Iran rebuilding military industrial base faster than expected, already producing drones, according to US intel

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/05/21/politics/iran-military-rebuild?utm_source=operamini&utm_medium=feednews&utm_campaign=operamini_feednews

Good Iran has the right of self-defence a principle enshrined in the modern world. The are capable , resourceful people and fearless fighters we could learn a lot from then but we won't.

15 minutes ago, beautifulthailand99 said:

Good Iran has the right of self-defence a principle enshrined in the modern world. The are capable , resourceful people and fearless fighters we could learn a lot from then but we won't.

I truly hope that was sarcasm...

Iran is dangerous terrorist state, that’s their reason to exist ,their goal is nukes to bomb everybody they can when they build bigger missiles.nukes could come from NK or Russia

55 minutes ago, richard_smith237 said:

I truly hope that was sarcasm...

Err, no that is a statement of fact, polemically framed perhaps. It is not a country I would choose to live in, but they are no Nazi Germany, nor are they the existential threat to Western civilization that U.S./Israeli interests would have us believe. Most importantly, they should be left alone to find their own destiny. Perverse interference in their country has led to perverse outcomes

https://unherd.com/2026/05/why-iran-is-right-to-be-paranoid/

Amid the usual despotic cynicism, though, it’s also true that Iranian fears have often proved justified. In the most immediate sense, after all, President Trump has fulfilled many of the warnings that the late Ayatollah articulated. Less than a week before the US and Israel began their attacks, Steve Witkoff, the President’s favourite negotiator, wondered why Tehran hadn’t “capitulated”. There’s plenty more where that came from. A month into the conflict, Trump told the Financial Times he would have taken Iran’s oil but for “some stupid people” back in America, while the recent seizure of an oil tanker in the Gulf led the President to positively gloat. “It’s a very profitable business,” he said. “We’re like pirates.”

From the OP's link - the US is currently at the FAFO stage as is sadly the world with Trump's/Netanhayu's reckless adventure, which rightly so, no previous President dared to stir.

Iran has been able to rebuild much faster than expected due to a combination of factors, ranging from support it is receiving from Russia and China to the fact that the US and Israel did not inflict as much damage as the two countries had hoped, one of the sources told CNN. For example, China has continued to provide Iran with components during the conflict that can be used to build missiles, two sources familiar with US intelligence assessments told CNN, though that has likely been curtailed by the ongoing US blockade.

1 hour ago, beautifulthailand99 said:

Err, no that is a statement of fact, polemically framed perhaps. It is not a country I would choose to live in, but they are no Nazi Germany, nor are they the existential threat to Western civilization that U.S./Israeli interests would have us believe. Most importantly, they should be left alone to find their own destiny. Perverse interference in their country has led to perverse outcomes

https://unherd.com/2026/05/why-iran-is-right-to-be-paranoid/

Amid the usual despotic cynicism, though, it’s also true that Iranian fears have often proved justified. In the most immediate sense, after all, President Trump has fulfilled many of the warnings that the late Ayatollah articulated. Less than a week before the US and Israel began their attacks, Steve Witkoff, the President’s favourite negotiator, wondered why Tehran hadn’t “capitulated”. There’s plenty more where that came from. A month into the conflict, Trump told the Financial Times he would have taken Iran’s oil but for “some stupid people” back in America, while the recent seizure of an oil tanker in the Gulf led the President to positively gloat. “It’s a very profitable business,” he said. “We’re like pirates.”

I think you'll find Mohammed Bin Salman and the other leaders of the GCC think differently....

MBS is on record as referring to the Ayatollahs as 'Hitlers of the Middle East' - They understand better than the west what Iran has been trying to do for over 100 years, well before the 'Israel thing' that most westerners became woke about, was even a thing....

Of course the iranian terror nation would be faster in making it's lethal and highly efficient and cheap home made drones, compared to the XXXL logistics necessary to maintain, refuel, repair the USA military armada.

17 minutes ago, richard_smith237 said:

I think you'll find Mohammed Bin Salman and the other leaders of the GCC think differently....

