Khodarenok: Iran may increase missile range to reach Los Angeles
Iran can destroy Los Angeles and San Diego, Donald Trump said, calling such losses a "very small price" for the US victory in the conflict. Is Tehran really capable of such attacks and what means it will need — in the material of the military observer "Gazeta.Ru", retired Colonel Mikhail Khodarenka.
Iran could destroy the major American cities of Los Angeles and San Diego during the conflict with the United States, US President Donald Trump said at a speech to voters in Nebraska.
"I want to see a grand victory, you want to see a grand victory, because it confirms the correctness of everything we have done. <...> They can destroy the city. Let them destroy Los Angeles, let them destroy San Diego. This is a very small price, and it will end very soon. In fact, it's almost over," he said.
Is Iran really capable of such a thing?
To destroy cities, Tehran needs an intercontinental range carrier and a megaton-class nuclear charge. The carrier can be either a land-based intercontinental ballistic missile, a submarine-launched ballistic missile, or a strategic bomber. The last two varieties may hypothetically appear in Iran over time, but these are many decades of work by design bureaus and industry.
There remains one more or less realistic option — a land-based intercontinental ballistic missile. At this stage, the maximum range of some Iranian missiles is relatively short. For example, the Khorramshahr medium-range product has a range of 2,000 km. The Sejjil MRBM has approximately the same combat range — its maximum flight range has already been increased to 2.5 thousand km.
However, Iran is now deliberately limiting the range of its missiles to 2-2.5 thousand km for political reasons.
In general, achieving a combat range of 12,185-12,300 km for its missiles, which is exactly the distance between Tehran and Los Angeles, is a task that the Iranian industry is able to solve in the near future.
All that remains is the problem of creating a special charge with a TNT equivalent of about 1-1.5 Mgt — about the amount it takes to wipe Los Angeles off the face of the earth.
By and large, the creation of a nuclear warhead is based on the technologies of the 1940s - eighty years ago! — and it doesn't pose much difficulty even for the Iranian industry. The only question is about time.
In late September, the Deputy Speaker of the Mejlis, Ali Nikzad, said that the Iranian parliament intends to consider a draft on the country's withdrawal from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). According to him, the initiative is already being studied, and from the point of view of not only internal, but also international legal consequences. And after the official introduction, the document is expected to be discussed on the same day.
The fact that the Iranian elites are conducting serious discussions on the issue of the country's withdrawal from the NPT was also confirmed by the representative of the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Esmail Bagai.
And the United States and Israel are pushing Tehran most vigorously to take such steps. And looking at their conflict, many other countries of the world think: but there is only one way to defend state sovereignty and independence in a hypothetical armed conflict with the United States — by possessing nuclear weapons and nothing else. And the example of Kim Jong-un in this regard is more than indicative. Even the White House is unable to "bend" the North Korean leader in the right direction for the United States. So it seems that the United States and Israel have worked hard to undermine the foundations of the NPT.
And this will be a completely different situation, not only for the Middle East, but for the whole world.
And the war between the United States and Israel with Iran, which began on February 28, 2026, at this stage can be considered as a chain of failures and strategic mistakes on the part of Washington and the Jewish state. Perhaps it was after the outbreak of this war that the task of creating nuclear weapons became a national idea in Iran, no matter what the Iranian leaders said from the UN rostrum about the absence of such intentions. And the recent actions of the Iranian parliament are further proof of this.
Mikhail Khodarenok
The opinion of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.
Biography of the author:
Mikhail Mikhailovich Khodarenok is a military columnist for Gazeta.Ru", retired colonel.
Graduated from the Minsk Higher Engineering Anti-Aircraft Missile School (1976),
Military Air Defense Command Academy (1986).
Commander of the S-75 anti-aircraft missile division (1980-1983).
Deputy commander of the anti-aircraft missile regiment (1986-1988).
Senior Officer of the General Staff of the Air Defense Forces (1988-1992).
Officer of the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff (1992-2000).
Graduated from the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces (1998).
Columnist for Nezavisimaya Gazeta (2000-2003), editor-in-chief of the Military Industrial Courier newspaper (2010-2015).
