The USA and Israel have drawn up plans to start bombing Iran again once Americans have voted in the midterm elections on 3 November, the New York Times reported on Wednesday. The targets are Iran's energy infrastructure, its nuclear facilities and its missiles and drones. Both militaries are rehearsing a short, intense campaign, including flights over Iraq to practise the strikes, and Pete Hegseth discussed new attacks with Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel this week.
Trump has promised no strikes on Iran before the midterms. The promise is about the vote. Earlier this month Israel was ready to strike on the weekend of 10 October, the Financial Times reported, with a target list that included power plants and other civilian infrastructure and an attack more intense than February's. Trump stopped it because of the elections. "There will either be a deal or an attack," one source told the paper.
Some officials argue another round of bombing could push Iran's economy into deeper crisis and force it to give ground in talks. Those talks are still going on. Pakistan's army chief carried a new proposal from Pakistan and Qatar to Tehran this week, and Iran's top security official told him there will be no negotiations unless Washington meets Iran's conditions. Iran says the USA struck its Konarak naval base on Monday, which a U.S. official denies.
The war Trump and Netanyahu started in February ran until April. It drove up energy prices across the world, fed inflation in the USA and drained the Pentagon's stocks of interceptor missiles. Nothing in the new plans suggests a second round would end differently, and Israel's target list now includes civilian infrastructure it did not hit the first time.
Imagine Joe Biden holding back a war until the votes were counted so that Americans could not judge it at the ballot box. Republicans would have called it what it is.
Trump has not ruled out a new war on Iran. He has ruled it out until after the election.
