Akahi News reports that Iran is poised to fire far more long-range missiles at Israel and other Middle Eastern nations after rapidly digging out its buried arsenals – an effort that experts say highlights the limits of the United States bombing strategy. Akahi News gathered that for weeks, strikes by the US and Israel restricted Iran’s access to its underground missile sites by destroying roads and burying tunnel entrances. But Tehran has fought back using nothing more sophisticated than bulldozers and dump trucks.

Satellite images reviewed by CNN show how Iran has used simple, low-tech equipment to counter those costly military campaigns. This suggests that Iran’s missile capabilities cannot be destroyed just by targeting tunnel entrances, experts said. While Iran and the US have reached a tentative agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, months of work remain to hammer out details. If hostilities resume, Iran is in position to continue launching missiles so long as they have launchers and crews, even if production has halted. That is a chilling prospect for the region.

The Numbers: 50 Out of 69 Blocked Entrances Now Reopened

CNN found that Iran has now unblocked 50 out of the 69 tunnel entrances struck by the US and Israel at 18 underground missile facilities. Akahi News learnt that Iran has also repaired other parts of the bases, including roads that were bombed to prevent missile launchers from using them. Satellite images show almost all craters have now been filled, and at two sites, even repaved. The recovery has been remarkably fast.

During the fighting, Iran worked to excavate the tunnel entrances at great peril, with the US and Israel often striking the equipment used for digging. That work enabled Tehran to continue firing missiles throughout the war, though at vastly reduced rates. Since the ceasefire more than seven weeks ago, Iranian efforts to excavate the bases have accelerated significantly. Akahi News had earlier reported that ceasefires often provide breathing room for rearmament. This case appears to be a textbook example.

Sam Lair, a research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies who analyses Iran’s missile capabilities, said there is nothing to prevent Iranian launchers from being armed with the ample stockpile of missiles that the Iranians still have. Experts believe Iran still has around 1,000 missiles stored in the underground sites. That stockpile, deep below the surface, is unlikely to have sustained much damage from strikes at ground level.

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Tactical Success, Strategic Failure: The Limits of American Power

The US military is good at delivering tactical successes, according to Lair. Entombing and suppressing the Iranian missile force is a great example of that. However, he warned that if tactical success is not accompanied by a set of reasonable strategic war aims and an achievable theory of victory, it can end up being a strategic failure. That is exactly what may be happening. The US and Israel spent millions of dollars on precision strikes. Iran is countering with bulldozers and dump trucks. The asymmetry is staggering.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly pointed to Iran’s arsenal of missiles as a reason for the war, with its destruction being one of the key goals. In a March post to Truth Social, Trump listed “completely degrading Iranian Missile Capability, Launchers, and everything else pertaining to them” as one of five objectives of the war. But if Iran can simply dig out its missiles after the bombs stop falling, has that objective truly been achieved?

Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell did not respond to specific questions about CNN’s findings, repeating an earlier statement that “America’s military is the most powerful in the world and has everything it needs to execute at the time and place of the President’s choosing.” That statement, while true, does not address the core issue. Power is not the same as effectiveness. And effectiveness is not the same as victory.

Twenty Years of Preparation: Iran Was Ready

Iran’s network of underground missile bases, which it began building more than 20 years ago, offers considerable protection to its missiles and launchers. The depth of the facilities, some of which are under hundreds of metres of rock, limits the options the US and Israeli militaries have for attacking the bases. Akahi News gathered that in the early weeks of the conflict, the militaries turned to striking entrances, which combined with efforts to find and destroy launchers, resulted in significantly limiting Iranian missile fire. But those strikes heavily damaged the bases, burying most tunnel entrances under mountains of debris and shattering roads.

p>”They were preparing for this kind of war for 20 years,” said Timur Kadyshev, a senior researcher at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg who studies Iran’s missiles. “They are very prepared.” That preparation included contingency plans for exactly the kind of entombment strategy the US and Israel employed. Iran knew that tunnel entrances would be targeted. So they prepared excavation equipment and repair protocols. The US and Israel may have won the battles. Iran may be winning the war of attrition.

The US and Israel also undertook a broad effort to wreck Iran’s missile supply chain, from factories where small electronic components are produced to the sites where rocket propellants and missile bodies are manufactured. After the ceasefire on April 8, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth cited the efforts, saying that Iran would be “digging out your remaining launchers and missiles, with no ability to replace them. You have no defense industry.” But US intelligence assessments now indicate Iran has already been rebuilding key military capabilities, including restarting drone production and replacing missile launchers and production capacity.

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The Bulldozer Strategy: Low-Tech Beats High-Tech

To reopen the bases, Iran has used a variety of construction and earthmoving equipment. In satellite images, front-end loaders are visible scooping up rubble as dump trucks fill craters with dirt. At one base outside Isfahan, the US and Israel conducted numerous strikes to block four tunnel entrances. At least 18 craters could be seen at a pair of the entrances, indicating just how many munitions were expended to block the tunnels. In early May, a satellite image showed a dump truck being used to fill in the craters. The other two entrances, also blocked, had already been opened, and the roads to them had been repaved.

At a base outside Khomeyn in mid-April, an image showed at least 10 construction vehicles engaged in efforts to reopen one entrance. For Kadyshev, that difference in technologies exposes the difficulty in pursuing military options against Iran. “You have to use very sophisticated, very expensive weapons to do this kind of damage, and the recovery is very low tech – it’s just bulldozers,” he said. That is a profound insight. The US spends billions on stealth bombers and precision munitions. Iran spends thousands on bulldozers. And the bulldozers are winning.

One cannot help but ask: what is the endgame? If Iran can always dig out its missiles, and if it still has a stockpile of 1,000 missiles, then the military campaign has not achieved its stated objective. The war may pause, but it will not end. And the next round of hostilities could be even more devastating.

Iran Has Exceeded All Timelines for Recovery

US intelligence assessments indicate Iran has already been rebuilding key military capabilities, including restarting drone production and replacing missile launchers and production capacity. “The Iranians have exceeded all timelines the intelligence community had for reconstitution,” one US official told CNN. That means Iran is recovering faster than American spy agencies predicted. That is not just a failure of intelligence. It is a failure of strategy.

The strikes on Iran’s missile factories also may not prevent Tehran from reconstituting its missile production capabilities for as long as the US and Israel would like. During the Twelve-Day War last year, some of these same factories were attacked as well. Although the recent strikes have been much broader, satellite images showed Iran had already rebuilt some of the facilities targeted last June. The pattern is clear: Iran absorbs the blows, repairs the damage, and returns to the battlefield.

As Iran recovers its missiles and restores functionality to its missile bases, analysts are concerned that the continued threat posed by this arsenal is being underestimated, especially given the dwindling supply of US missile interceptors. Every missile Iran fires is a missile that the US and its allies must intercept. And interceptors are not unlimited. At some point, the maths becomes impossible.

What This Means for the Middle East and the World

The implications of Iran’s rapid recovery extend far beyond the current conflict. Akahi News believes that other nations are watching. If Iran can withstand the military might of the United States and Israel using nothing more than bulldozers and determination, then the calculus of deterrence has shifted. Why would any nation fear American military intervention if the damage can be repaired with construction equipment?

For Israel, which lives under the constant threat of Iranian missiles, the situation is particularly dire. Israel’s Iron Dome and other defence systems are effective, but they are not invincible. A sustained barrage of 1,000 missiles could overwhelm even the most sophisticated defences. That is why Israel pushed for the destruction of Iran’s missile capabilities. That goal has not been achieved.

For Nigeria, far from the Middle East, the conflict may seem distant. But oil prices, global security alliances, and the risk of a wider war all affect Nigerian interests. When the Strait of Hormuz is threatened, oil prices spike. When oil prices spike, Nigerians feel it at the pump. This is not a distant war. It is everyone’s war.

Akahi News will continue to monitor the situation in the Middle East. For now, the lesson from Iran is clear: high-tech bombs can bury tunnels, but low-tech bulldozers can dig them out. And in the end, the bulldozers may prove more durable than the bombs. That is a strategic reality that Washington and Tel Aviv must now confront.