NYT: US and Israel Weigh Resuming Strikes on Iran After Midterms
The United States and Israel are drawing up plans for a new short but intense military operation against Iran that could begin after the US midterm elections on November 3, The New York Times reports, citing American and Israeli officials. European Pravda relayed the report.
As planning advances, the US and Israeli defence establishments have stepped up training, flying over Iraq to rehearse strike manoeuvres, the paper said. American officials told it that Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel this week to discuss new strikes.
Possible targets
The likely targets include Iran’s energy infrastructure, nuclear facilities and its arsenal of missiles and drones. Some officials say another large series of attacks could bring the Iranian economy to collapse and push the country toward diplomatic concessions after almost eight months of conflict.
Reasons for scepticism
There are grounds to doubt that renewed war would be more successful than the first phase of intense US-Israeli strikes, which ran from February to April. Those rounds of fighting drove up energy prices and inflation worldwide, undermined security in the Middle East and seriously depleted the Pentagon’s stocks of interceptor missiles. It is also far from certain that President Donald Trump will approve new strikes: this year he has repeatedly vetoed plans to resume large-scale combat operations, including this month, when US and Israeli forces were almost ready to attack.
While the US assembles a large arsenal that will be fully ready by early November, diplomacy continues. American negotiators are using the potential return of war as leverage to make progress on Iran’s nuclear programme and control of the Strait of Hormuz. For now, though, Iranian negotiators are not ready to make concessions on the nuclear programme and insist on postponing the issue to a later stage of the talks.
A White House representative said on Wednesday that the administration does not comment on military plans that “may or may not exist”. According to the official, Trump is keeping all options open to ensure Iran cannot obtain a nuclear weapon.
Earlier reports
Media recently reported that the US military has developed new plans for strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure and nuclear sites that could involve the so-called “mother of all bombs” if Trump orders hostilities to resume before or after the midterms. On October 8, Trump said the United States would not attack Iran before the congressional midterms in early November. According to the Wall Street Journal, in late September Trump told his aides he planned to resume bombing Iran after the November midterms.