At a moment US officials as well as media headlines have been voicing alarm over depleted US missile stockpiles - something which President Trump sought to bat down as false - Iranian leaders have been busy boasting that their domestic defense production has not only kept pace but even expanded on the local production front.
Mohammad Reza Naqdi, Senior Advisor to the IRGC Commander-in-Chief, has been featured in state media as claiming that the production rate of ballistic missiles exceeds their operational launch rate, which comes on the heels of Tehran saying that it used the ceasefire with the US - which stretched from April into the summer months - to boost its weapons arsenal.
Naqdi asserted in a state television broadcast this week: "We are currently producing, and this process is unending." Naqdi warned further that "The enemy should not assume that Iran’s missile stockpiles will run out one day."
He also said: "There are many capabilities we have not deployed because we are managing the war with missile power."
Prior US (and Israeli) bombing campaigns since the start of Operation Epic Fury took direct aim at Iran's defense industrial sector. While it can be estimated that perhaps dozens or possibly even hundreds of missile sites as well as manufacturing locations were hit, damaged, and destroyed - Iranian officials say that hundreds more are still intact, scattered across the country.
Citing Naqdi's words further, Iran Wire writes:
He added that Iran does not rely solely on existing stockpiles, as defense equipment manufacturing remains continuous. Naqdi claimed that even if the war continues for years, ballistic missiles will still be manufactured in Iran and supplied to the armed forces on the final day of the conflict.
Highlighting the country’s industrial capacity, the senior advisor noted that, in addition to hundreds of industrial complexes, Iran houses approximately 950 industrial towns where defense equipment production is actively underway across various regions.
The same top IRGC official also this week was interviewed by PBS. In that interview he more broadly laid out that...
"We have to attain deterrence so that the enemy never dares to attack us, so we can live with security. One way is to prolong this war until we get to the next term of the presidency and cause attrition, so that if anyone else wants to attack Iran, they will know there is a cost."
Last week, a separate Iranian army official voiced something similar:
"We have made maximum use of the opportunity of the memorandum of understanding and every moment of the ceasefire," army spokesman Mohammad Akraminia told state television this week, referring to a now-suspended MoU signed with the US in June.
He said attempts were made to induct existing equipment into the armed forces and import new equipment, as well as repairing and recovering damaged systems or manufacturing new systems.
The brigadier general also said new-generation drones have been used in combat, and their specifications would be announced later.
Last month, Iran’s acting Defence Minister Majid Ebn-e Reza said that missile and drone production had "not stopped for a single day" and that drone production had reached three times its pre-war levels. But he did not provide any figures.
Meanwhile, the White House appears to have given up on finding a 'military solution' - and is settling in for a longer economic war, hoping the Islamic Republic will be weakened from within and ultimately collapse. But the Iranian military and government say the country is prepared to endure and outlast these external pressures while remaining ever-ready to resume retaliatory strikes if necessary.