The Iran Plan: Seize Islands, Hit the Grid, Fire the Planner

Sen. Chris Murphy came out of his briefing on the Pentagon's plan for Iran on Thursday 29 October and gave his verdict in three words: "Their plan is insane." It would, he said, "lead to devastating escalation and the likely destruction of our commitment to the rule of law."¹ The same day, the Wall Street Journal reported, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Dan Caine, the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, and the CENTCOM commander, Adm. Brad Cooper, briefed Trump in person on attack options that could be used any time between now and just after the 3 November midterms.² The Atlantic reported that Hegseth had removed Lt. Gen. Brett Sylvia, the Joint Staff's chief planner.³ And what Murphy heard, as relayed on the shows, gave the "short, intense" campaign the Gulf was told to expect a shape: a short-duration operation, civilian infrastructure on the target list, and a landing on Iranian islands, Kharg and Qeshm among the names.⁴

The question is no longer whether Washington means to go back in. It is whether what is being planned is a war plan or a production, and whether the difference matters once the first troops are ashore.

Robert Barnes put the intent plainly. Trump "is inclined to go back in to Iran kinetically after the midterms," and the object is not the grid: "he wants something visually dramatic that communicates winning, and he believes that is seizing the islands."⁵ If the decision were made today, Barnes said, Trump is "70% inclined to go back into Iran with some dramatic military escalation with troops on the ground."⁶ His own Pentagon has warned him the result would be "not the visual victory Trump perceives but a visual debacle of a bunch of US soldiers taken out or effectively held hostage," and Barnes put the generals' objection in a sentence: "We can get them there. It's keeping them there and getting them out that is the problem."⁷

Daniel Davis did the arithmetic on a map. Qeshm, the largest of the islands, is a mass of towns and open ground, and "you'd need what, 75, 100,000 troops to take this island, and we don't have that. We have maybe 10,000 total."⁸ The smaller islands offered as alternatives, Larak among them, are smaller targets still inside the range of every missile, drone and artillery piece on the mainland: "nowhere to hide there. You'd be just sitting ducks." Larry Johnson, who read Murphy's account of Kharg and Qeshm on the air, needed two words for it: "Absolute madness."⁴

Scott Horton's objection runs through the last round. Trump "really called it quits on April the 8th ... because it just wasn't working. He knew it wasn't working and the Pentagon told him it wasn't working."⁹ A campaign on the mainland is beyond discussion; "it's hard for me to imagine any kind of military plan on the mainland of Iran that even 50,000 guys could do anything with."¹⁰ And an actual invasion, in his reading, would not survive Washington: "if Trump tried to do some Harry Truman thing and send in tens of thousands of men ... to invade Iran, I think his own cabinet would depose him," with no part of the establishment behind him.¹¹ Darryl Cooper added the detail that makes a short war long. Iran's restraint has been a choice: "there should be no doubt whatsoever that anything that they haven't been hitting, it's not because they can't, it's because they've been choosing not to use their ammunition on that stuff."¹²

That is the case for calling the plan a production. The case that it is coming anyway is just as broad. Johnson read the Patriot battery now moving from Texas to Israel as "a sign that Trump is deadass serious about restarting this war" and also "a meaningless gesture": "those units are completely ineffective against Iran's ballistic missiles"¹³ and "the United States probably has less than 700 PAC-3 missiles left in its entire inventory worldwide," a stock that a thousand Iranian ballistic missiles "could wipe out."¹⁴ He expects the order whatever Tuesday brings: "regardless of win or lose, I think that they're going to go forward with this attack on Iran."¹⁵ Lawrence Wilkerson allowed that Netanyahu's weakened position might change things "a little bit at least, if not a lot," then closed the door: "not that there won't be an attack, there will be."¹⁶

Alexander Mercouris went furthest: the big strike after the midterms "is now a certainty."¹⁷ Trump may believe it will be a short, quick strike on bridges and oil and gas facilities, "but I don't think it's going to end quickly," and there is "a very high probability that the Iranians will respond by conducting similar attacks of that kind themselves against the Americans' Middle East allies."¹⁸ Against the assumption that Iran is exhausted, he argued the reverse: Tehran is "in a stronger position both economically, which may surprise some people, and militarily than they were back in February."¹⁹

“Trump will find that he started a war, which is an easy thing to do, but a very difficult war to end.”

The shared read is not that the plan fails on the beach; it may well get ashore. It is that the plan is built to produce a picture rather than an outcome, and the picture cannot be held. Davis took that to its end. "This is not 1953, folks. You're not just going to assassinate somebody or have a coup and bring somebody else in."²⁰ A campaign sold as the way to keep Iran from a bomb "might be the final push to get them to have a nuclear weapon."²¹ He alone said the CENTCOM commander should refuse: "Admiral Cooper should resign. If he's ordered to give the commands to launch this war, he should say, I cannot in good conscience do that."²²

Why plan a war this way? Barnes's answer is the one the others reach by different roads: the plan is shaped by what Trump needs to be seen to have done, not by what the force can do. "His ego is driving him entirely," and the only thing that would bring Iran back to the table, "releasing some sanctions," withdrawing the blockade and the forces, pressing Israel out of Lebanon and Gaza, is what Trump will not do.²³ Mercouris added a second motive. A Democratic House means impeachment; "how do you prevent that impeachment from gaining steam? By launching a war which some Democrats support and which divides the Democratic Party."²⁴ Murphy's own answer, on the clip above, is that the president asked for a plan and the planners gave him one. The general who ran the planning shop was fired this week, for leaking, as the Pentagon says, or for objecting, as Davis's sources told him.²⁵ None of the analysts claimed to know which. They noted only that the objection, if that is what it was, matched their own.

