Analytical Abstract: An elite brief on Iran’s missile campaign targeting Jordan. It analyzes Tehran’s shift from proxy warfare to direct kinetic strikes to disrupt Western alliances, exploit defense gaps, and challenge the U.S. regional security architecture.
Tehran is actively leveraging its advanced ballistic arsenal to systematically target and destabilize Western-aligned Arab regimes, aiming to forcefully dismantle the American security framework across the Middle East. This aggressive campaign to punish Jordan exposes severe regional vulnerabilities, demonstrating how rapidly state actors can weaponize kinetic proxy strikes to impose catastrophic diplomatic and military costs on traditional U.S. partners.
Punish Jordan for Hostile Regional Shifts
The Jordanian Armed Forces (JAF) announced on June 11 that they had intercepted 20 missiles launched from Iran toward Al-Azraq, a town about 50 miles east of Amman that is also home to a major air base used by U.S. forces. Though the announcement came from the JAF, Jordan does not have advanced missile defenses. American forces, who are co-located on the base, likely intercepted the strikes with their own systems. Open-source analysis and Iranian semi-official media have shared imagery and video of missile impact and warheads making it past air defenses. This imagery highlights Jordan’s vulnerabilities to future Iranian missile launches.
The latest attack marked the second direct Iranian strike on Jordan since the April ceasefire between Iran, the United States, and Israel, following strikes on June 10. Previously, Jordan was struck by 166 ballistic missiles and 125 drones launched by Iran and its proxy militias in Iraq in response to the combined U.S.-Israeli strikes on the Tehran regime between February 28 and April 8.
Middle East Threats Punish Jordan Directly
The attack reflects Iran’s strategy of punishing regional states that host American military forces, with the goal of driving the United States out of the region.
Iran’s Strategy Toward U.S. Regional Partners Intersects With Anti-Americanism The Islamic Republic has long sought to military and diplomatically evict the United States from the Middle East. Traditionally, this was done through support for terrorist proxies that Tehran created or co-opted as part of a larger strategy of exporting its Islamic Revolution. These nonstate actors would apply asymmetric military pressure against states perceived to be part of the pro-American regional order. This approach has allowed Iran to prosecute its revisionist agenda below the threshold for outright war while increasing the costs of alignment between each state and the United States.
Strategic Pressure Escalates to Punish Jordan
But increasing Iranian risk tolerance, along with a significant improvement in the regime’s long-range strike capabilities, is providing Iran with a pathway to use more overt force to target regional rivals and impose costs on them for their pro-Western orientation. Tehran’s preferred method has been to frame attacks on these states as attacks limited to military facilities that the United States used to strike Iran.
Jordan’s Evolving Response to Iran Jordan has traditionally adopted a cautious approach toward the Islamic Republic, seeking to avoid the sort of direct confrontation or entanglement with Iran that Iraq and Gulf Cooperation Council countries have been subjected to over the past four decades. Amman is also wary of provoking Iranian retaliation in the event of a U.S.-Iran conflict and sensitive to perceptions of cooperation with Jerusalem and Washington against Tehran given the potential domestic backlash.
Punish Jordan via Escalating Kinetic Strikes
A few weeks before the war, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman al-Safadi told his Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi, that “Jordan will not be a battlefield for any party in any regional conflict.” Yet after becoming a direct target of Iranian missiles and drones, Jordan’s public posture shifted.
Throughout the war, Jordanian officials emphasized that the kingdom was being directly targeted by Iran. Military officials argued that despite Jordan informing all “concerned parties” that it would not serve as “a battleground for anyone,” the country was not spared from Iranian assault. Jordan has also avoided framing the strikes as attacks on the U.S. presence in the country, instead portraying them as violations of Jordanian sovereignty. Amman then embraced diplomatic pressure on Tehran, with Safadi revealing that Jordan refused to extend the residency of one Iranian diplomat and denied accreditation to another.
Defending Sovereignty From Efforts to Punish Jordan
However, some parliamentarians diverged from the official line. One member of parliament, Ismail Mashagbeh, argued that Jordan should not intercept missiles over its airspace.
Washington Should Help Jordan Hold the Line Against Iran In 2022, Washington and Amman signed a seven-year, nonbinding memorandum of understanding under which the United States committed to requesting at least $1.45 billion annually in assistance for Jordan.
Using this agreement as a basis, Washington should strengthen Amman’s partnership with Jerusalem in efforts to counter Tehran, expand intelligence sharing, and facilitate Jordan’s deeper integration into the U.S.-led regional air and missile defense architecture to help Amman detect and destroy Iranian projectiles.