Iran threat reduced, not ended, CENTCOM chief says

May 15, 2026

Summary

CENTCOM’s chief said U.S. strikes sharply reduced Iran’s military threat, but warned Tehran still retained limited strike capability.

Why this matters

The testimony offered Congress and the public a new U.S. military assessment of Iran’s remaining capabilities amid an unresolved Strait of Hormuz standoff. It also highlighted continuing uncertainty over how much damage the campaign inflicted and what that means for regional security and global oil shipping.

America’s 38-day bombing campaign against Iran reduced the country’s ability to threaten regional and global security, but did not eliminate it, Adm. Brad Cooper, head of U.S. Central Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday.

“It’s a very large country,” Cooper testified. He said Iran still had “a very moderate, if not small, capability” to conduct strikes on neighboring countries.

“The Iranian capability to stop commerce has been dramatically degraded through the straits,” Cooper said. “But their voice is very loud, and those threats are clearly heard by the merchant industry and the insurance industry.”

Recent media reports have questioned broader administration claims about the extent of the damage. The New York Times reported Tuesday that U.S. intelligence agencies believed Iran retained about 70% of its prewar missiles and a similar share of its mobile launchers.

Cooper declined to discuss specific intelligence assessments, but said figures he had seen in “open source are not accurate.”

He added: “It’s more than just the numbers. It’s the command and control that’s been shattered. It’s the significant degradation and capability. And it’s the lack of any ability to then produce any missiles or drones on the backend.”

Cooper also said Iran no longer threatened regional partners or the United States as it had before the campaign. He said Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis had been cut off from Iranian weapons and support. In the 30 months before Operation Epic Fury began, Cooper said those groups carried out more than 350 attacks on U.S. service members and diplomats in the region.

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