An empty base as a target, with many hours warning, and a limited number of missiles fired at some of the best air defense systems in the world. Iran’s retaliation for the US’s weekend strikes on three of its nuclear facilities can only have been designed to deescalate.

The US-run Al Udeid airbase in Qatar had been evacuated days earlier, with satellite images showing the departure of planes and personnel widely publicised in the media. It is the most important US military airbase in the region, the home of Central Command. It even launched the drone that killed Iran’s top military personality, General Qasem Soleimani, in 2020, Iranian state media said in the hours after “Operation Glad Tidings of Victory.” The Monday strike against Al-Udeid had close to zero chance of American casualties – and provided the perfect moment of quasi-absurd face-saving for Iran.

The first hint of a possible strike came when the US Embassy in Doha, Qatar, issued an emergency “shelter in place” order for US citizens. As if to remove any doubt, Qatar closed its airspace about an hour prior to the launch of what appears to have been close to a dozen missiles by Iran. Adding to the favourable conditions of the launch for Iran’s dwindling arsenal, Qatar is close enough to permit the use of shorter-range missiles, stocks of which have not been as depleted as the medium-range missiles used to hit Israel over the past week.

To pour water on anything resembling a flame, Iran’s National Security Council said moments after the attack the number of missiles fired had been “as many as the number of bombs used in the attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.” Packaging the barrage as the definition of a proportionate response, the Iranian statement went on to insist the attack posed “no dangerous aspect to our friendly and brotherly country of Qatar and its noble people.”

Tehran’s method of retaliation-without-fangs has been successfully tried and tested. After Soleimani was killed, Iran’s retaliatory missile attack against the US’s Al Asad airbase in Iraq was reportedly telegraphed to Baghdad beforehand, possibly helping reduce the level of US injury suffered to mostly concussions. Iran’s response to Israel’s assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in July 2024 in the heart of Tehran heavily telegraphed in advance.

“We knew they’d retaliate. They had a similar response after Soleimani,” a senior White House official said Monday night.

A playbook appears to be forming. But it is one that compounds Iran’s military weakness each time it is employed. In 2020, the Islamic Republic lost its pre-eminent military personality – an Iranian hardline hero. In 2024, it showed that valuable allies were not safe in central Tehran. This year, the regime has lost control of its own airspace to the point of previously unthinkable strikes on their prized nuclear facilities by both Israel and the US.

This is stark testament to the differing powers on display. Iran has to feign its strength in a managed presentation of restrained and muted anger. The US and Israel get to break taboos daily, shattering Iran’s long-held position as a regional power in under ten days, and perhaps ending its ambitions to be a nuclear power.

There is now only one real red line left for the United States or Israel to cross, and that is to directly target Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But that may seem ill-advised, given the likelihood this octogenarian theocrat would be replaced by a younger hardliner who is keener to flex Iran’s muscles of deterrence. Better to accept toothless retaliations amid Tehran’s slow decline.

Each expression of Iran’s anger has confirmed its slow erosion of power. An angry fledging nuclear power would have accelerated its race to an atomic bomb. That may still happen. But it looks more likely that Iran is desperately hoping its performative lashing out can sate what remains of its hardliners, decimated by Israeli strikes. It may even hope to shuffle back to diplomacy, with talks to contain a nuclear program and ballistic missile stockpile likely severely depleted to shadows of what they were merely ten days ago.

Large crowds gathered at the Enqelab Square in central Tehran on Sunday evening, protesting the strikes. Footage published by the state-affiliated Fars News Agency showed people waving Iranian flags and punching the air, carrying signs that read: “Down with the USA, down with Israel.”

Hamid Rasaee, a politician, said even people critical of the regime were protesting.

Trump ordered attacks on three of Iran’s most important nuclear facilities early Sunday morning – a move that has placed the US in the center of the conflict between Israel and Iran.

Iranians had faced the possibility of US intervention ever since Israel launched its strikes on nuclear and military targets last week – but many believed any action was days away.

That’s in part because Trump said Thursday he would decide whether to strike Iran within two weeks, seemingly opening a window for negotiations. That all changed early Sunday, when American bombers dropped more than a dozen massive “bunker buster” bombs on Iran’s Fordow and Natanz nuclear facilities, and Tomahawk missiles launched from the sea struck Isfahan.

“We do not have nuclear weapons, so why does he strike us?” he added, alluding to the Iranian regime’s insistence the country’s nuclear program is peaceful. Trump has claimed Iran was weeks away from acquiring a nuclear weapon, dismissing assessments from his own intelligence community that Iran was still years away from a weapon.

