Hizballah, the Islamic Republic’s Lebanese arm, has one of the world’s largest arsenals of rockets aimed at the Jewish state, not to mention whatever materiel it and related organizations have stockpiled in Syria. Indeed, rockets are a key part of Tehran’s strategic posture; its own military has a large number of them, including some fairly sophisticated long- and medium-range missiles likely built using North Korean prototypes. Likewise, it has armed other groups with such weapons: Iranian proxies in Iraq have used rockets to attack Americans, the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen have used them to attack Saudi Arabia, and both Hamas and Islamic Jihad—beneficiaries of much Iranian support—have fired countless rockets from Gaza into Israel. Fabian Hinz explains the new ways that the ayatollahs are getting such technology to their partners in terror:

[H]ow does Iran equip its proxies and allies with increasingly sophisticated and longer-range ballistic missiles and artillery rockets? For years, the answer has been through smuggling. . . . However, in recent years smuggling has been augmented by two other transfer methods: the provision of guidance kits to modify existing stockpiles of artillery rockets, and the wholesale provision of manufacturing capabilities.

Iranian support for enabling local rocket production is not new. Reports about the rocket arsenals of Palestinian factions in Gaza regularly cite Iranian assistance for domestic manufacturing, and Hizballah’s alleged missile factory in the Beqaa Valley became the topic of competing accusations in the Israel-Hizballah relationship. However, closer examination of Iranian sources, documents likely leaked by Israeli intelligence, and the missiles unveiled by the Houthis reveal a strategy of empowering Iranian proxies that is more comprehensive than previously thought. In cooperation with Iran’s missile industry, . . . the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) appears intent on enabling all its main proxies to be able autonomously to manufacture artillery rockets and precision-guided missiles. Also, a special development effort seems to be aimed at creating simple artillery rockets and short-range-missile systems and production units custom-tailored for local production.

Such a strategy has several advantages from Tehran’s point of view. Spreading out the production of ballistic missiles helps avoid crucial bottlenecks, such as overland smuggling, that can be affected by interdiction efforts. . . . Iran [also] provides itself with . . . deniability by supporting local production outside its borders of missiles not identical to models of its own use.

Surveying news websites and social media on Sunday morning, I immediately found some intelligent and well-informed observers arguing that Iran deliberately warned the U.S. of its pending assault on Israel, and calibrated it so that there would be few casualties and minimal destructiveness, thus hoping to avoid major retaliation. In other words, this massive barrage was a face-saving gesture by the ayatollahs. Others disagreed. Brian Carter and Frederick W. Kagan put the issue to rest:

The Iranian April 13 missile-drone attack on Israel was very likely intended to cause significant damage below the threshold that would trigger a massive Israeli response. The attack was designed to succeed, not to fail. The strike package was modeled on those the Russians have used repeatedly against Ukraine to great effect. The attack caused more limited damage than intended likely because the Iranians underestimated the tremendous advantages Israel has in defending against such strikes compared with Ukraine.

But that isn’t to say that Tehran achieved nothing:

The lessons that Iran will draw from this attack will allow it to build more successful strike packages in the future. The attack probably helped Iran identify the relative strengths and weaknesses of the Israeli air-defense system. Iran will likely also share the lessons it learned in this attack with Russia.

Iran’s ability to penetrate Israeli air defenses with even a small number of large ballistic missiles presents serious security concerns for Israel. The only Iranian missiles that got through hit an Israeli military base, limiting the damage, but a future strike in which several ballistic missiles penetrate Israeli air defenses and hit Tel Aviv or Haifa could cause significant civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure, including ports and energy. . . . Israel and its partners should not emerge from this successful defense with any sense of complacency.