RT | October 2, 2026

Washington is sending more warships and troops to the Middle East as US President Donald Trump is considering the resumption of large-scale strikes against Iran after the midterms, AP has reported.

Trump told reporters on Thursday that he has “to make a decision: either Iran signs a very fair deal, or it won’t exist any longer.” In a Time magazine interview published the same day, he said that new attacks on the Islamic Republic were “possible” after the US election on November 3, but declined to reveal any further details.

In its article on Thursday, AP said that a third aircraft carrier and some 9,000 additional service members, including 7,000 sailors and 2,000 marines, are currently on their way to the area of the conflict with Iran.

It would increase the US military presence in the Middle East to more than 20,000, which is “an unusually high number,” it stressed.

The forces on the move include the USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group, with the cruiser USS Chosin and the USS Makin Island amphibious readiness group, which includes the USS John P. Murtha and USS Anchorage amphibious landing ships, an unnamed American official told the agency.

With the USS George H.W. Bush and the USS George Washington already being deployed, three US aircraft carriers could be in the Middle East simultaneously as early as the end of October, according to the source.

Washington last had as many carriers in the region in April at the height of the American-Israeli missile exchanges with Iran. Before that, it happened back in 2003.

Axios reported on Friday, citing a US official, that it wasn’t yet clear if the USS Theodore Roosevelt would join the two carriers or replace one of them.

Washington also sent two additional Patriot missile batteries to protect oil and gas facilities in Saudi Arabia and Qatar in recent weeks, according to Axios. It was done to make it easier to get permission from Riyadh to use Saudi airspace for possible strikes on Iran, the outlet explained.

When asked by Time if the conflict with Tehran would harm the Republican Party’s chances in the midterms, Trump first acknowledged that “it’s possible,” but then said that “it should help, because Iran will not have a nuclear weapon.”

A poll by AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, which was published on Thursday, suggested that some 70% of Americans disapprove of the war with Iran.

After the initial US-Israeli attack on the Islamic Republic in late February, Trump claimed that the conflict will be over in a few weeks, but it’s still ongoing, with the diplomatic process remaining in a stalemate.

Trump told Time that he rejected Iran’s latest peace proposal, made during the UN General Assembly last week, because “things that I wouldn’t have approved a year ago I wouldn’t have today.”

In September, Iranian Parliament speaker and top negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf warned that further aggressive actions by the US will be met with “faster, heavier and more painful” retaliation by Tehran.

“The Americans have surely understood that the era of proportionate responses has come to an end and our recent strikes against aggressor bases were only a start,” Ghalibaf said.

The war between the United States and Iran is no longer just a confrontation between Washington and Tehran. A second contest is taking shape alongside and behind it. China is not fighting the United States directly, but its economic, technological and diplomatic links to Iran are complicating Washington’s strategy and ability to win the conflict. […]

The post The China factor behind the Iran war appeared first on Asia Times.

Daniel Davis / Deep Dive – October 1, 2026

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By Jamal Kanj | MEMO | October 1, 2026

Since the start of the latest made-for-Israel war, Donald Trump and his surrogates have repeatedly promised Americans that it would be a few weeks and oil prices would soon crash below prewar levels. Instead, it was every promise that crashed. When those promises failed to materialize, the message shifted: the war is worth the price to stop Iran from becoming a nuclear power.

But what if Iran did become a nuclear power? How would that pose a greater threat to the U.S. than North Korea or Russia already do? Or is the real concern not a risk to America, but a challenge to the regional hegemony of a foreign nuclear power, Israel?

For more than thirty years, according to Israel’s fiction, Iran was on the verge of becoming a nuclear-armed state. That fictitious deadline has come and gone repeatedly, yet Benjamin Netanyahu has been recycling  the same lie since 1992. The Israeli lies and deceit persisted even though, unlike Israel, Iran’s nuclear program was subject to strict international monitoring.

Still, Trump, at Netanyahu’s urging, walked away from an agreement that imposed some of the most stringent and verifiable restrictions ever placed on a country’s nuclear program. Now Americans are being asked to pay in blood and billions of dollars for abandoning a diplomatic agreement that had kept Iran’s nuclear program under unprecedented international scrutiny and helped contain the very threat now being used to justify the war.

