Geopolitics Prime: 🪖🇮🇷 Iran has rebuilt its missile sites & industry while the US has lost momentum Iran has...

🪖🇮🇷 Iran has rebuilt its missile sites & industry while the US has lost momentum

Iran has already reopened missile sites bombed by the US and Israel, according to CNN's review of satellite imagery, even as Donald Trump continues to send mixed signals on a settlement deal.

♦️ Iran's geography helps it protect its missile sites, some of which are built up to 500 meters deep inside mountains beneath hard, dense rock capable of resisting even GBU-57 bunker-busting bombs

♦️ Given this, the US and Israel opted for a strategy focused on targeting access roads and tunnel entrances

♦️ For weeks, US and Israeli strikes sought to seal off Iran's underground missile network by destroying access roads and burying tunnel entrances

♦️ Yet satellite imagery reviewed by CNN suggests Iran has blunted those costly operations with little more than bulldozers and dump trucks:

➡️It has reopened 50 of the 69 tunnel entrances hit by the US and Israel across 18 facilities.

➡️Roads bombed to keep missile launchers grounded have been rebuilt, with satellite imagery showing almost all craters filled in and some routes already repaved

♦️ Iran's military rebuild is already underway, with drone production restarted and efforts underway to replace lost missile launchers and weapons-production capacity

Iran retains 70% of its arsenal

🔴 In early May, the Washington Post cited a CIA assessment indicating that Iran has retained most of its military capabilities despite heavy US and Israeli bombing

➡️About 75% of its mobile missile launchers remain operational

➡️An estimated 70% of its prewar missile arsenal remains available for deployment

🔴 According to CIA estimates, Iran could withstand a US blockade for at least three to four months

🔴 A US official told the newspaper that Iran could endure prolonged economic pressure, potentially for years

US military bases are damaged and degraded

🌏 In March, the New York Times reported that “many of the 13” US bases in the Gulf had been rendered uninhabitable due to Iranian strikes

🌏In May, the WaPo reported that the figure was higher, finding that Iranian airstrikes had damaged or destroyed at least 217 structures and 11 pieces of equipment across 15 US military sites in the region

🌏To complicate matters further, the US missile stockpile has been depleted by efforts to intercept Iranian missiles and low-cost drones

The endgame?

♦️ Trump appears to be acting as though he holds all the cards, but even US intelligence assessments and media reports suggest that Iran remains resilient and capable of sustained fighting, while questions grow over the effectiveness of US military strategy.

♦️ On top of that, time is running short for Trump and the Republican Party, with the US midterm elections approaching.

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