Middle East Insider · Issue 057 · Friday, October 2, 2026

The Third Carrier

Good afternoon. U.S. officials say a third carrier group is bound for the Middle East, Axios reports more Patriot batteries at Gulf energy sites, and the President says new strikes on Iran are possible after the midterms; this edition opens there. Then the strait, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, sanctions, Israel’s High Court, the flight, Fairford, and a Hamas indictment in New York.

U.S. officials say a third carrier group is bound for the Middle East, and Axios reports more Patriot batteries in the Gulf. The President says new strikes are possible after November 3.

The Pentagon is sending a third aircraft carrier group to the Middle East, U.S. officials said Thursday. The USS Theodore Roosevelt left San Diego on Sunday on a scheduled deployment; the Makin Island amphibious group, carrying the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit, left on Monday (Wall Street Journal). Together they carry roughly 9,000 sailors and Marines (AP).

The AP reports that the George H.W. Bush and the George Washington are in the region now; an official told Bloomberg that the Bush has temporarily departed. The reports also differ on what follows. A U.S. official told the AP that three carriers could be there as early as the end of October. The Journal reported that the ships arrive by the end of November and that the Washington could then return to Japan, leaving two. Axios reported a mid-November arrival. Officials told Axios and Bloomberg that no decision has been made on whether the Roosevelt replaces a carrier or the region keeps three (AP, Wall Street Journal, Axios, Bloomberg).

Air defenses are moving as well, Axios reported Thursday night: the U.S. military sent two more Patriot batteries to the Gulf last month, one to protect a Saudi oil facility and one a Qatari natural gas facility, according to two U.S. officials and a regional source. U.S. officials told Axios that in early August, when the President was weighing a large attack that included Iran’s energy infrastructure, the leaders of both countries lobbied him against it, fearing retaliation against their own facilities, and that their pleas were a key reason he chose economic pressure instead. Washington will need Saudi airspace if major combat resumes, Axios added. Central Command declined to comment (Axios).

The President spoke to Time on Monday; the interview ran Thursday. Asked whether he will ramp up the bombing after the midterms, he said: “Possible.” He rejected Iran’s ceasefire proposal because “things that I wouldn’t have approved a year ago I wouldn’t have today” (Time). The Journal reported that he recently told aides he expects to resume bombing Iran in November; the White House and the Pentagon did not answer its requests for comment (Wall Street Journal).

On the South Lawn on Thursday he said: “Now I have to make a decision. They’ll either sign a very fair deal, or they won’t exist any longer” (The Hill). Asked whether Iran was linked to the co-pilot who attacked Wednesday’s flydubai flight, he said: “I would say the answer, based on what I’m hearing, is yes, but we’re working on it right now.” If the link is established, he said, Iran will “be hit very hard” (AP). In Denton, Texas, later that day he said Iran “is ready to fold up” and that the United States would win “right after the election,” then added: “Maybe before the election” (CBS News).

Tehran is planning for renewed American strikes. Three senior Iranian officials and an insider told Reuters that commanders are reviewing plans to widen their targets to countries that support U.S. operations, and possibly beyond the Middle East; no final decision has been made. Two officials said Tehran has told allied groups in Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq to be ready. One said it is “very unlikely that the two sides will reach an agreement” (Reuters).

Bloomberg reported that Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, suggested to European and Middle Eastern diplomats in private talks in New York that Iran is willing to restore nuclear inspectors’ access to the bombed sites in exchange for sanctions relief; the diplomats saw it as a sign of Iran’s economic pain. An Iranian source told the Fars news agency that the report of a proposal to the American side is false (Bloomberg, Roya News).

The Roosevelt adds to the force the President can call on while he decides, and the blockade is already at work: Bloomberg reports that Iran appears to have loaded no crude onto tankers in September. Tehran’s ceasefire proposal would lift that blockade first and leave the nuclear program for later talks. Washington is right to refuse that sequence. Tehran’s officials say it is reviewing wider targets and has alerted its allies. The Patriots that Axios reports in Saudi Arabia and Qatar answer the fear their leaders raised in August, and Riyadh, Axios adds, is unlikely to open its airspace unless its oil facilities are protected. Two batteries are a start. The weeks before the ships arrive are the time to strengthen the defenses of the Gulf’s energy sites and American bases.

MEF Observer, The Problem with Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei’s Handwritten Proof of Life (Oct 2): Potkin Azarmehr on the handwritten notes Tehran has published under Mojtaba Khamenei’s name: one is dated August 1 but appears to record a copy handed over on July 28, and its handwriting differs from a letter said to date from 1986.

MEF Online, To Stop Iran, America’s Partners Must Fight Together (Oct 1): Hussein Aboubakr Mansour and Blaise Misztal argue that Tehran has turned its proxies on America’s Arab partners, and that the United States, Saudi Arabia, Israel and the UAE should fight them together.

MEF Online, The U.S. Can’t Win If It Keeps Rebuffing Allies (Oct 1): Michael Rubin argues that keeping sea lanes open takes partners that share American values, even if that means recognizing Somaliland and South Yemen.

MEF Observer, As Turkey’s Hostility Grows, Should Somaliland Keep Turkey Consulate Open? (Oct 1): Siyad Madey argues that Somaliland should put Berbera’s port, airport and coast off-limits to foreign consular staff, require a Somaliland office in Turkey, and close Turkey’s consulate if Ankara refuses.

MEF Online, The Iron Wall in Rabat: Why Morocco’s Political Shift Won’t Touch the Abraham Accords (Oct 1): Amine Ayoub on Morocco’s first woman prime minister, appointed September 29, and why ties with Israel rest with the king, not the coalition.

