Iran International
Even the possibility that Iran could put mines into one of the world’s most important shipping routes can deter commercial traffic and force the US military to maintain constant surveillance, former CENTCOM commander Joseph Votel told Iran International.
“The mere threat out there, just the threat of these, is enough to deter traffic, certainly commercial traffic,” Votel told Eye for Iran podcast. .
“It has a huge deterrent effect and it puts the burden on us to keep really, really close watch on this area.”
That creates a paradox in the latest battle over Hormuz: Iran may be turning to rocket-launched mines because more powerful options have been degraded, yet Washington must still behave as though the threat could get through.
The latest US-Iran flare-up began after the US military said it detected Iranian forces on Larak Island preparing to launch rockets carrying sea mines into the Strait. US forces struck the launchers before they could fire.
Iran has traditionally been able to deploy naval mines using small boats, submarines or aircraft. Firing them from rockets would allow Iranian forces to place mines at a distance without exposing boats and crews to US forces watching the waterway.
Why Iran may be turning to rockets
Iranian state television reported on the Fajr-5 multiple-launch rocket system as a weapon for mining Hormuz as early as January 2025, and military analysts have said Iran had been testing the concept.
What has changed is the battlefield around it.
Farzin Nadimi, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute and an expert on Iran’s military and asymmetric warfare, told Eye for Iran that Iran’s conventional military capabilities were significantly degraded during the war, followed by attacks on important IRGC Navy infrastructure.
Nadimi said Iran has lost much of its ability to deploy the larger and more dangerous sea mines it could once put into the water through more traditional means.
“They have little choice but using these smaller, less capable rocket-launched mines,” he said, adding that Iran has also repeatedly tried to strike shipping with anti-ship cruise missiles and one-way attack drones, many of which have been intercepted or jammed.
Iran’s apparent new weapon can therefore be read not simply as evidence of innovation, but as adaptation after military losses.
Less destructive does not mean less disruptive
Rocket-launched mines come with significant compromises. Naval mines capable of badly damaging large ships are heavy. Fitting one into a rocket requires a smaller weapon, limiting its destructive power.
Nadimi said Iran’s rocket-delivered versions are significantly smaller than some older naval mines in its arsenal and consequently less capable of inflicting major damage on large tankers.
But a mine’s effectiveness is psychological as much as it is physical: once mines are believed to be in the water, uncertainty over their location can deter ships from entering.
Votel pointed to the history of mine warfare in the Persian Gulf, including US Navy encounters with Iranian mines during the Tanker War of the 1980s.
Commercial vessels and their insurers therefore do not necessarily need evidence that a mine will hit a ship before taking the threat seriously.
Washington’s burden
That uncertainty shifts part of the burden from Iran to the United States.
The US does not simply have to destroy mines once they enter the water. It has to watch the Strait, Iranian coastal positions and potential launch sites closely enough to prevent Tehran from putting them there in the first place.
“It puts a lot of pressure on us to make sure that we have constant surveillance, not only of the waterways themselves and the main transit routes, but really of the locations where these mines or these weapons can come from,” Votel said.
The latest US strike suggests Washington currently has the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities to do that. American forces identified the Iranian launchers and struck them before the mines could be fired.
But Iran does not necessarily have to defeat that surveillance system to impose a cost. Simply retaining the capability forces the US to keep watching and commercial operators to trust that nothing has slipped through.
For Tehran, that creates an asymmetric advantage even after significant military losses: the US must repeatedly demonstrate that Hormuz is safe, while Iran only has to preserve doubt that it might not be.
Degradation or restraint?
There is an important caveat. The smaller scale of Iran’s recent attacks does not necessarily mean Tehran is incapable of doing more.
Nadimi said there are signs Iran is deliberately exercising restraint with some weapons, particularly ballistic missiles, to avoid triggering a larger escalation involving both the United States and Israel.
The rocket-launched mine claim itself also remains contested. Some maritime specialists have questioned whether Iran has operationalized the system as the US describes, while others consider it technically plausible.
Even if the system is operational, however, Iran would not need to mine the Strait extensively for it to have an effect. All Tehran needs is for military planners, ship operators and insurers to believe there is a credible possibility that it could get some mines into the water.
Votel sees that as part of a broader Iranian strategy: “Their intention is to make this painful for us and for those that are supporting the United States.”
Iran may now have fewer options for mining Hormuz than it once did. But if the threat of a mine is enough to make a ship hesitate—and enough to make the US military watch Iran’s coastline around the clock—Tehran can still impose a cost without a mine ever hitting a vessel.
Shortages of foreign currency and raw materials, unpaid insurance debts, difficulties transferring money, disrupted imports and rising production costs have increased concerns about the pharmaceutical supply chain, the Iranian news outlet Rouydad24 reported.
“The alternative routes for supplying raw materials and imports are time-consuming and can increase drug costs by up to three times,” Hadi Ahmadi, spokesman for the Iranian Pharmacists Association, told the outlet.
Shortages of raw materials, Ahmadi said, were hindering domestic pharmaceutical production at the same time that imports were facing disruption.
Rouydad24 described the problem as extending across the pharmaceutical supply chain rather than being confined to individual medicines or pharmacies, leaving patients to absorb higher costs.
Iranian citizens have also told Iran International in recent months that medicine shortages and rising prices have disrupted treatment for many patients. Some said difficulties obtaining conventional medicines had prompted people to turn to traditional medicine.
Domestic production depends on imports
About 99% of medicines by volume are produced domestically, but imports account for roughly 13.86% of the market by value, according to figures cited by the website.
The disparity reflects the pharmaceutical industry's dependence on imported raw materials, equipment and specialized products even when finished medicines are manufactured inside Iran.
Disruptions to foreign-currency transfers or shipments of raw materials can therefore affect factories before shortages become visible in pharmacies weeks or months later.
Iran's Food and Drug Administration has said raw materials and medicines are being moved through alternative routes because wartime conditions have disrupted transportation.
Those routes take longer and cost more, Ahmadi said.
Economic pressures have also changed how some Iranians pay for healthcare. Eghtesad News reported in July that installment payments had increasingly spread through the health sector, including for dental treatment and medicines.
Not enough currency
Iran's pharmaceutical sector requires about $2.2 billion in foreign currency for medicines and raw materials this year, but only around half of that amount has been supplied, Ahmadi said.
Changes to Iran's subsidized foreign-exchange system have added another source of pressure on medicine prices.
The Food and Drug Administration has said a complete removal of subsidized currency for medicines is not planned this year, although the allocation has been reduced for some products, including insulin.
The agency said the changes did not amount to ending subsidized currency for all medicines or necessarily signal a new wave of price increases.
Ahmadi offered a different assessment of the impact on medicines affected by the changes, saying the removal of subsidized currency for some pharmaceutical groups had pushed the cost of their raw materials up more than fivefold within several months.
Iran International reported in July that patients' out-of-pocket costs for insulin had risen more than 24-fold over about 50 days.
Higher prices fuel informal drug market
Shortages are only part of the pressure facing patients because medicines that remain available may become financially inaccessible as prices rise, Rouydad24 reported.
“If medicine is available on the market but its price increases several times over, for a patient who needs medication every month and permanently, the price increase can effectively be just as problematic as a shortage,” Rouydad24 wrote.
“If insurance cannot increase its contribution in line with price rises, part of the cost will be paid out of the patient’s pocket.”
The combination of shortages, rising prices and inadequate insurance coverage places particular pressure on people with chronic illnesses, older patients and those who depend on expensive or imported medicines, the outlet added.