The hypocrisy is impossible to overlook. Iran has been subjected to relentless demands for transparency and inspections, while Israel’s own nuclear arsenal, built in part with materials stolen from the U.S., remains shielded from any international inspection.

Yet somehow Iran’s ambitious know-how is the existential nuclear threat, not Israel’s nuclear bombs.

American consumers have long been the victims of a disinformation campaign, and now they are being forced to pay the price for a war sold to them on false pretenses. The most recent misinformation claiming the Strait of Hormuz is open and oil is flowing. The president said it on Fox, and the outgoing White House press secretary told Fox & Friends that the U.S. is essentially controlling the strait and that it remains open. These claims leave only two possibilities: either the statements are outright lies, or oil companies are gouging the consumer.

The UK Maritime Trade Operations Centre reported that commercial traffic through the strait remains about 75 percent below pre-conflict levels. It also tallied dozens of projectile strikes on vessels in just the past two months.

Three quarters less traffic is not a sign of an open strait. Shipowners and insurers know this, so do traders and so the climbing numbers at the gas pump.

The market has already made its judgment, and every American who fills a tank can see it. It is past time for Washington to stop lying.

For the average consumer, the pump is where it felt. Regular gasoline was below $3 a gallon before the U.S. was dragged into another one of made-for-Israeli wars. Families are paying more to get to work, truckers are paying more to move goods, and those costs show up in the price of groceries.

Meanwhile, American oil companies are pumping at record levels. Exxon and Chevron are producing record volumes from oil fields on American soil, thousands of miles from the Strait of Hormuz. Their production costs have not changed. What has changed is Israel’s war surcharge consumers are being forced to pay.

Chevron reported the largest quarterly net profit in its history, $12.1 billion. Exxon made $14.5 billion in the same quarter, about $160 million a day. Refining has become more lucrative. Gross refining margins more than doubled, soaring from a typical $20 crack spread to as much as $60.

Meanwhile, Trump dangles a pie-in-the-sky deal with Venezuela as a distraction from consumers’ mounting anxiety, while his administration stands by as oil companies exploit overseas crises for record profits. These companies have no reason to lower prices when war has handed them a windfall. This is what a war of choice looks like on the ground: American consumers are forced to pay the price, while oil executives in Texas turn a crisis into a lucrative business opportunity.

American consumers deserve more than false promises. If the Strait is open, then oil prices should be coming down. If it is not, then stop treating consumers as an audience whose emotions must be managed rather than citizens entitled to hear the truth. Since the war started, every week, like millions of Americans, I fill my gas tank, and the Israeli war tax is higher than it was the week before.

No, Mr. President, that is not “worth the price” to pay for a war fabricated in Israel, a repeat of the made-for-Israel war in Iraq 23 years ago.

This is not a war to end Iran’s fictitious nuclear power. It is a war paid for by taxpayers’ money and American blood to ensure that Israel remains the only absolute nuclear power in the Middle East.

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Al Mayadeen | September 30, 2026

The US-Israeli war on Iran has exposed a widening gap between Washington’s promises to protect its allies and its ability to sustain that protection, with expensive missile interceptors being consumed faster than American manufacturers can replace them, The Atlantic reported.

In an investigation titled “The THAAD Delusion,” Christopher Leonard argues that the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system became a cornerstone of US security arrangements in the Middle East despite being developed for a more limited battlefield role.

Iran’s ability to maintain missile attacks has challenged the assumption underpinning that role: that American forces would survive an opening barrage, then rapidly destroy the launchers responsible.

Instead, a prolonged conflict has placed mounting pressure on interceptor supplies, exposing weaknesses in US military planning, weapons procurement, and industrial capacity.

A missile shield built around a short war

According to the report, THAAD was originally intended to protect critical military deployments during the initial phase of a conflict, allowing US aircraft and naval forces time to respond.