Qom residents slept through the attacks

While Trump has claimed the three sites struck by the US were “totally obliterated,” his defense secretary has said the full impact is still being assessed. And unlike the strikes by Israel in recent days, some of which targeted densely populated areas, the US attacks were concentrated in locations off-limits to most civilians.

Residents of Qom, a city some 30 kilometers (18 miles) from the Fordow nuclear site, woke to the sound of emergency vehicles’ sirens and the news that the secretive complex had been bombed a few hours earlier.

Five people living in Qom said they were surprised to learn what had happened when they got up, having heard nothing overnight.

Qom does not have an aerial attack warning system, so residents would have had no warning before the strikes.

Qom is considered a holy city, home to Iran’s largest and most famous Shia seminary. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei studied at the Qom Seminary, as did several of Iran’s former presidents.

Similarly, people living in a village some 35 kilometers (22 miles) from the Natanz facility said they heard nothing overnight.

In Tehran, far from the targeted nuclear sites, many were calling for Iran to respond with force. Fars released a compilation of short interviews with people on the streets of the capital Sunday.

Each of the eight people featured urged a retaliation – with most saying Iran should strike US bases in the region and close down the Strait of Hormuz on Iran’s southern shore, through which a third of global seaborne oil trade passes.

In Iran, signs of dissent tend to be quickly quashed, making it dangerous for people to express disagreement with the regime.

But Mohsen Milani, an Iranian scholar who has lived in the US for decades, said the US attack on Iran could spark more genuine support for the regime.

“It could ignite a new wave of nationalism, damage the future of U.S.-Iran relations more than the 1953 coup, accelerate Tehran’s pivot to Russia and China, and fundamentally reshape Iran’s defense, deterrence, and nuclear posture,” he said in a post on X.

Some of this sentiment was already on show in Tehran on Sunday.

“I will stay here and I will sacrifice my life and my blood for my country,” she said.

Everywhere around her, people were protesting the US, many holding anti-Trump signs and posters. Some of the posters ended up on the ground, where people stamped on them.

“We were living our normal lives and they attacked us. If someone strikes the United States, would they not answer? Of course they would,” she said.

Another person living in Tehran said they believed the regime was greatly weakened by the US strikes – because its opponents would now be able to call its bluff.

“The claims that the Iranian regime has always made – that it will attack all American bases and close the Strait of Hormuz – they made all these claims and the whole world saw that (the US) came and easily hit the Fordow and Natanz sites … but Iran was completely silent and no fighter planes took off and (it) used no defenses or missiles,” the person said, adding that if there is no response in the coming days, the regime’s supporters could abandon it.

“No sane person will stand by someone who is in a weak position, not even their own supporters,” they said.

US President Donald Trump’s decision to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities puts the Middle East in a volatile position, with all eyes now on Tehran’s next move.

Speaking in Istanbul, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Sunday his country has “a variety of options” when deciding how to respond to the US attacks.

From striking US bases in the region, to possibly closing a key waterway to global shipping, Iran is likely mulling its next moves. All carry inherent risks for the Islamic Republic, Israel and the United States.

Here’s what to know:

Iran could hit US military interests in the region

Direct US involvement in the conflict could see Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) activate what remains of its proxies across Iraq, Yemen and Syria, groups which have previously launched attacks on American assets in the region.

While Iran’s strongest ally in the region was once Lebanon’s Hezbollah, that group has been significantly weakened by Israeli attacks.

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) says the US maintains a presence at 19 sites in total across the region, with eight of those considered by analysts to have a permanent US presence. As of June 13, the CFR estimated some 40,000 US troops were in the Middle East.

In Iraq, for example, there were 2,500 US troops as of late last year. An Iranian attack on these forces is not inconceivable. In 2020, an Iranian missile attack on a US garrison left more than 100 soldiers with traumatic brain injuries.

A resurgence of attacks from Yemen against US assets is already on the table. Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels previously vowed to attack American ships in the Red Sea should the US join Israel’s conflict with Iran. A prominent Houthi official said in a social media post early Sunday that “Trump must bear the consequences” of the US airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.

It is unclear if this marks the end of a US-Houthi ceasefire struck in May, in which Washington said it would halt its military campaign against the Houthis in exchange for the group stopping its attacks on US interests in the region.

Knowing that it can’t outright win a conflict against Israel and the US, experts have said that Tehran could seek to engage in a war of attrition, where it tries to exhaust its adversary’s will or capacity to fight in a drawn-out and damaging conflict, which Trump at the outset of his presidency said he wanted to avoid.

