Middle East Insider · Issue 067 · Thursday, October 22, 2026

Not a Single Gram

Good afternoon. The American posture in the region leads today: the last troops left Iraq for Jordan three weeks ago, two carrier groups are in the Arabian Sea with a third on the way, the embassy in Riyadh is sending its families home, and the New York Times reports that Washington and Jerusalem have drawn up plans for strikes after the midterms. Then the week’s diplomacy and Tehran’s answer to it. Then Israel’s vote at five days, Gaza and Lebanon, the Gulf, and Europe.

The last American troops left Iraq for Jordan three weeks ago; two carrier groups are in the Arabian Sea with a third on the way; the embassy in Riyadh is sending its families home; and after a week of mediation, Tehran’s answer is “not a single gram.”

Central Command completed the withdrawal from Erbil Air Base on September 30, ending the Iraq mission after 12 years; the task force that continues the mission against ISIS is now headquartered in Jordan, where about 4,000 Americans serve (CENTCOM, Fox News). At sea, the Naval Institute’s tracker of October 19 puts two carrier groups in the Arabian Sea, the George Washington and the George H.W. Bush, with the Boxer amphibious group and the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, and two destroyers in the Red Sea (USNI News); the Pentagon is sending the Theodore Roosevelt group and the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit to the Middle East, two American officials confirmed to Fox News on Tuesday, and the carrier group is due by the end of November (Jerusalem Post). In the air, American refueling planes and fighter jets, F-16s among them, are deployed at Ovda air base in Israel’s south, where Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is reported to have met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz on Monday in an unannounced visit (Military.com).

The State Department ordered non-emergency employees and their families out of Saudi Arabia on Wednesday; its spokesman, Tommy Pigott, wrote on X that the order applied to “Saudi Arabia only,” answering a report that it could extend to other Gulf states, and that “Iranian-supported Houthis have increasingly engaged in hostilities against Saudi Arabia”; and CBS reports that the military has been “quietly reducing its footprint” at posts in the region (CBS News). The New York Times reported Wednesday night that the American and Israeli militaries “have developed specific plans for renewed strikes against Iran after the American midterm elections,” have flown over Iraq to practice, and that President Trump has not approved them (New York Times); the White House’s Anna Kelly says the United States will not attack Iran “at any time prior to the midterm elections” (Israel Hayom).

The week’s diplomacy: Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, sat with Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, in Tehran on Monday (Iran International); Pakistan’s army chief, Asim Munir, came Tuesday with Qatari diplomats and left with Iran’s demands unchanged (Israel Hayom, Iran International); and Vladimir Putin told Steve Witkoff, the President’s envoy, on Wednesday that there was still room for diplomacy and that an agreement with Tehran was needed, the Kremlin said (Iran International). Tehran’s words, in order: Araghchi’s seven-day plan, under which the Strait of Hormuz reopens on the sixth day if Washington meets Iran’s conditions (Israel Hayom); Mohsen Rezaei, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, on X on Tuesday, “Not a single gram of enriched uranium will be removed from Iran” (Iran International); President Masoud Pezeshkian, that threats and sanctions must be lifted before talks; and a member of parliament asking the supreme leader to revise the fatwa against nuclear weapons (Iran International).

President Trump, asked on the tarmac on Wednesday night whether the United States was negotiating with Iran: “No, I think we’re not negotiating with. We are going to have something one way or the other that’ll happen fairly soon. Most people seem to think it’s after the election, and we’re going to see what happens” (White House pool report). Hegseth said Tuesday, “If they’re not willing to give it up, and the president asks us to go even further, we’re prepared” (Israel Hayom). Netanyahu told new officers on Wednesday that toppling the regime “is my directive to the IDF, the Mossad and the security agencies”; Katz: “If Iran attacks Israel, Iran will burn!” (Times of Israel). Netanyahu said today of the Financial Times report that President Trump had stopped an Israeli strike planned for the weekend of October 10, “This report is not true” (JNS).

