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Morning Edition · Thursday, October 22, 2026Published at 1:18 AM EDT · New York
US and Israel have plans for a short strike campaign on Iran after the November 3 midterms, The New York Times reports
President Donald Trump says no talks with Tehran are under way, and US forces are reportedly moving personnel out of regional bases, as they did before the February attack.
The United States and Israel have drawn up plans to resume strikes on Iran after the US midterm elections on November 3. Russia's Kommersant summarized the New York Times report, which cites unnamed sources. According to Israeli and Arabic-language accounts of the report, the planned operation would be short and intensive. Its targets would include Iran's energy infrastructure, nuclear sites, and missile and drone stocks. Some officials said refineries would be spared to keep gasoline prices down. Pete Hegseth, the US defense secretary, met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel this week. The two militaries have been rehearsing strike routes over Iraq.
The timing depends on logistics. The Jerusalem Post's account of the report says the US force, which includes three aircraft carriers, will not be fully in place until early November, when nights over Iran also get longer. Trump has put off renewed strikes several times, including an operation planned earlier this month. He has not approved a new offensive.
In public, Trump said the United States is not currently negotiating with Iran. He also predicted changes in the situation "fairly soon," Russia's state agency TASS reported. RT, citing NBC, reported that the US is moving troops and diplomats out of Middle East bases while Trump weighs new strikes. RT noted that a similar movement came before the first US-Israeli attack on Iran in February. Russian state outlets are giving the planning reports prominent coverage. Moscow benefits from higher oil prices and from US military attention staying in the Gulf, so their emphasis is itself information.
Iran's leadership has not fully stabilized since that war. BBC News Hindi notes that seven months after the killing of Ali Khamenei, the Islamic Republic's second supreme leader, his political will has still not been published. The BBC asks whether a will exists or has been destroyed. Iran has warned, according to the reports, that any retaliation could reach Saudi refineries, data centres and undersea internet cables.
Part of a tracked trend
Fragile US-Iran Detente
The US-Iran settlement is a managed, reversible arrangement rather than a durable peace, so repeated rounds of brinkmanship and renegotiation will keep regional risk live and intermittently price back into energy markets.
Veracity: Corroborated
78/100- If true, who benefits
If the plan is real, Israel's government gets the US military commitment it has sought against Iran, and oil exporters outside the Gulf, Russia among them, gain from a sustained risk premium. Sparing refineries protects the White House from higher gasoline prices before the vote.
- The nuance
Haaretz and Israel Hayom confirm the reported planning, but it rests on unnamed officials. Trump has rejected several earlier plans that he himself requested, so a leaked, dated plan may function as coercion and does not show an intention to strike. Earlier reporting also said Washington pressed Israel to strike alone, which muddies the "joint" framing.
An open-source-intelligence read of how likely this story is true with its real nuance, not a judgment of any outlet. It assesses the claim, weighing independent and adversarial reporting. How we label confidence.
Synthesized from: Kommersant · TASS · RT · BBC News Hindi
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Comments
1Oct 22, 5:18 AM
Sparing refineries protects Iranian fuel output, but strikes on other energy infrastructure could still cut crude exports, so the plan only partly limits the risk to US pump prices.