The Washington Post today released what might normally be called a "bombshell report," but should more literally be called a "missile and drone report." It shows that Iran has been far more successful in its attacks on U.S. military bases in the Gulf region than anyone in the administration of Donald Trump has yet admitted. The Post analyzed before-and-after satellite photos to identify the destruction Iran's missiles and attack drones have caused. And what they found was pretty eye-opening:

Iranian airstrikes have damaged or destroyed at least 228 structures or pieces of equipment at U.S. military sites across the Middle East since the war began, hitting hangars, barracks, fuel depots, aircraft and key radar, communications and air defense equipment, according to a Washington Post analysis of satellite imagery. The amount of destruction is far larger than what has been publicly acknowledged by the U.S. government or previously reported.

The threat of air attacks rendered some of the U.S. bases in the region too dangerous to staff at normal levels, and commanders moved most of the personnel from these sites out of the range of Iranian fire at the start of the war, officials have said.

The Washington Post did this by first examining official Iranian news releases of war damage Iran claimed they had inflicted on American bases. They then compared these images to independent sources, to verify that the high-resolution satellite imagery from Iran wasn't edited or created as pure propaganda. The Post "verified the authenticity of 109" of these images, and found that "No Iranian imagery was found to have been manipulated." The Post even found 10 other damaged or destroyed structures that hadn't been included in the Iranian reports, for a total of "217 structures and 11 pieces of equipment that were damaged or destroyed at 15 U.S. military sites in the region." This is a lot more than the Pentagon has ever admitted to, and although the Post asked for comments from the military's chain of command, they mostly got a brush-off instead: "Military leaders will be able to provide fuller context for the Iranian attacks after the conflict ends, the spokesperson said." This is likely due to the fact that the evidence will probably show how the American military was unprepared for such a capable opponent:

Experts who reviewed The Post's analysis said the damage at the sites suggested that the U.S. military had underestimated Iran's targeting abilities, not adapted sufficiently to modern drone warfare and left some bases under-protected.

"The Iranian attacks were precise. There are no random craters indicating misses," said Mark Cancian, a senior adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a retired Marine Corps colonel, who reviewed the Iranian images at The Post's request. The Post previously revealed how Russia provided Iran with intelligence to target U.S. forces.

While some of the damage was to "soft targets, such as gyms, food halls and accommodation," other targets were much more significant:

The Post also found that the attacks hit a satellite communications site at al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar, Patriot missile defense equipment at Riffa and Isa air bases in Bahrain and Ali al-Salem Air Base in Kuwait, a satellite dish at the Naval Support Activity Bahrain -- which serves as the headquarters of the U.S. 5th Fleet -- a power plant at Camp Buehring in Kuwait and five fuel storage bladder sites across three bases.

The Iranian imagery also documented previously reported damage or destruction of radomes at Camp Arifjan and Ali al-Salem Air Base in Kuwait, and at the 5th Fleet headquarters; Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense radars and equipment at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan and two sites in the United Arab Emirates; a second satellite communications site at al-Udeid Air Base, and an E-3 Sentry command and control aircraft and a refueling tanker at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia.

The way wars are now waged has changed, and the American military hasn't quite kept up with these changes. Instead, they are relying on their high-tech interceptor missiles to guard against aerial attacks as if nothing has changed at all. But the cost/benefit ratio is radically different, since the interceptors not only are being used against the enemy's high-tech ballistic and cruise missiles, but also against drones that are pathetically cheap to construct:

In addition, experts said the U.S. military had not adequately adapted to the use of one-way attack drones, something they said planners should have learned from observing the war in Ukraine.

"While [drones] have small payloads -- some of these did not do that much damage -- they are more difficult to intercept and much more accurate, making them a much bigger threat to U.S. forces," said Decker Eveleth, an associate research analyst at the Center for Naval Analyses.

This has forced a change in strategy from the Pentagon:

The strikes on U.S. bases in the region have left military planners considering new trade-offs, said Maximilian Bremer, a nonresident fellow at the Stimson Center and a retired Air Force officer: Pull troops back to safer locations and limit their ability to fight or maintain the bases as they were and accept the potential of future casualties.

A U.S. official said that damage at the Naval Support Activity [Bahrain] is "extensive" and that the headquarters there relocated to MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida, the home of U.S. Central Command. It is unlikely that troops, contractors or civilian employees will return to the base "anytime soon," the official said.

Two other officials said U.S. forces may never return to regional bases in large numbers, though no final decision has been made.

U.S. bases are a lot more vulnerable to the new style of warfare, which has forced the Pentagon to essentially start abandoning bases in the region and retreat. That is a military victory for Iran, and it is one the American public isn't really aware of yet.

So not only have we fought to a standstill against a country that cannot reasonably be called a "superpower," we are also in the process of evacuating bases throughout the region because Iran has been so successful at adapting to the new form of waging war, while the shortcomings of our own military strategy are becoming more and more apparent.

We have used up so many of our high-tech interceptors that we are now in danger of running short of some of them (or even running out of them). Simply put, we don't have enough left to wage a major war (with China or Russia, in other words) and the hard, cold reality is that restocking our supplies is going to take years. The production lines can't churn out multimillion-dollar interceptor missiles any faster than that.

But the enemy is forcing us to use them up so fast by deploying drones that cost only about $35,000 each and can be manufactured quickly in great numbers (due to their simplicity). And even with our high-tech interceptors, some of these Iranian drones and missiles are getting through the defenses and successfully striking their targets. The Post report shows that this has been happening to a much greater extent than the public has been told.

Of course, military leaders don't want to admit any of their losses, especially when the war isn't over yet. What this has resulted in is a neverending stream of rosy-tinted propaganda from the White House on down about how overwhelmingly successful we've been. "Propaganda" is really the only word to use, when official U.S. government statements deny reality to such an extent.

What is even more sobering about this report is that the source material came from Iranian news releases. Which is where you'd expect rosy-tinted propaganda. Instead, the Post painstakingly verified that the Iranian photos were not lies or fake images, but instead accurately portrayed the situation on the ground -- much more so than the U.S. government has been doing.

That should be worrisome to both Americans and to everyone else in the world. Because it means that the Iranians are more believable than the Americans. They are showing the world proof of what their military has accomplished, while Trump and the Pentagon just want to sweep all that under the rug and tell us everything is peachy-keen.

If these were normal times, Congress would step in and perform some much-needed oversight. They would hold hearings to ascertain the truth of the situation and the extent of the military damages America has had to absorb. It remains to be seen what the Post report's impact will be in Washington, but I for one am not holding my breath waiting for the Republican Congress to actually do its job in any meaningful way.

For now -- and until things change -- the astonishing conclusion that is inescapable is that the Iranians are telling the truth while Trump and the Pentagon are denying reality. Which should be downright alarming, for obvious reasons.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant