Reports: Trump Plans Major Attack on Iran After Midterms. Senator Calls Plan “Insane.”
President Trump is planning another attack on Iran after Tuesday’s midterm election, which Republicans are expected to lose.
The Wall Street Journal revealed that the top flag officer in the Middle East briefed the president in person, which suggests an attack in the near future. On Wednesday, the Journal disclosed that the administration had warned the Gulf states of the impending attack. And Trump himself has warned of another Epic Fury, the name of the opening attack on Iran.
Far-left Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut claims to have discussed the war plans with administration officials. He came away from the meeting with a message: The plan is “insane.”
Briefing
Briefing Trump at the White House yesterday was Admiral Brad Cooper, head of the U.S. Central Command, or Centcom.
It was “a rare in-person visit to the White House as the U.S. weighs resuming major combat operations,” the Journal reported, citing officials and “other people with direct knowledge of the meeting.”
Also in the meeting were Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “The meeting included other cabinet members and covered other topics including the continuing U.S. blockade, some of the people said,” the Journal revealed:
The top-level gathering followed a Wednesday session at the White House in which the military officers met with Vice President JD Vance, one of the people said.
Trump officials have told Arab Gulf states to be prepared for a short, intense campaign after the midterm elections…. Vance has also engaged one of Iran’s most powerful hard-liners in an effort to revive peace negotiators…..
“We may do another little Epic Fury,” Trump said at a rally last week, referring to the heavy U.S. and Israeli bombing campaign in the spring. “Or they’ll agree.”
The briefing might signal an attack sometime soon because Cooper rarely meets with the president one on one, the newspaper explained.
“The Pentagon has laid the groundwork for a fresh bombing campaign in recent weeks, sending additional air defenses, munitions and supplies to the Middle East. It has also moved some troops off bases where they are considered vulnerable to get them out of harm’s way,” the newspaper explained:
The Army is in the process of moving an additional Patriot battery to Israel to beef up its missile defenses in the country. The move comes amid concerns over a shortfall in interceptors, which the U.S. has been racing to resupply.
The warning to U.S. allies in the Gulf also suggests that Trump might “do another little Epic Fury.”
“The U.S. military is sending an additional Patriot system to Israel from Texas to beef up its missile defenses in the country, according to flight-tracking data and two officials with knowledge of the movement,” the Journal reported two days ago:
The U.S. has also moved troops off bases in the Middle East where they were vulnerable in preparation for an escalation.…
U.S. forces in the region have been restocking their munitions, and bomber aircraft and jet fighters are preparing for strikes, some of the officials said. An additional aircraft-carrier strike group and Marine expeditionary unit are also poised to join an armada of roughly 20 other warships operating in the Middle East next month, although some ships could rotate out.
The Journal also reported the war’s cost — more than $48 billion. The Iran War Cost Tracker has corrected its earlier estimate, $113.3 billion, and explained how it arrived at the figure.
The new figure, 244 days into a war that Trump and the war hawks said would be a cakewalk, is $48.3 billion and climbing, the tracker reports.
Murphy: It’s “Insane”
Senator Chris Murphy is alarmed that Trump has launched an illegal, unconstitutional war and that Congress has abdicated its duty to stop him. During a sit-down at the Middle East Institute, he told The Atlantic’s Missy Ryan that briefings with Trump officials led him to conclude that attacking again is a crazy idea.
“In one of these briefings, we did get the chance to have a fairly detailed conversation about what the war plan would be if we restarted military operations,” Murphy told Ryan. “I will just say this: Their plan is insane,” Murphy continued:
It will lead to devastating escalation and the likely destruction of our commitment to the rule of law.… There’s been open reporting as to what we may be planning and the civilian infrastructure that we may be targeting. They’ve been asked by the President to develop a plan. Whether they believe it will work or not, I do not know. But the plan that they have developed will lead, in my view, to a prolongation and an escalation of this war that will be devastating for our security interests.
Murphy is also concerned about the safety of Americans in the region.
“I talked to enough people while I was on the ground there to understand the reality that our base in Bahrain is obliterated,” Murphy said:
It is not usable. And our base in Qatar is usable, but at a much lower capacity, and it is pretty clear that we still don’t have the ability to protect any of our diplomats or our troops in the Middle East.”
In March, just a month after Trump started the war on behalf of Israel, The New York Times disclosed the damage Iran did to U.S. bases.
“Many of the 13 military bases in the region used by American troops are all but uninhabitable, with the ones in Kuwait, which is next door to Iran, suffering perhaps the most damage,” the Times reported.