Does the round come, and when?

Max Blumenthal, Judging Freedom

"I think a third round of conflict with Iran becomes almost inevitable" after the midterms, with Netanyahu using it to force unity.

DW

David Woo, Mario Nawfal

Woo, a former Bank of America strategist, puts the odds of the war resuming before the midterm election "just as high as after the election."

JJ

Jim Jatras, Rachel Blevins

Jatras, a former US diplomat and Senate foreign-policy adviser: "There will be a retaliation and I think Israel will not be spared this time."

Russian diesel for Norfolk, Kiev's missiles cancelled, and a Saudi refinery burning

Sal Mercogliano traced the strangest cargo of the week: Russian diesel bound for the United States under an OFAC general license issued on 9 October and good to 7 April 2027. Tankers are heading for Norfolk and Corpus Christi, a third is due in New York harbor on 7 November, and US distillate stocks sit near a five-year low.²⁹ The 2022 import ban can be waived only if Russia meets three conditions, and with a Russian unmanned surface vessel having just sunk a Greek-owned container ship off Bulgaria, "We've got Russians attacking ships of NATO allies in NATO waters." His summary: "Ironically, you're seeing the importation of diesel into the US from Russia because of the US war with Iran."³⁰

Alexander Mercouris, on his own channel, reported that Firepoint has announced production of Ukraine's Flamingo cruise missile "completely terminated" and the FP7 and FP9 ballistic programs cancelled, after Russian strikes "hunting and attacking and destroying every laboratory which has been involved in this program."³¹ On the ground, "contrary to all my expectations, instead of the Russian advance slowing down, it appears to be speeding up."³² George Beebe, a former CIA Russia analyst now at the Quincy Institute, looked ahead to the US-Russia-Ukraine talks planned for Abu Dhabi in November, without the Europeans, and ruled out the one thing Kiev wants from them: "the notion that the Russians would agree to some sort of temporary ceasefire while peace talks proceed, I think is just a pipe dream."³³

Ansar Allah claimed on Thursday morning to have destroyed another Saudi refinery, and by the time the shows aired nobody had denied it. Douglas Macgregor, citing estimates that the Saudi outages account for close to 40 percent of the world's refined products, drew the conclusion: "Saudi Arabia as we've known it is going to cease to exist. I don't think it's going to survive the war."³⁴ Mohammad Marandi, from Tehran, said the same of the man who runs it: "this is not going to end well for the Saudi regime, and I don't think Mohammed bin Salman could stay in power for much longer."³⁵

