Iran Prepares for War

Iran is fortifying key locations, including the nuclear site at Pickaxe Mountain, and its rebuilt ballistic missile factories, against the threat of renewed war. It is taking Trump at his word — no attack on Iran will be launched before the midterm elections on November 4 but then, all bets are off, unless Iran agrees to a deal to halt and dismantle its nuclear program. More on how Iran is preparing for a new round of war can be found here: “Iran fortifies nuclear sites, rebuilds missile arsenal as it prepares for the next war – analysis,” by Seth J. Frantzman, Jerusalem Post, October 13, 2026:

Satellite images show that Iran is fortifying various locations as it may be preparing for renewed war, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.

“Iran is fortifying its defenses, rallying loyalists and threatening a wider, harsher response against the US and its Gulf allies as it prepares for potential American attacks after the midterms and seeks to deter them,” the article noted.

This comes amid a flurry of other reports suggesting that the US or Israel could return to fighting Iran.

Maariv said over the weekend that the United States had pressured Israel to carry out strikes against Iran. Both Israel and the US have upcoming elections. Any strikes could affect the elections.

Fortunately, the Israelis have rejected Washington’s call for Israel to strike Iran alone. Were it to do so, that would only confirm the image of Israel as a warmonger, and provide the excuse for Iran to strike not just Israeli targets, but through its agents and proxies abroad, Jewish targets worldwide.

PBS reported on Sunday that “Iran has continued to reject a deal with the US. The head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council says Tehran finds the latest response from the United States ‘insufficient’ as efforts at negotiations to end the war and fully open the Strait of Hormuz limp along.”

The picture being painted is of an Iran that continues attempting to rebuild its missile and drone program.

In March, Israel’s prime minister said that the Islamic Republic could no longer produce ballistic missiles due to its hammering by US and Israeli strikes. There was also an optimistic assessment about how many Iranian launchers had been destroyed and how many missiles were “corked” in their depots by collapsing routes to the missiles….

“Satellite images show Iran is strengthening sensitive locations, including nuclear sites and border areas, to make them more resilient to attacks. The government is also preparing Iranians for renewed war, sending paramilitary forces to read war stories to kindergartners, advertising training in firing shoulder-mounted anti-aircraft missiles, and holding rallies,” the report added.

The Iranian government is preparing the entire population for war, from the war stories read to kindergartners to inflame them against the American and Israeli enemies, to the training now being offered to the public in firing shoulder-mounted missiles, and, of course, the endless mass rallies that the regime organizes, where cries of “death to America” and “death to Israel” are de rigueur.

So far, the Americans have failed to open the Strait of Hormuz sufficiently — there is still a 95% decrease in the prewar tanker traffic through the Strait, and that has caused great hardship, with the rise in the price of gasoline and diesel in both the U.S. and in Europe. The American blockade of Iranian ports, preventing the country from exporting its own oil and other goods, has devastated the Iranian economy, but the fanatics in control in Tehran do not care about the impoverishment of their own population, as long as it does not threaten their regime’s existence.

The WSJ noted that “Iranian officials have hinted that their forces could conduct land incursions into neighboring countries, according to people familiar with the warnings.”

The Iranians have threatened that if the Americans attack, they will not respond just by attacking American bases in the region, but may use land forces to invade its neighbors, presumably including the UAE, Dubai, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. Would the resulting intra-Islamic fighting, from the viewpoint of the world’s Infidels, be a bad thing? Wouldn’t it use up men, materiel, and morale, on all sides, and lead to an even wider fracture between Shia Iran and its Sunni Arab neighbors?

The Saudis are in a panic. Houthi drones have hit their main airport four times, and is currently shut down. Despite spending $83 billion on weapons in just the last year, and despite Saudi Arabia’s huge fleet of 917 military aircraft, including F-15s, Eurofighter Typhons, Panavia Trnados, Lockeed C-130. Hercules and Airbus tankers, they have been unable to stop the Houthis, or to inflict enough damage from the air to push the Houthis back from the territory they have just seized in southwestern Yemen.

The Saudis have asked for American help, and so far it has been denied. It has a recently-signed mutual defense pact with Turkey and Pakistan, but so far, no forces from either country have arrived in the kingdom. The Houthi attacks on Riyadh’s airport have been a humiliation for Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman, who must also be worrying about attacks on the vast cities now under construction as part of the NEOM project in Tabuk Province. How many hundreds of billions have already been spent on this project, that swarms of Houthi missiles and drones could potentially devastate?

By the end of the year, we should know if the Houthis can widen their targets to include other Saudi cities and airbases, and inflict even more damage than they already have, or whether, with Turkish and Pakistani help, the Saudis can keep the Houthis bottled up in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia’s new allies can pound them in a massive air campaign.

As for Iran, it is preparing for war even as its economy craters. It may be surprised. The Americans and Israelis may choose not to attack militarily, but to let the economic war on Iran take its toll, to trigger the kind of internal revolt — with tens of millions of impoverished Iranians marching in the streets — that can bring down the regime.