In the early stages of the war on Iran, US and Israeli officials spoke with confidence that the strikes had achieved something close to a decisive outcome.
US President Donald Trump wrote that the Iranian military had descended into “total chaos”, and that large parts of it, including the navy and air force, “no longer existed”.
Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, said Iran’s military capabilities and its nuclear and missile programmes had been set back by years.
Recent satellite imagery, however, has placed that narrative under far greater scrutiny, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The newspaper reported that Iran moved quickly to rebuild infrastructure damaged during the US-Israeli campaign, ranging from fortified missile bases inside mountains to bridges, ports and production facilities. The pace of reconstruction has reportedly alarmed Israeli and Western officials.
Reconstruction Under Fire
The Wall Street Journal said images captured by Planet Labs near Kangavar in western Iran showed damage in March to two tunnel entrances and a road leading to a missile base.
Later images from Airbus revealed that, within weeks, a paved road had been constructed leading to newly excavated entrances, indicating the speed at which Iran began recovering from the strikes.
In another example, the newspaper cited an Israeli military official who said Iran repaired within days a bridge that Israel had targeted with three bombs. The speed of the repair surprised Israeli officials and led some to question the effectiveness of striking such targets.
The report also pointed to images from early July showing partial reconstruction at a shipyard in the Caspian Sea port of Bandar Anzali, which the newspaper said was linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Ran Kochav, the former commander of Israel’s air and missile defence system, told The Wall Street Journal that the pace of recovery was consistent with Iran’s previously demonstrated ability to rebuild infrastructure and replenish its missile stocks.
He said the Iranians had “refilled their stockpiles” and possessed notable manufacturing and reconstruction capabilities.
Claims of a Decisive Victory Challenged
The newspaper did not deny the scale of the damage inflicted on Iran, noting that Tehran faces a difficult, costly and lengthy process to recover from the strikes.
However, it argued that the rapid reconstruction taking place across the country undermined claims by Trump and Netanyahu that the campaign had delivered a devastating blow to Iran.
The Wall Street Journal added that both leaders were facing domestic pressure over their failure to overthrow the Iranian government, eliminate its nuclear programme or reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
A White House spokesperson, however, told the newspaper that the war had destroyed Iran’s missile arsenal and production capacity, sunk its navy, weakened its allies and ensured that it would not obtain a nuclear weapon. She described the campaign as a “resounding victory”.
Yet the report cited developments that complicate the image of total victory. It said that despite the bombing campaign, Iran continued to strike ships accurately and launch missile attacks against US regional allies, including Kuwait, Bahrain and Jordan.
Tal Inbar, an analyst at the US Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, said reports that Iran had run out of missiles or suffered a major decline in its missile capability were false.
Mountain Bases Remain Intact
The Wall Street Journal cited Israeli military officials who said that, in many cases, the United States and Israel had succeeded only in collapsing the entrances to deeply buried missile bases inside mountains rather than destroying the facilities themselves.
According to those officials, the weapons stored inside remained intact, and Iran had since begun working to retrieve them.
The newspaper referred to a missile base in Dezful, south-western Iran, which was struck in June 2025 and again in March. Later imagery showed Iran excavating several new entrances at the site.
It also cited another base north of Kermanshah where satellite images showed repairs to damaged roads and the reopening of tunnel entrances that had collapsed during the strikes.
At production facilities, Planet Labs imagery from recent weeks reportedly showed reconstruction work near Tehran at Raja Shimi, a site believed to be connected to the production of missile components, according to a report by King’s College London.
Growing Nuclear Concerns
Israeli concerns extend beyond Iran’s missile capabilities.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Israeli intelligence agencies believe Iran may have transferred thousands of centrifuges into tunnels inside Mount Pickaxe, a development the newspaper said had intensified fears that Tehran could rebuild its nuclear programme.
Israeli concerns therefore centre not only on the reconstruction of roads and bridges, but on deeper and more durable assets: scientific knowledge, technical expertise, production networks and Iran’s ability to convert time, money and political will into renewed recovery after each strike.
The Limits of Military Power
Foreign Affairs went beyond the satellite imagery and placed the war within a broader shift in the global balance of power.
Writer Robert Pape argued that the 1991 Gulf War created an image of the United States as a power capable of imposing military outcomes quickly and at relatively low cost. That image, he said, is no longer as accurate as it once was.
According to the magazine, the United States no longer enjoys the same degree of military superiority it held after the Cold War because globalisation has ended the monopoly of major powers over precision warfare.
Low-cost drones, commercial sensors, artificial intelligence and open-market software now provide weaker states with greater capacity to disrupt stronger adversaries.
Foreign Affairs argued that the war with Iran revealed this shift. Washington may be able to destroy numerous targets, but it cannot necessarily impose the political outcome it seeks.
The magazine said Iran did not need to defeat the US Navy in conventional battles. It only needed to convince markets and shipping companies that American power could no longer guarantee the absolute security of maritime navigation.
Rising insurance costs and declining confidence, according to the magazine, could leave a waterway physically open while making it strategically unreliable.
Beyond the Strait of Hormuz
Foreign Affairs warned that what occurred in the Strait of Hormuz could be repeated at even more sensitive maritime chokepoints, including the Taiwan Strait, the South China Sea, the Strait of Malacca and the Red Sea.
In a world where precise and inexpensive weapons are becoming more widely available, weaker powers can impose substantial costs on stronger states without achieving a conventional military victory.
They can do so by creating disruption, increasing the cost of trade and weakening confidence in the stability of global shipping routes.
The satellite images therefore reveal more than the speed of Iran’s recovery. They also expose the limits of relying on bombing alone, because the ability to rebuild cannot easily be destroyed.
Taken together, the assessments published by The Wall Street Journal and Foreign Affairs raise a broader question that extends beyond Iran: what remains of US and Israeli military superiority if destroying a target does not break an adversary, and if a weaker power can recover, disrupt and impose new costs again?
