Iran has managed to preserve its missile and drone factories despite months of US and Israeli bombing, officials familiar with the matter said, allowing it to replenish its arsenals while President Donald Trump holds off on strikes ahead of the midterm elections.

Tehran still has the capacity to manufacture weapons to rebuild its arsenal, according to the Western officials, who asked not to be identified discussing private assessments. One official said Iran remains well-stocked with ballistic missiles and some anti-ship weapons, and can quickly add more.

The Western official said Russia was providing missiles as well, echoing a separate assessment in June. Russia’s Ministry of Defense did not respond to a request for comment.

The assessment of Iran’s capability runs counter to repeated claims from Trump and his team that eight months of airstrikes have decimated Iran’s ability to threaten US bases in the region and American allies. Trump said earlier this year that Iran’s military is “totally destroyed” and in a speech on Sept. 30 Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the US had destroyed Iran’s “military industrial capacity” and “their entire defense base.”

That ability raises the likelihood that Iran could reconstitute its missile forces if Trump makes good on a vow, delivered via social media on Thursday, not to attack Iran before November’s midterm elections. In addition, Tehran has escalated attacks on shipping around the Strait of Hormuz, hitting at least 10 vessels in the last week, according to the UK Navy. The White House and the Pentagon didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Trump had earlier floated the possibility of ramping up military strikes after the elections, amid a flurry of attacks on shipping. The later time frame would allow him to avoid further fanning oil prices just before the ballot.

Assessments from Western officials signal the Islamic Republic still has enough firepower to retaliate if Washington resumes airstrikes. With its economy withering behind a US Navy blockade of its oil exports and the war stuck in limbo, Tehran may lean deeper into asymmetric warfare, seeking to inflict as much pain as possible on its much bigger opponent.

The US-Israeli air campaign most likely severely degraded much of Iran’s prewar missile manufacturing capacity over the long term, according to a report by Jim Lamson, a former CIA analyst who is a visiting research fellow at King’s College London.

Israel estimated that Iran had about 2,500 ballistic missiles before the war, and it’s not known exactly how many remain. Western intelligence assessments as recently as June said Iran held about three-quarters of the munitions it had before the war.

Iran has launched more than 4,000 Shahed propeller-driven cruise missiles, and at least 2,000 ballistic missiles since the conflict began on Feb. 28, according to a Bloomberg Economics analysis of public data.

The lull in major US attacks has given Iran time to recoup and rebuild as it prepares for a next round of fighting, which it knows is coming, said Becca Wasser, defense lead at Bloomberg Economics. The cycle seems likely to create a protracted conflict in which neither side has a clear advantage.

“There is probably less high-end stuff available, but they’ve been stockpiling cruise missiles for themselves and the Houthis for years, and hiding them,” said William Alberque, a Europe-based senior fellow at the Pacific Forum. “I’d guess with a fair bit of confidence that we haven’t seen the tip of the iceberg in terms of anti-ship attacks.”Oil prices, now trading above $100 a barrel, remain under pressure and sensitive to the outlook for supply. Even though transit through the Strait of Hormuz has increased, the cost of hiring a tanker rose to about $1.2 million a day, compared with less than $50,000 a day before the war.

And a conflict between Saudi Arabia and the Iran-backed Houthi militants is raising concerns over the kingdom’s ability to rely on an export bypass through the Red Sea. On Thursday night, Houthi ballistic missiles struck two airports in Saudi Arabia, killing at least three people and wounding dozens.

The biggest challenge to attacking commercial vessels is most likely getting targeting data, said Sidharth Kaushal, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute.

“The actual anti-ship missile stockpiles likely remain large, both because they are comparatively easy to make, and Iran has in-housed much of the production of older Chinese ASCMs, and Iran’s southern mountains provide natural shelters against air attack,” he said, referring to anti-ship cruise missiles.