US and Israel draw up plans for renewed strikes on Iran after the midterms
The US and Israeli militaries have drawn up concrete plans to launch fresh attacks on Iran after the US midterm elections. US officials and several people familiar with the planning told The New York Times about the preparations.
As planning for a swift, intense and large-scale military operation advances, the US and Israeli militaries have also stepped up their exercises. They have flown warplanes through Iraqi airspace to rehearse attack strategies.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel this week to discuss the possible strikes, officials said. The meeting is being seen as an important step in the emerging plan.
Potential targets could include Iran's energy infrastructure, nuclear facilities and stockpiles of missiles and drones. Some officials believe another round of major strikes could push Iran's economy into a severe crisis.
In their view, under such pressure Tehran might be forced to make concessions in diplomatic talks after nearly eight months of conflict. In other words, military pressure is being conceived primarily as a tool to gain advantage at the negotiating table.
However, there is considerable doubt about whether a renewed war would succeed any more than the first round of intense US-Israeli strikes, which ran from February to April.
That first conflict drove up global energy prices and inflation, weakened the Middle East's security architecture and placed severe strain on the Pentagon's stockpiles of missile-defence weapons. That experience is what fuels the questions hanging over the new plan.
There is also considerable uncertainty over whether President Donald Trump will approve renewed strikes. This year he has repeatedly vetoed plans to resume major military operations. It happened again this month, when the US and Israeli militaries were almost fully prepared to attack.
Iranian officials, for their part, have said that if the US and Israel strike, the scope of retaliation will be wider this time. Beyond regional commercial shipping and energy infrastructure, data centres and undersea internet cables could also become targets. The coming fight, they say, will neither end quickly nor stay limited in scope.
Meanwhile, the United States is assembling a large quantity of military weapons and equipment, which will be fully in place by early November. Diplomatic activity is continuing in parallel.
US negotiators are using the threat of a possible new war as leverage on Tehran to win progress on their demands regarding Iran's nuclear programme and control over the Strait of Hormuz. So far, however, Iranian negotiators have refused to offer any concessions on the nuclear programme; their position is that the issue will be discussed in a later phase of the talks.
Some US planners believe a three-day intense military campaign could damage Iran's economy so badly that the country would be forced to change its position in the talks. But US officials have predicted Iran's collapse many times before. Western officials, meanwhile, note that the Iranian government has so far survived despite economic pressure.
Dana Stroul, who served as the Pentagon's top Middle East policy official during the Biden administration, said: 'At this stage of the war it is clear that the military operations conducted so far, the current harsh economic sanctions and the US naval blockade have none of them brought the Iranian government meaningfully back to the negotiating table.' Stroul, now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said neither Trump nor Netanyahu has yet offered a credible argument explaining how more war would resolve this strategic crisis, especially in a region where instability and conflict are steadily growing.
All told, fears are growing of fresh tensions spreading across the Middle East after the midterm elections. Although the plans are ready, the final decision rests on President Trump's approval — and the uncertainty surrounding that decision is now the biggest question of all.