Washington subsequently promoted the system as a central component of broader missile shields for regional allies, including the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

The distinction has become consequential during the war on Iran. While THAAD has intercepted ballistic missiles effectively, Leonard writes that Washington neither accumulated enough interceptors for sustained operations nor established the manufacturing capacity needed to replace them quickly.

US interceptor stocks depleted by sustained warfare

Drawing on estimates from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the report says US forces used more than 150 THAAD interceptors during the 12-day war in 2025 and another 190 to 290 during “Operation Epic Fury.”

CSIS estimated that approximately 250 interceptors remained in the US stockpile. The report notes that additional deliveries could affect those calculations, while Washington has not disclosed its remaining inventories.

The depletion extends beyond THAAD. The investigation also described heavy consumption of Patriot interceptors and offensive weapons, including Tomahawk and JASSM missiles, placing pressure on multiple parts of the US arsenal.

Iran’s sustained attacks strain expensive defenses

The investigation identifies Iran’s combination of ballistic missiles and comparatively inexpensive drones as a major challenge to American defensive planning.

THAAD interceptors cost about $12 million each, according to the report. Repeated Iranian missile launches therefore impose substantial financial and logistical costs even when interceptions succeed.

At the same time, Shahed drones, which the article puts at $20,000 to $50,000 apiece, require separate defenses because THAAD cannot intercept them.

This combination forces defending militaries to confront different threats simultaneously while managing limited ammunition. The report describes regional forces using helicopters and costly air-to-air missiles against drones as pressure on their defenses increased.

Leonard’s central argument is that interception accuracy alone cannot deliver the lasting security Washington offered its partners when the attacker can sustain successive waves.

Industrial weaknesses slow replenishment

The article traces the shortage to years of budget decisions that favored major weapons platforms over ammunition reserves, alongside a concentrated defense industry dependent on vulnerable networks of specialized suppliers.

THAAD missiles require intricate assembly and components sourced from hundreds of companies. Expanding production involves increasing capacity throughout that network, rather than simply adding workers at a final assembly plant.

Pentagon assessments cited in the report found that substantial increases in production for several missile systems could require billions of dollars and take years.

The investigation also scrutinizes defense contractors’ spending priorities. Lockheed Martin distributed $6.8 billion through dividends and share buybacks in 2024, while RTX returned $3.7 billion to shareholders, even as industry representatives argued that factory expansion required advance funding or long-term government contracts.

Washington’s protection promises face scrutiny

The implications reach beyond ammunition shortages. US weapons sales helped bind allied militaries to Washington through shared equipment and reliance on American supplies, the report notes.

However, delayed deliveries and competing wartime demands have prompted some partners to seek alternatives, raising questions about the reliability of those arrangements.

In the Middle East, Leonard argues, attacks on infrastructure and military installations have also challenged the perception that hosting US forces guarantees security.

Stephen Wertheim, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told The Atlantic that the consequences could reshape Washington’s regional position.

“We could be moving away from a Middle East that can be fairly described as being an American-dominated region,” he said.

By Andrew Day | The American Conservative | September 29, 2026 

No one would claim that the Iran War has been a political godsend for President Donald Trump and the Republican Party. But some Israel-First conservatives are willing to say—and lately have been incessantly saying—that the Iran War hasn’t been a political scourge.

Those Israel-First conservatives are wrong, even if the devil is, at least partly, hidden in the details. The Iran War has damaged Trump’s approval ratings, consumed his presidency, and darkened the GOP’s prospects in the upcoming midterm elections.

A chief proponent of the argument that Trump hasn’t suffered all that much from the Iran War is Ben Shapiro of the Daily Wire. Shapiro’s political analysis is plainly motivated by the fact that he was a loud and influential proponent of the war who promised—falsely, as it turned out—that Iran couldn’t close the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for the global energy trade.

“There’s an op right now to pretend that the real reason for President Trump’s unpopularity is foreign policy, but that is not true, by the polling data, it is not true,” said Shapiro on a recent episode of his podcast. “The reality is that Americans have affordability concerns, President Trump came into office saying he was going to alleviate the affordability concerns. He has not in fact alleviated the affordability concerns, and therefore, his polling numbers have consistently slid since Liberation Day.”