MEF Online, What Muslims Believe About Non-Muslims (Oct 1): Mark Durie on an Australian court’s finding that the view of Jews in a preacher’s lectures has no foundation in Islam, and the leading clerics who say otherwise.

Also Thursday: Giulio Meotti on Netanyahu’s six hours in New York. Forum donors receive Insider Premium; if your invitation has not arrived, write [email protected].

A fifth tanker strike this week, strikes on Sanaa and Aden, Baghdad’s deadline, arms licenses for Syria, and sanctions on cars and trains.

The strait. A projectile struck a tanker in the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday evening and set it on fire; the crew is safe, Britain’s maritime trade office said. It was the fifth tanker strike the office has reported in the strait this week (gCaptain). Iran’s Persian Gulf Strait Authority said three of the ships, Emirati-owned or chartered, were on its “non-compliance” list; it did not claim the attacks (Iran International). Brent for December settled Thursday at $102.31, up 4.4 percent, then fell more than 2 percent on Friday morning, to about $100, on reports of a European stock release; the Group of Seven then agreed to release 100 million barrels of oil from emergency stocks over four months, diesel first (Bloomberg, OilPrice.com, G7 statement).

Yemen. The Houthis attacked across Taiz province from Wednesday night into Thursday in what Yemeni officials called their largest offensive there in years; residents said they blew up a culvert on the main road to Aden (Arab News). The Saudi-led coalition said it intercepted two ballistic missiles and four drones (Arab News) and blamed the Houthis for Tuesday’s drone strike on a power-distribution station that supplies the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina, which the Houthis deny. Late Thursday a spokesman for the Yemeni government’s army reported a “high-value targeting operation” in Sanaa and 27 air strikes in Taiz (Arab News); the Houthis blamed Saudi Arabia, which has not confirmed any strikes. Early Friday, local officials said the Houthis fired ballistic missiles and drones at the coalition’s headquarters in Aden (Reuters).

Iraq. Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi on Thursday formally set June 30, 2027, as the deadline for bringing the militias’ weapons under state control, and pledged to disarm “all non-Iraqi armed groups present on Iraqi soil,” which he did not name; Iraq hosts Iranian Kurdish opposition groups. The leader of Kataib Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militia, said on Wednesday that he had reached no agreement with Zaidi (Rudaw). Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada accepted, provided the government keeps its side; Harakat al-Nujaba did not commit (Rudaw). In Washington, Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein said: “We have got the target, we have got the means, we have got the timetable” (The National).

Syria. A State Department rule that took effect Thursday removes Syria from the list of countries denied American arms licenses; requests will now be reviewed case by case. The Secretary of State approved the change on August 19 (State Department).

The sanctions. The Treasury on Thursday sanctioned Iran Khodro and SAIPA, which it says hold more than 90 percent of Iran’s car market, and the state railway; Tehran, it says, has turned to rail to move oil under the blockade (Treasury). It also sanctioned the A7 Network, a Russia-linked shadow bank that it says Iran uses to evade sanctions (Treasury).

The High Court restores the Arab lists, the flight inquiry moves to Abu Dhabi, a sixth arrest over Fairford, and a Hamas indictment in New York.

Israel. The High Court ruled on Friday that the Joint List and Ra’am may run in the October 27 election, unanimously reversing the Central Elections Committee, and allowed Hadash’s Ofer Cassif to run by seven votes to two (Times of Israel). Balad’s leader, Sami Abu Shehadeh, withdrew after the court’s president, Isaac Amit, told him on Thursday: “There is a majority for your disqualification” (Times of Israel, Times of Israel). Asked by Time about the election, the President said: “I wouldn’t underestimate Bibi” (Time).

The flight. Saudi Arabia’s Interior Ministry said a preliminary inquiry with an Emirati security team found that the co-pilot of Wednesday’s flydubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv, which landed in Tabuk, assaulted the captain; both men left for Abu Dhabi on Thursday (SPA). The UAE has opened its own investigation into the motive and any link to terrorism. Netanyahu said the co-pilot “underwent Islamist radical indoctrination”; two Israeli security officials told Reuters he probably acted alone and that Israel has found no Iranian involvement so far (Reuters). With flights from the UAE to Israel suspended since the attack, El Al canceled its two Friday rescue flights from Dubai, saying Israeli carriers’ landing permits had been revoked; Arkia said it has approval to fly one on Friday evening (Times of Israel).

Fairford. British counter-terrorism police on Thursday arrested a 25-year-old dual British-Iranian national in London on suspicion of preparing terrorist acts, the sixth arrest in the case of RAF Fairford, the base American bombers use; the five men arrested near the base on Sunday remain on bail. Prime Minister Andy Burnham has said Britain sees “strong indications” that Iran played a part (Euronews). Iran, which denies it, summoned Britain’s ambassador on Thursday (Reuters).

New York. A federal indictment unsealed in New York on Thursday charges Saleem Alzaq, 45, of Gaza, whom prosecutors call a longtime Hamas member, with helping run campaigns that raised more than $1.7 million for Hamas from 2020 through 2025 under the guise of food and winter aid; at least $626,000 came from donors in the United States. He has not been arrested (CBS News). Two brothers arrested in Louisiana in September are accused of sending him more than $80,000 (NBC News).

Tuesday, October 13, 5 to 7 p.m., Manhattan: a private launch for Craig Considine’s When Marx Meets Islam. Admission is $250, including a signed copy and drinks; donors of $5,000 or more this year attend free; the address comes with registration.

I will be in California and Texas in November. If you would like to meet, or to host an evening for the Forum, reply to this email.

Corrections Desk. Clear this afternoon. When this brief gets something wrong, write [email protected]; corrections run in print.

If this brief is useful, forward it to one person. The Forum’s work is funded by its donors.

Reply with the one question you want answered in the next brief.