Iran Reports Hitting 19 Ships While Trump Says 29 Got Out

Iran says its forces hit seven ships in the Strait of Hormuz with anti-ship cruise missiles in a single night, after hitting 12 the night before, a claim relayed on Dialogue Works by Nima Alkhorshid, who noted the figures were Tehran's own.¹ Its Revolutionary Guard navy also announced the capture of a second American underwater drone in the strait, a claim Washington has not confirmed.² Washington describes a different waterway. In a clip Daniel Davis played on his show, Donald Trump said: "We have total control of the Hormuz Strait. Massive amounts of oil are coming out of the Hormuz Strait. Last night we had 29 ships come out."³ Beside that reassurance sits the reported plan to resume bombing Iran once the 3 November midterms are past.

A week ago the analysts we track agreed on when that plan turns real: the weeks after the midterms. On 27 September they no longer agreed that it turns real at all. John Mearsheimer and Larry Johnson call the post-midterm promise bluster. Patrick Cockburn and Stanislav Krapivnik expect the strikes to come. Ray McGovern expects Trump to announce a deal first. Davis raises a possibility the others treat as secondary: that Iran, hitting ships and taking drones now, has decided not to wait for Washington's date. The question the split leaves open is whether the date is still Washington's to set.

Mearsheimer and Johnson: the promise is bluster

Mearsheimer, on Tom Switzer's programme, was asked about the reports that Trump intends to return to bombing after the election. "So, I think this is just more bluster by President Trump," he said.⁴ His reasons were practical. "The answer is because it's not going to work. Number one, and number two, we're running out of precious munitions."⁵

Johnson reached the same conclusion from what did not happen. After the Iranian strikes on shipping, he told Dialogue Works, "I fully anticipated that the US was going to retaliate last night and they didn't... that tells me that, despite all their tough talk, they're not in a position to do so."⁶ The post-midterm date, in his telling, is a debt that will not be paid. "That promise of after the midterm elections is like the character Wimpy from Popeye. He'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today."⁷

“That promise of after the midterm elections is like the character Wimpy from Popeye. He'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.”

Both men think the election removes the reason to wait rather than supplying one. Mearsheimer's case rests on the American economy: oil and diesel prices, a fertilizer shortage that will reach food prices this autumn, Treasury yields and mortgage rates rising together. "There are all sorts of reasons to think that Trump has to put an end to this war sooner rather than later."⁸ He cited reports that Republicans are almost guaranteed to lose the House and may lose the Senate too.⁹ Johnson expects them to be routed.¹⁰ A president who has lost Congress over the price of fuel, in their reading, does not emerge with a freer hand.

Cockburn and Krapivnik: the spiral brings the strikes back

Cockburn, on the same programme, was asked whether the United States, and probably Israel, would escalate again after the midterms. "I'm not confident, but I think it's quite likely. Partly because when you have escalation and counter escalation, it tends to get out of control."¹¹ The logic he described was a gambler's. "It's double or quits and so you get this sort of escalation counter escalation spiral."¹² Switzer then read aloud from Cockburn's own newspaper column, where the parallel is less hedged than his spoken answer: "As with Napoleon's doomed march on Moscow over two centuries ago, a world shattering disaster is every day more predictable and looks increasingly unavoidable."¹³

Krapivnik, on Dialogue Works, gave the same forecast without the hedge. "I don't think there's going to be any major strikes until after the elections. Then Trump is going to try to strike again."¹⁴ He reads the current pause as a measure of damage rather than restraint, arguing that American casualties are being understated.¹⁵ He also sets a ceiling on what renewed strikes could achieve. "Iran is a freaking natural fortress. There's no bigger fortress made by God anywhere on this world than Iran."¹⁶ A ground invasion, he said, has no scenario behind it short of Iran striking the American mainland.¹⁷ Bombing after the midterms, in his account, is likely precisely because it is the only move left.

Mearsheimer and Johnson read the pause as incapacity; Cockburn and Krapivnik read it as a spiral waiting for the ballots to be counted.

