Report: Attack on Iran Set for Nov. 4. Iran Threatens Region-wide Retaliation. Kent: Get Out Now
President Trump plans to attack Iran again on November 4 and vows that the unconstitutional war against the country will soon end.
Officials from the Gulf states told far-left MSNOW, formerly MSNBC, about the plan. Earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal disclosed Trump’s plan to strike again after Tuesday’s midterm elections, which Republicans are expected to lose.
Iran’s response: It will strike back to any renewed American attack.
And while the strikes will be “short and intense,” as officials told Gulf-state allies, former U.S. counterterrorism director Joe Kent warned that whatever the U.S. is planning won’t be short.
Early Reports
Early this week, the Journal disclosed that Trump officials warned the Gulf States that U.S. forces would strike Iran again after the midterms.
The warning to U.S. allies in the Gulf — Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates — was clear. As Trump put it at a campaign rally, the United States 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:
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 newspaper disclosed that Trump met with Admiral Bradley Cooper, head of the U.S. Central Command. That meeting signaled a forthcoming attack, the newspaper noted.
Included in the briefing were Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“The top-level gathering followed a Wednesday session at the White House in which the military officers met with Vice President JD Vance,” the Journal explained:
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.
But adding to those reports is another from MSNOW.
“The Trump administration has briefed Gulf allies to prepare for a short, intense round of strikes as soon as Nov. 4, the day after the midterms, according to three senior Gulf Arab officials, granted anonymity to share sensitive discussions,” the website reported. The Gulf-state allies aren’t happy. They fear Iran’s retaliation and might refuse to permit U.S. forces from striking Iran from local bases.
“Trump said Friday that the war with Iran ‘is going to be over very soon,’” the website continued:
“We’re knocking the hell out of them,” Trump said in an interview with Kansas City radio station KCMO. Trump predicted that “we’re going to have a non-nuclear Iran. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, and they won’t have a nuclear weapon, and that’s going to end very soon.”
Iran Threatens Retaliation, Kent Warning
Iran doesn’t seem particularly worried.
Iranian leader Ayatollah Sayyid Mojtaba Hosseini Khamenei has ordered region-wide retaliation, meaning Iran’s missiles will hit U.S. bases and perhaps non-U.S. targets in the Gulf-state allies.
During a meeting with military leaders, Khamenei said renewed attacks must be met with “an immediate, impactful, and geographically unrestricted response,” the Islamic Republic News Agency reported.
Kent advised Trump to walk away from an unwinnable war.
“There is no such thing as a short, 3-4 day military operation — if we strike Iran, they will respond,” Kent wrote on X:
We have consistently underestimated the most basic reality: the enemy gets a vote.
There is no military option that will persuade Iran to accept the U.S.’s terms for a deal — after 8 months of failing to restore order to the chaos it caused, the administration knows this — so what is the purpose of more strikes?
Kent warned that Iran will retaliate and that more Americans will die and energy prices will continue climbing. Also attacking will be “Iran’s allies & proxies — like the Houthis, Iraqi militias, & possibly Bahraini groups.”
They will target “Saudi energy infrastructure, the [Bab al-Mandab Strait]/Suez, & will potentially attack the governments of Kuwait & Bahrain.” Kent wrote:
We’re already unable to help the Saudis deter the Houthis — if we engage in kinetic combat against Iran, we’ll be even more incapable of assisting our already-weakened allies.
More strikes won’t change the game. Walking away & declaring victory before Tuesday sets a positive tone for the elections & resets the parameters for negotiations with Iran.
President Trump can avoid the escalation trap by walking away now, before the fog of war envelops the rest of his presidency.
The Bab al-Mandab Strait is the chokepoint between Yemen and North Africa, forming the southern outlet of the Red Sea into the Gulf of Aden.