Iran could disrupt global oil trade

Iran also has the power to influence the “entire commercial shipping in the Gulf,” Ravid said, should it decide to close the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil shipping route.

There have so far been no material disruptions to the global flow of oil. But if oil exports are disrupted, or if Iran tries to block the Strait of Hormuz, the global oil market could face an existential crisis.

The strait links the Persian Gulf to the open ocean and is a key channel for oil and liquefied natural gas exports from the Middle East to the global market. About 20 million barrels of oil flow through the strait each day, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

A prominent adviser to Iran’s supreme leader has already called for missile strikes and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

“Following America’s attack on the Fordow nuclear installation, it is now our turn,” warned Hossein Shariatmadari, the editor-in-chief of the hardline Kayhan newspaper, a well-known conservative voice who has previously identified himself as a Khamenei “representative.”

Iran could race to build a bomb

Some experts say that Iran is very likely to race for a nuclear bomb now, even if the current regime collapses and new leaders come in place.

“Trump just guaranteed that Iran will be a nuclear weapons state in the next 5 to 10 years,” Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute in Washington, DC, said on X. “Particularly if the regime changes.”

Parsi has said that even if the regime collapses and new military elements assume power, they are likely to be much more hawkish than the current regime and race toward a nuclear weapon as their only deterrent.

Experts have previously said that Iran likely moved its stocks of enriched uranium from its key nuclear facilities amid Israeli strikes.. Nuclear power plants that generate electricity for civil purposes use uranium that is enriched to between 3.5% and 5%. When enriched to higher levels, uranium can be used to make a bomb Israel and the US accuse Iran of pursuing nuclear weapons; Tehran insists its program is peaceful.

Iran is also likely to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or the NPT, under which it has pledged not to develop a bomb.

“Iran’s response is likely not just limited to military retaliation. NPT withdrawal is quite likely,” Ali Vaez, director of the Iran Project at the International Crisis Group, said on X.

Iran could just keep hitting Israel for now

Iran’s first response to the US’ attack on its nuclear sites was to attack Israel, not US bases.

Iranian missiles hit a group of buildings in Tel Aviv, where 86 people were admitted to hospital with injuries overnight and on Sunday morning, according to Israel’s ministry of health.

Knowing it may not be able to sustain a full-on confrontation with the US, and hoping that Trump will scale back on his involvement following Sunday’s strike, Iran may merely seek to perpetuate the status quo, fighting only Israel.

Trump at the time wanted to “send a big message, get the headlines, show US resolve, but then avoid a wider war,” Shabani said.

While Iran may feel it has to retaliate to save face, it may be a bloodless response, similar to what happened in 2020, when it launched a barrage of missiles at US bases in Iraq, which resulted in traumatic brain injuries to personnel but no deaths.

Iran could resort to cyberattacks or terrorism

Two military analysts have said Iran could resort to “asymmetric” measures – such as terrorism or cyberattacks – to retaliate against the US because Israeli attacks have reduced Iran’s military capabilities.

“I think (the IRGC is) going to be a little bit careful, and I suspect that’s going to take us to all of the asymmetric things they can do: cyber, terrorism. I think that they’re probably going to be looking for things where the US cannot just put up the traditional defenses,” he added.

But, “albeit wounded,” the IRGC still has “some tremendous capacity,” he said. “It has capabilities that are already within the region and then outside the region. We are vulnerable… around the world, where the IRGC has either influence or can make things happen asymmetrically.”

Iran could resume nuclear talks

Iran has refused to return to the negotiating table while under Israeli attacks.

On Sunday, Araghchi said he does not know how “much room is left for diplomacy” after the US military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.

“They crossed a very big red line by attacking nuclear facilities. … We have to respond based on our legitimate right for self-defense,” Araghchi said.

Parsi said that by doing so, “the Iranians have cornered themselves.”

“Their aim is to force Trump to stop Netanyahu’s war, and by that show his ability and willingness to use American leverage against Netanyahu,” Parsi wrote. “But the flip side is that Tehran has given Israel a veto on US-Iran diplomacy – by simply continuing the war, Israel is enabled to block talks between the US and Iran.”

Iranian and European officials met Friday in Geneva for talks, which an Iranian source said started out tense but became “much more positive.”

Speaking Sunday, Araghchi said the US had decided to “blow up” diplomacy.

“Last week, we were in negotiations with the US when Israel decided to blow up that diplomacy. This week, we held talks with the E3 (group of European ministers)/EU when the US decided to blow up that diplomacy,” Araghchi said on X.

“The more likely situation is that the talks are over for now.”