McGovern's deal, and the Iran that Davis says will not wait

McGovern, also on Dialogue Works, expects neither bombs nor bluster but a deal announced before the vote. Alkhorshid opened by noting that Iran's foreign minister said Tehran had still not received an official response from the United States, even after Trump publicly said he had rejected Iran's proposal,¹⁸ and that Axios reported Trump and his team are considering continuing the talks and messages with the Iranians.¹⁹ McGovern's reading of the leverage: "Araghchi and the Iranians have the high cards. Trump needs the strait opened, and the Bab-el-Mandeb for the Red Sea also."²⁰ His forecast: "I think that the chances are that things will work out in a way that Trump will be able to say before the midterm elections that he's worked out a deal and calm down the markets and maybe the oil and gas will flow a little more freely."²¹ He thinks the Gulf states may conclude within a couple of weeks that American protection is gone and "fall into line and make a peace" with Iran.²² The one actor who could wreck it, he said of Benjamin Netanyahu, is in Jerusalem. "What would prevent this guy from unleashing five or seven nuclear weapons into various parts of Iran? That keeps me up at night."²³

Davis's contribution is to doubt that the date is Washington's to set. He answered Trump's clip with the pump. "Then why is your diesel over $6.50 a gallon on average in the United States? Why is your regular gas over $5 a gallon on average in the United States?"²⁴ The president, he said, "has successfully talked his way out of all kinds of things. But physical constraints don't give a damn what he says, what words come out of his mouth."²⁵ Johnson made the same charge against Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Energy Secretary Chris Wright: "For Bessent and Wright to insist that they're getting 22 million barrels a day, they're getting more out now supposedly than prior to the war, it's just a damn lie."²⁶ Half of Gulf production capacity, he said, may need "maybe six months, a year or more" of repair.²⁷

Davis's conclusion is that "everything is being set up right now to return to war."²⁸ He set out three paths and said he does not know which Trump will choose: wait until after the midterms, strike before them, or lose the choice altogether, because "Iran may say, 'Well, we're not just going to sit around and wait until after November the 3rd. We're going to take action of our own to force your hand to lift the blockade.'"²⁹ He spoke with Tehran's claim of 19 ships hit in two nights already on the record.

Put the four readings together and the agreement of a week ago has not collapsed so much as been overtaken. Mearsheimer and Johnson say the bombs will not come; Cockburn and Krapivnik say they will; McGovern says a deal comes first. Each still treats the midterms as the hinge. Davis is the one who allows that the hinge might not hold, because Iran, he said, may decide not to wait until after 3 November and may act instead to force Washington's hand on the blockade.

Two Ukrainian cauldrons and a Lithuanian evacuation drill

Alexander Mercouris says the encirclement in the Kharkov region is nearly finished. "I think it is likely that the full cauldron, the whole cauldron will be cleared next week and then the battle of Velikiy Burluk will begin."³⁰ Further south, at Orekhov in the Zaporozhye region, he gives it "probably we're looking at one or two weeks at most and the node will fall and a large Ukrainian force will have been destroyed as well."³¹ He also noted that Germany's foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, met Sergei Lavrov in New York on 26 September, and read out what Wadephul told German television afterwards: "We can defend ourselves. We can fight back and we will do so."³²

Nate, on Canadian Prepper, turned to the Baltic. "For the first time, Lithuania is testing a detailed national evacuation plan. Yes, evacuating 1.7 million people, including coordination with Poland and movement through the strategically vital Suwalki corridor."³³ He also relayed a report that "the Russian deadhand nuclear retaliation system may have been upgraded and reactivated according to an investigation of millions of Russian military procurement documents."³⁴

