Trump administration orders preparations for renewed attacks on Iran ahead of U.S. midterms

[Financial News] The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, which had held off on military attacks targeting mainland Iran for about a month, is preparing a large-scale military operation ahead of next month’s midterm elections. However, neither a specific date for an attack nor a final decision on whether to attack has been made.
The U.S. political news outlet Axios reported on the 7th (local time), citing a source, that the U.S. Department of War (Defense) had ordered the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), which oversees the war with Iran, to prepare to resume large-scale military operations several days earlier. CENTCOM has refrained from airstrikes on mainland Iran since bombing Iranian military facilities around the Strait of Hormuz on the 1st of last month. Instead, CENTCOM is attacking Iranian oil tankers and other vessels near the strait.
In a statement on the 9th of last month, U.S. President Donald Trump stressed that the war with Iran would end immediately after the midterm elections (November 3). The day before, he claimed it would end immediately after the midterms or before them.
A Department of War official noted that the department had ordered preparations for the operation but had not specified a date for the attack to begin. The official said, “The role of the Department of War is to develop military options and present them to Trump.”
U.S. and Israeli sources said that a resumption of U.S. military operations against Iran could take place either before the U.S. midterm elections or ahead of Israel’s general election, which is scheduled for earlier, on October 27. On the 7th, the U.S. political magazine The Atlantic also claimed, before Axios’s report, that Trump was considering resuming airstrikes on Iran before the midterms. Axios reported that senior foreign policy and national security officials in the Trump administration held a highly secret meeting on the 2nd at Camp David, the presidential retreat, under the chairmanship of U.S. Vice President JD Vance. It also claimed that Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had barely spoken for several weeks, talked by phone on the 7th. Netanyahu also spoke by phone with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on the 5th.
Axios predicted that if U.S. military operations resume, Israel would take part, with the two countries acting militarily together. In this regard, an Israeli official claimed that the paranoid Iranian regime, in desperate circumstances, could strike first against the United States and Israel.
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