Iran’s ‘Missile City’: Underground Arsenal Exposes the Strategic Failure of Containment

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has released propaganda footage of an underground complex it calls “Missile City,” a vast network of tunnels packed with suicide drones and ballistic missiles.

The video, complete with a ticking clock and endless rows of Shahed drones and rockets, was released days after the US-Israeli strike that eliminated Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Far from idle boasting, this imagery constitutes hard evidence of Tehran’s long-term strategic calculus: to build an asymmetric arsenal capable of exhausting Western and Gulf defenses, while advancing toward nuclear breakout.

The footage proves, once and for all, that Iran cannot be left alone to develop its weapons programs.

The operational logic on display in the video is ruthlessly efficient. Shahed drones cost roughly $16,000–$20,000 apiece, and require minimal production time. Western interceptors, by contrast, are prohibitively expensive: a single Patriot missile reaches $3.75 million, while THAAD systems can exceed $10 million per battery.

The United Arab Emirates has already spent up to $567 million to achieve a 92 percent interception rate against 541 Iranian projectiles. Analysts warn that at current expenditure rates, Gulf stockpiles could be depleted within mere days. Tehran, meanwhile, launches more than 2,500 drones daily, deliberately flooding air-defense systems in a classic “use it or lose it” attrition strategy. A handful of these low-cost weapons have already penetrated, striking the US Consulate in Dubai and oil facilities in Saudi Arabia. Israel has publicly conceded that Iran retains “significant capacity” to strike its territory. 

This asymmetry is not accidental. Instead, it is the direct legacy of years of flawed Western policy.

The 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — known as the “Iran nuclear deal” — and subsequent sanctions relief funneled billions into the IRGC’s coffers. Those funds built the very tunnels now on display — facilities that complement, rather than compete with, Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.

While diplomats in Washington and Europe spoke of “containment” and “diplomatic engagement,” the regime invested in cheap, mass-produced delivery systems that serve as both conventional terror weapons and potential nuclear platforms. The giant portrait of Khamenei overlooking the arsenal in the video underscores continuity: regime succession has not altered strategic intent. The new leadership is already signaling that the death of one man changes nothing.

The broader regional implications are dire. Iran’s proxies — Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis — operate as forward-deployed extensions of this same doctrine. The underground city provides the logistical backbone for sustained campaigns that have already forced British nationals into desperate evacuations from Oman, and paralyzed commercial aviation across the Gulf. More than 11,000 flights canceled, 130,000 British citizens registered as stranded, and millions of dollars burned daily in defensive munitions illustrate the unsustainable cost of passive defense.

Each intercepted drone represents a strategic victory for Tehran: it drains the defender’s treasury while Iran’s own production lines continue unimpeded.

The video also demolishes the remaining arguments for strategic patience. The containment theory, advanced by the Obama administration and others, assumed that economic pressure and diplomacy could restrain Iranian adventurism. Instead, sanctions relief and nuclear negotiations bought Tehran the time and money to construct precisely the infrastructure now threatening the region.

Every drone swarm launched at US bases or Gulf ports is financed by the very restraint the West once praised as “prudent.” The Iranian regime has demonstrated that it will not negotiate away its core capabilities; it will merely hide them deeper underground.

The only viable policy response is offensive degradation of Iran’s military-industrial infrastructure. Limited strikes against missile-production facilities and underground command nodes are no longer optional; they are prerequisites for restoring deterrence. Washington and Jerusalem must reject any return to the JCPOA framework or similar half-measures. Instead, sustained pressure — targeted sanctions on IRGC-linked entities, accelerated support for Gulf air-defense replenishment, and, where necessary, direct kinetic action against “Missile City” facilities — must be paired with a clear message: the era of allowing the regime to arm itself in the shadows is over. 

Iran’s underground arsenal is not a sign of strength but of strategic exposure. It reveals a regime that has gambled everything on the West’s reluctance to act decisively. The footage from “Missile City” is therefore not merely propaganda; it is a policy indictment. It proves that containment has failed, that diplomacy without enforcement is suicidal, and that the US, Israel, and their allies have no choice but to dismantle Tehran’s weapons empire before it achieves its ultimate objective. The survival of regional stability and the credibility of American power now depend on recognizing this reality and acting upon it — swiftly and without apology.

Amine Ayoub, a fellow at the Middle East Forum, is a policy analyst and writer based in Morocco. Follow him on X: @amineayoubx