Iran has always said a lot of things (mostly BS). This is worthless without evidence and I don't think anyone had evidence that their missiles were restricted to 2,000km. Certainly, I don't think anyone took their word for it. In fact this attack proves that there was no such limitation (although it is unclear to me if the missiles fired could actually jave reached Diego Garcia).
Now this may be a demonstration and veiled threat, on the other hand if Iran was to fire a missile at continental Europe I would hope that the consequence for them would be to be flattened, so...
Idk, I don’t think Europe has the capacity to do anything except launch their nukes. If missiles started falling on London they’d run to the UN and start writing letters. It would take months for NATO to start having planning meetings to figure out how to plan the response. I feel like the only military capability is maybe the SAS and nukes. There’s nothing in between.
Like they flattened Afghanistan? It is funny people thinks land war in an huge mountainous country with 90 million people is easy.
> On the other hand if Iran was to fire a missile at continental Europe I would hope that the consequence for them would be to be flattened
Iran have been attacking uninvolved NATO member Turkey for a while now and nothing happens. The USA is already fully engaged into this war while Europe can hardly deal together with Russia, it is doubtful they'd do anything even if it rained down on their territory
What incentive would Iran have to lie? Their entire security model revolves around believable deterrence—apparently far more believable than either Israel or the US understood.
You didn't have to take their word for it. It was self-evident from the fact they never did anything like this before, and now they are.
Notably, the previous guy issued a religious decree against the development of nuclear weapons. Despite American's favorite propaganda tool for manufacturing consent, "but the WMDs", we have no reason to believe that was ever actually being violated. But you'd better believe it will be now if they think they can pull it off.