Sources

1. Sen. Chris Murphy, as read on Daniel Davis / Deep Dive · After a briefing on the plan if operations restart: "Their plan is insane," it will "lead to devastating escalation and the likely destruction of our commitment to the rule of law" · watch ▶ 1:04
2. Wall Street Journal, as read on Daniel Davis / Deep Dive · Gen. Dan Caine, Pete Hegseth and Adm. Brad Cooper briefed Trump in person on attack plans for Iran that could take place any time between now and just after the midterms · watch ▶ 0:01
3. The Atlantic, as read on Provoked · Lt. Gen. Brett Sylvia, chief planner on the Joint Staff, ousted by Hegseth · watch ▶ 10:47
4. Larry Johnson, Danny Haiphong · Reading Murphy's account: the plan is to seize Kharg and Qeshm islands in the Gulf; "Absolute madness" · watch ▶ 6:46
5. Robert Barnes, Dialogue Works · Trump "is inclined to go back in to Iran kinetically after the midterms"; "he wants something visually dramatic that communicates winning, and he believes that is seizing the islands" · watch ▶ 0:57
6. Robert Barnes, Dialogue Works · "If it were today Trump is 70% inclined to go back into Iran with some dramatic military escalation with troops on the ground" · watch ▶ 9:16
7. Robert Barnes, Dialogue Works · The Pentagon's warning of "a visual debacle of a bunch of US soldiers taken out or effectively held hostage"; "We can get them there. It's keeping them there and getting them out that is the problem" · watch ▶ 5:24
8. Daniel Davis, Daniel Davis / Deep Dive · "You'd need what, 75, 100,000 troops to take this island, and we don't have that. We have maybe 10,000 total"; on the smaller islands, "nowhere to hide there. You'd be just sitting ducks" · watch ▶ 27:16
9. Scott Horton, Provoked · Trump "really called it quits on April the 8th ... because it just wasn't working. He knew it wasn't working and the Pentagon told him it wasn't working" · watch ▶ 16:32
10. Scott Horton, Provoked · "It's hard for me to imagine any kind of military plan on the mainland of Iran that even 50,000 guys could do anything with" · watch ▶ 14:10
11. Scott Horton, Provoked · "If Trump tried to do some Harry Truman thing and send in tens of thousands of men ... to invade Iran, I think his own cabinet would depose him"; no Pentagon, intelligence or think-tank backing · watch ▶ 12:47
12. Darryl Cooper, Provoked · "Anything that they haven't been hitting, it's not because they can't, it's because they've been choosing not to use their ammunition on that stuff" · watch ▶ 6:55
13. Larry Johnson, Danny Haiphong · The Patriot battery for Israel is "a sign that Trump is deadass serious about restarting this war" and "a meaningless gesture"; "those units are completely ineffective against Iran's ballistic missiles" · watch ▶ 12:58
14. Larry Johnson, Danny Haiphong · "The United States probably has less than 700 PAC-3 missiles left in its entire inventory worldwide"; a thousand Iranian ballistic missiles "could wipe out the entire remainder" · watch ▶ 13:03
15. Larry Johnson, Danny Haiphong · "Regardless of win or lose, I think that they're going to go forward with this attack on Iran" · watch ▶ 13:54
16. Lawrence Wilkerson, Danny Haiphong · Netanyahu's position may change things "a little bit at least, if not a lot"; "not that there won't be an attack, there will be" · watch ▶ 5:14
17. Alexander Mercouris, The Duran · "We are going to get this big strike on Iran and it's going to come after the midterms ... I think it is now a certainty" · watch ▶ 4:51
18. Alexander Mercouris, The Duran · "I don't think it's going to end quickly"; "a very high probability that the Iranians will respond by conducting similar attacks of that kind themselves against the Americans' Middle East allies" · watch ▶ 5:38
19. Alexander Mercouris, The Duran · Iran is "in a stronger position both economically, which may surprise some people, and militarily than they were back in February" · watch ▶ 7:15
20. Daniel Davis, Daniel Davis / Deep Dive · "This is not 1953, folks. You're not just going to assassinate somebody or have a coup and bring somebody else in" · watch ▶ 16:05
21. Daniel Davis, Daniel Davis / Deep Dive · "This might be the final push to get them to have a nuclear weapon" · watch ▶ 20:59
22. Daniel Davis, Daniel Davis / Deep Dive · "Admiral Cooper should resign. If he's ordered to give the commands to launch this war, he should say, I cannot in good conscience do that" · watch ▶ 24:08
23. Robert Barnes, Dialogue Works · "The only thing that will get Iran back into the table now is actual action, is releasing some sanctions," withdrawing the blockade and the forces, pressing Israel out of Lebanon and Gaza; "His ego is driving him entirely" · watch ▶ 4:21
24. Alexander Mercouris, The Duran · "How do you prevent that impeachment from gaining steam? By launching a war which some Democrats support and which divides the Democratic Party" · watch ▶ 15:01
25. Daniel Davis, Daniel Davis / Deep Dive · The Pentagon says the Joint Staff general was fired for leaking; Davis's own sources say he was removed because "he is not behind this insane attack plan for Iran" · watch ▶ 2:36
26. Max Blumenthal, Judging Freedom · "I think a third round of conflict with Iran becomes almost inevitable" · watch ▶ 8:08
27. David Woo, Mario Nawfal · The probability of the war resuming "before the midterm election is just as high as after the election" · watch ▶ 1:09
28. Jim Jatras, Rachel Blevins · "There will be a retaliation and I think Israel will not be spared this time" · watch ▶ 11:42
29. Sal Mercogliano, What's Going on With Shipping? · OFAC general license of 9 October permits Russian diesel imports through 7 April 2027; tankers bound for Norfolk and Corpus Christi, a third due in New York/New Jersey on 7 November; US distillate stocks near a five-year low · watch ▶ 5:29
30. Sal Mercogliano, What's Going on With Shipping? · "We've got Russians attacking ships of NATO allies in NATO waters"; "Ironically, you're seeing the importation of diesel into the US from Russia because of the US war with Iran" · watch ▶ 11:41
31. Alexander Mercouris, Alexander Mercouris · Firepoint says Flamingo production is "completely terminated" and the FP7 and FP9 programs cancelled; the Russians have been "hunting and attacking and destroying every laboratory which has been involved in this program" · watch ▶ 9:16
32. Alexander Mercouris, Alexander Mercouris · "Contrary to all my expectations, instead of the Russian advance slowing down, it appears to be speeding up" · watch ▶ 31:00
33. George Beebe, Glenn Diesen · "The notion that the Russians would agree to some sort of temporary ceasefire while peace talks proceed, I think is just a pipe dream" · watch ▶ 13:47
34. Douglas Macgregor, Judging Freedom · After the Houthi claim on another Saudi refinery: "Saudi Arabia as we've known it is going to cease to exist. I don't think it's going to survive the war" · watch ▶ 4:12
35. Mohammad Marandi, Judging Freedom · "This is not going to end well for the Saudi regime, and I don't think Mohammed bin Salman could stay in power for much longer" · watch ▶ 17:56

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