This is a bit like me saying my wife isn’t mad at me because of the drinking, but because I drunkenly crashed the car.

The Iran War, as everyone now knows, has driven up prices at the pump—prices which, unfortunately for Trump, are prominently displayed on every major street across the country. On the eve of the war, regular gasoline averaged $2.98 per gallon. Today, at the time of writing, the average price is $4.48. Americans are notoriously averse to high gasoline prices and tend to punish presidents over the issue, sometimes even when the president can’t justifiably be blamed.

But make no mistake: Virtually every sentient adult understands that 1) oil comes from the Middle East, 2) Trump started a big war in the region, and 3) gas prices shot up right afterwards. And again, even if Americans didn’t grok the connection between the war and the gas-price spike, the latter would still have hurt Trump politically, and it would still be a knock-on effect of the former.

It’s not just prices at the pump that have gone up because of the war. Groceries and other consumer goods travel across this vast land on tractor-trailers that run on diesel and get a lot fewer miles per gallon than even your Uncle Larry’s F-350. Diesel prices have smashed records and now sit at around $6.50, up from $3.76 before the war.

No wonder truckers are furious, prompting rumors of an imminent strike.

And no wonder the Iran War has contributed to general inflation in America. Anyone who has been reading the official economic reports knows the war is responsible for more than a third of recent inflation.

Before the war, inflation was trending down, only a couple ticks away from the Federal Reserve’s target of 2 percent. It seems likely that Trump, if he hadn’t started his dumb war in the Middle East, would have garnered praise for presiding over declining inflation and that the Fed would have cut interest rates, juicing economic growth. Instead, inflation now sits at 3.4 percent.

(As an aside, this weekend I traveled to Istanbul, where many Middle Easterners of various nationalities complained to me that Americans only oppose the war because of the gas prices. That’s simply not true. The war has been unpopular since day one, when all that Americans knew was the American-Israeli strikes had killed Iranian leaders including the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.)

Shapiro, ever the neoconservative, insinuated in the quote above that the decline in Trump’s approval rating owes more to his tariffs than to his war. The data doesn’t back that up, as the conservative commentator and election analyst Ryan Girdusky noted on X in response to new survey data. “The most eye opening part of this poll is that Trump’s approval rating and the strength of the economy went up right after Liberation Day,” Girdusky said. “Fell slightly afterward and then plummeted at the start of the Iran War.”

Shapiro has unwittingly helped uncover another, subtler, way in which the Iran War has indirectly damaged Trump’s approval ratings and, by extension, the Republican Party brand. Shapiro recently went on Fox News to commiserate with the host Mark Levin—another Israel-Firster and warmonger—over all those dastardly antiwar conservatives blaming the Iran War for everything.

“Iran is a 4-percent issue with the American people,” Levin said, as Shapiro nodded in agreement. Levin was referring to Fox News polling that shows not many Americans name the Iran War as their top issue. “So, whatever happens in the midterms, it doesn’t appear that Iran’s going to drive anything one way or another.”

“I think that’s exactly right,” Shapiro replied.

Part of the problem with Levin’s analysis has already been covered above. In the Fox poll, a plurality of Americans—34 percent—named the cost of living as the most important issue, and the Iran War has made living costlier.

But the subtler problem is perhaps even more illuminating. Simply put, Americans believe Trump is too focused on foreign policy at the expense of the problem they really care about, which, in fact, his Iran War has exacerbated. This is a PR disaster for the Trump administration and the GOP. Americans don’t prioritize the war that has dominated the headlines and distracted the White House, even as Trump claims to have boldly prevented Iran from unleashing nuclear apocalypse.

It may be grotesque to find silver linings in this dumb and deadly war, but here’s one: Americans no longer buy the war narratives. That is certainly not, however, a silver lining for Republican candidates in this year’s election, no matter how cynically they try to distance themselves from the war. In fact, it’s a good bet they’ll do much worse than if Trump hadn’t launched this unnecessary war, despite what Shapiro and his ilk may tell you.