MBS is on record as referring to the Ayatollahs as 'Hitlers of the Middle East' - They understand better than the west what Iran has been trying to do for over 100 years, well before the 'Israel thing' that most westerners became woke about, was even a thing....

Ah yes the butcher of the New York Times journalist in the consulate in Istanbul and god only knows what else in the "Kingdom" that we don't know about because he allows unfettered acess to US interests. Which were lest we forget were also predicated on US military support that ran away when needed and in a region bar Lebanon/Gaza was relatively peaceful a until Trump and his lap dog Israle blundered in with ill thought out military action. Revesre engineering reason and due cause doesn't really work when you examine the full picture.

2 hours ago, 3NUMBAS said:

Iran is dangerous terrorist state, that’s their reason to exist ,their goal is nukes to bomb everybody they can when they build bigger missiles.nukes could come from NK or Russia

US is the only country to have used nukes in anger !

Israel and the US are terrorist states instigating coups,war and chaos worldwide.

20 minutes ago, SingAPorn said:

Of course the iranian terror nation would be faster in making it's lethal and highly efficient and cheap home made drones, compared to the XXXL logistics necessary to maintain, refuel, repair the USA military armada.

What’s striking is the asymmetry. A relatively inexpensive homemade drone can threaten hardware that costs hundreds of millions to build and maintain. That inevitably raises awkward questions about what the US public is actually getting for those enormous defence budgets.

And if relatively crude infrared or low-tech detection methods can compromise supposedly untouchable stealth systems, it suggests that adaptation and improvisation sometimes matter more than sheer spending power. Iran’s military doctrine has long depended on exactly that: finding cheaper, deniable ways to challenge vastly superior conventional force and quelle surprise it works. Meanwhile Trump is building some twisted Dr No lair beneath the White House whilst Ayatollahs take an early demise as part of the job description. God is Great !

20 hours ago, beautifulthailand99 said:

Ah yes the butcher of the New York Times journalist in the consulate in Istanbul and god only knows what else in the "Kingdom" that we don't know about because he allows unfettered acess to US interests. Which were lest we forget were also predicated on US military support that ran away when needed and in a region bar Lebanon/Gaza was relatively peaceful a until Trump and his lap dog Israle blundered in with ill thought out military action. Revesre engineering reason and due cause doesn't really work when you examine the full picture.

Nuclear proliferation isn't a hypothetical - it's a queue. Saudi Arabia has already said publicly they'll match Iran bomb for bomb. Then Syria, Iraq, Yemen, UAE, Turkey, Kuwait, Oman all feel the same pressure. That's not tension, that's civilisational roulette in the most volatile patch of earth on the planet.

And the "peaceful before Trump" line is fantasy, Iran's regional ambitions didn't start with Trump. They started in 1979 when the Ayatollahs took power and immediately announced they were exporting the revolution across the Muslim world.

That's not my interpretation, that's their doctrine, stated openly. For 45 years they've been building toward a land corridor from Tehran to the Mediterranean through proxies - Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, Iraqi Shia militias.

This project was well underway before most people commenting here were even watching the news.

I was in Iraq when Iran fired its Fateh-110 ballistic missiles at Kurdish Iranian opposition groups HQ.

The Second Intifada started in 2001 - Hamas, Qassams, anti-tank missiles, roadside bombs. I personally saw some of the munitions lighting up the night sky - I was in Ashdod.

You used "reverse engineering" as a gotcha and then did precisely that, just with a 20 year blind spot where the actual history lives. None of that needed Trump to exist.

The Khashoggi killing was monstrous - nobody's arguing otherwise - you want the guy who ordered that with nuclear weapons. Moral outrage isn't foreign policy and feeling strongly about something isn't the same as understanding it - you've just proven that with a significant information gap conveniently tying into your bias.

If you've got a serious answer to what a nuclear Iran and a proliferation cascade across that region actually looks like, make it - but "Trump bad, MBS bad" is juvenile, its not analysis, its not understanding and its not factually correct.

Go to these places - speak to people on the ground - I was (un)fortunate enough to have been there at these periods - Trump was handed this issue he didn't cause it.

Two Weak' Trump should have finished the turbanating, it's bound to come back and bite his wrinkly arse🤔