(SeaPRwire) – By: Marcus Sinclair
The assumption that air power could degrade Iranian deterrence has been upended. Israeli intelligence now concedes it underestimated Tehran’s capacity to rebuild. What was projected as a strategic set-back of years has become a production surge within months. The shock running through Jerusalem is not merely about lost weapons. It is about a miscalculation that changes the calculus of every regional commander.
The scale of the original bombardment is the backdrop to this reversal. Over late February and early April, US and Israeli forces executed approximately 30,000 strikes. More than 2,600 missile and industrial military targets were hit in what was described as the conflict’s hottest phase. The IDF and Mossad had long claimed Iran’s defense industry was set back years by those operations. Both agencies now publicly acknowledge they did not anticipate how quickly Tehran would restore its stockpiles of ballistic missiles and other key weapons. Iranian production lines moved faster than any Western assessment predicted. Underground missile sites, presumed destroyed, were re-accessed and reactivated. Creative workarounds were developed outside those bunkers. Brigadier General Mohammad-Reza Naqdi, an adviser to the IRGC chief commander, told Press TV that Iran’s output of ballistic missiles and drones now exceeds the rate of deployment. His warning was blunt: even if the war lasts for several years, ballistic missiles will continue to rain down on the enemy. The Jerusalem Post has independently confirmed that these statements from senior Iranian officials about accelerated arms production are accurate. Israel’s own military spokesperson declined to specify the pace of rehabilitation, citing the sensitivity of IDF sources and methods, but confirmed the defense establishment is analyzing developments and preparing accordingly. If Tehran sustains a manufacturing rate between 100 to 300 missiles per month, the paper suggests the threat could become prohibitive for Israel as early as 2028.
The strategic cost of this miscalculation extends far beyond the battlefield. Israeli planners are now forced to reconsider the timing and necessity of further attacks on Iranian infrastructure. The assumption that destruction equals deterrence is failing. Every missile Iran produces while Israeli bombs fall is a missile that does not need to be stored in a vulnerable underground facility. Production dispersion is a survival strategy, and Tehran has mastered it. The Strait of Hormuz standoff deepens the picture. Traffic has collapsed from between 130 and 140 ships per day to just eight, with more strikes reported against vessels. The waterway handles a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas trade. Donald Trump claimed on Wednesday that Americans had total control over the strait. Tehran denied it the next day, insisting the waterway remains under Iranian control and will stay closed until Washington changes its behavior. A military strategy built on the premise of degrading adversary capacity without accounting for adaptive industrial resilience is a strategy headed for renewal. The question no longer is whether Israel can strike Iran again. It is whether repeated strikes will ever achieve what a single assessment suggested they could, and what the region pays when that assumption proves wrong.
Author bio: Marcus Sinclair is a Senior Fellow at a prominent European geopolitical and security think tank, focusing on Middle Eastern defense dynamics and strategic intelligence analysis.