Sources

1. Iranian reports, relayed by Nima Alkhorshid, Dialogue Works · "at least seven ships were hit by cruise anti-ship missiles... the night before last night, they hit 12 of them" · watch ▶ 8:24
2. Iranian reports, relayed by Nima Alkhorshid, Dialogue Works · "IRGC Navy announced that they captured a second US military underwater drone in the Strait of Hormuz" · watch ▶ 1:08
3. Donald Trump (clip played by Daniel Davis), Daniel Davis / Deep Dive · "We have total control of the Hormuz Strait... Last night we had 29 ships come out." · watch ▶ 0:34
4. John Mearsheimer, Tom Switzer · "So, I think this is just more bluster by President Trump." · watch ▶ 5:05
5. John Mearsheimer, Tom Switzer · "it's not going to work. Number one, and number two, we're running out of precious munitions." · watch ▶ 4:34
6. Larry Johnson, Dialogue Works · "I fully anticipated that the US was going to retaliate last night and they didn't" · watch ▶ 34:39
7. Larry Johnson, Dialogue Works · "That promise of after the midterm elections is like the character Wimpy from Popeye." · watch ▶ 39:33
8. John Mearsheimer, Tom Switzer · "There are all sorts of reasons to think that Trump has to put an end to this war sooner rather than later." · watch ▶ 28:13
9. John Mearsheimer, Tom Switzer · citing reports, Republicans almost guaranteed to lose the House and may lose the Senate · watch ▶ 28:41
10. Larry Johnson, Dialogue Works · Republicans will be routed in the midterms · watch ▶ 33:23
11. Patrick Cockburn, Tom Switzer · "I'm not confident, but I think it's quite likely." · watch ▶ 36:13
12. Patrick Cockburn, Tom Switzer · "It's double or quits and so you get this sort of escalation counter escalation spiral." · watch ▶ 36:38
13. Patrick Cockburn's column, read by Tom Switzer, Tom Switzer · "As with Napoleon's doomed march on Moscow over two centuries ago, a world shattering disaster is every day more predictable" · watch ▶ 39:47
14. Stanislav Krapivnik, Dialogue Works · "I don't think there's going to be any major strikes until after the elections. Then Trump is going to try to strike again." · watch ▶ 7:37
15. Stanislav Krapivnik, Dialogue Works · "You're not going to have the size of the damage that we've seen without a whole lot more casualties." · watch ▶ 6:34
16. Stanislav Krapivnik, Dialogue Works · "Iran is a freaking natural fortress." · watch ▶ 21:27
17. Stanislav Krapivnik, Dialogue Works · "there's no scenario, absolutely no scenario, short of Iran striking the US mainland and doing a lot of damage that would motivate Americans to do it" · watch ▶ 28:37
18. Nima Alkhorshid, Dialogue Works · "The Iranian foreign minister today said they have not received an official response from the United States." · watch ▶ 0:46
19. Nima Alkhorshid, Dialogue Works · Axios reported Trump and his team are considering continuing the talks and messages with the Iranians · watch ▶ 0:33
20. Ray McGovern, Dialogue Works · "Araghchi and the Iranians have the high cards. Trump needs the strait opened, and the Bab-el-Mandeb for the Red Sea also." · watch ▶ 15:03
21. Ray McGovern, Dialogue Works · "Trump will be able to say before the midterm elections that he's worked out a deal and calm down the markets" · watch ▶ 14:30
22. Ray McGovern, Dialogue Works · the Gulf states may "fall into line and make a peace" with Iran within a couple of weeks · watch ▶ 11:51
23. Ray McGovern, Dialogue Works · "What would prevent this guy from unleashing five or seven nuclear weapons into various parts of Iran? That keeps me up at night." · watch ▶ 24:37
24. Daniel Davis, Daniel Davis / Deep Dive · "Then why is your diesel over $6.50 a gallon on average in the United States?" · watch ▶ 3:21
25. Daniel Davis, Daniel Davis / Deep Dive · "physical constraints don't give a damn what he says, what words come out of his mouth" · watch ▶ 4:15
26. Larry Johnson, Dialogue Works · "For Bessent and Wright to insist that they're getting 22 million barrels a day... it's just a damn lie." · watch ▶ 23:25
27. Larry Johnson, Dialogue Works · as much as 50 percent of Gulf production capability destroyed, repair "maybe six months, a year or more" · watch ▶ 5:14
28. Daniel Davis, Daniel Davis / Deep Dive · "Everything is being set up right now to return to war." · watch ▶ 12:26
29. Daniel Davis, Daniel Davis / Deep Dive · "Iran may say, 'Well, we're not just going to sit around and wait until after November the 3rd.'" · watch ▶ 12:55
30. Alexander Mercouris, Alexander Mercouris · "the whole cauldron will be cleared next week and then the battle of Velikiy Burluk will begin" · watch ▶ 61:29
31. Alexander Mercouris, Alexander Mercouris · "one or two weeks at most and the node will fall and a large Ukrainian force will have been destroyed as well" · watch ▶ 80:48
32. Johann Wadephul, relayed by Alexander Mercouris, Alexander Mercouris · "We can defend ourselves. We can fight back and we will do so." · watch ▶ 25:41
33. Nate, Canadian Prepper · "For the first time, Lithuania is testing a detailed national evacuation plan... evacuating 1.7 million people" · watch ▶ 9:43
34. Nate, Canadian Prepper · relaying a report that "the Russian deadhand nuclear retaliation system may have been upgraded and reactivated" · watch ▶ 3:08

By Ruins Report, a daily synthesis of what our tracked analysts said, not original reporting. Every numbered claim is sourced, dated, and timestamped above.