moment of bitter reflection rather than celebration. Iranians told the BBC of lost jobs, infrastructure damaged in airstrikes, and explosions during daily errands. The regime executed three men, including 19-year-old national wrestler Saleh Mohammadi, over the January protests, and rights groups report more than 1,300 civilians killed since the war began, including children killed when a Tomahawk missile struck a school near the Minab naval base.