The week’s statements from Tehran, taken together, say one thing: the regime is digging in. Not a gram leaves, the strait reopens on Tehran’s conditions, and a member of parliament asks in public for a new fatwa. The posture is the right answer to that: two carriers in the Arabian Sea and a third on the way, the task force in Jordan, the families out of Riyadh, the plans drawn. The United States and Israel must be ready to act, with the forces in place and the decision President Trump’s to make. Time noted this morning the Forum’s September assessment that a large-scale Israeli strike on Iranian territory, with or without American participation, was probable before the end of the year (Time). I take no side in Israel’s vote on Tuesday; whoever forms the next government faces the same enemy.

Campus Watch, The Great Satan Comes to Hyde Park (Oct 21): My own, with Morgan Roth: Alireza Doostdar, who directed the University of Chicago’s federally funded Middle East center through December 2025, assigns Yahya Sinwar’s prison novel in a course called “Liberatory Violence” and wrote in June 2025 that “the best and only hope for peace is the power and durability of Iranian missiles.”

Focus on Western Islamism, Lebanese Clans Help Far Left Gain Seats in Berlin Legislature (Oct 21): Collin McMahon: Die Linke, Germany’s far-left party, celebrated its Berlin election result with a Lebanese clan boss in the room and a Palestinian activist whose committee the city’s domestic intelligence office has described as a platform for Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Jewish weekly Jüdische Allgemeine reported.

MEF Observer, How Britain Freed the Man Who Tried to Bomb an El Al Jet Using His Pregnant Fiancée as a Courier (Oct 22): Harry Turnbull: Nezar Hindawi, sentenced to 45 years in 1986, left prison in 2013 “without license conditions”; Britain’s Home Office will not say whether he was deported.

Two new polls keep Eisenkot’s bloc ahead, the Shin Bet removes accounts that could carry foreign influence, Katz and Lapid trade words over the warnings, and Vice President Vance says he will endorse no more foreign candidates.

The polls. Channel 12’s poll of Wednesday evening gives Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar party 23 seats, Netanyahu’s Likud 19 and Naftali Bennett’s B’Yachad party 15, with 55 for the opposition bloc and 51 for the Netanyahu bloc; Channel 13 has Yashar 20, Likud 19, and the blocs at 52 and 49 (Jerusalem Post). The Forum’s poll of polls stands at 54 for the Netanyahu bloc, 52 for the opposition and 14 for the Arab parties.

The vote and the war. The Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic security service, said today that it had removed social media accounts whose activity “could allow foreign influence on the election process” (Jerusalem Post). Kan, Israel’s public broadcaster, reported Wednesday evening that security officials had warned the government that a strike on Iran now “could be perceived as political interference in the elections”; Yair Lapid said there was “absolutely no reason to attack Iran or anywhere else before the elections” (Jerusalem Post). Defense Minister Katz said today that “every attack on Israel and any future terrorist attacks” would “be recorded against the names of Yair Lapid, Naftali Bennett, Yair Golan and their opposition colleagues”; Lapid called that “a gift to Israel’s enemies” (Jerusalem Post). Vice President Vance, asked again about Netanyahu on Wednesday: “I’m not attacking Bibi Netanyahu. I’m not endorsing Bibi Netanyahu,” and “I’m not endorsing any more foreign candidates now or in the future” (Jerusalem Post).

Israeli fire kills three in Gaza, the olive-harvest detainees are released with bans, and the Tampa talks end after two days with “a wide gap.”

Gaza and the West Bank. Israeli fire killed one person in a car in Gaza City and at least two others elsewhere in the Strip today, health officials said; the army said it struck a Hamas militant in Khan Younis and was checking the other reports (Reuters). The four Americans held after Wednesday’s olive harvest at Nahalin were released today with 15-day bans from the West Bank, the Israeli group Rabbis for Human Rights said; 28 Israelis received bans of 15 to 30 days, and 38 foreign activists were released without conditions (Times of Israel).

Lebanon. The Israeli and Lebanese military delegations finished two days of talks at United States Central Command in Tampa on Wednesday; an American official, quoted by the United States Embassy in Beirut, called them working-level discussions on the security side of the three-country framework, and “a wide gap remains between the Lebanese and Israeli positions,” with Lebanon rejecting a permanent bilateral committee between the two militaries (Arab News). Israeli strikes hit Kfar Tibnit and al-Qantara in the south today, the Lebanese site Naharnet reports (Naharnet).

The Houthis claim strikes on the Saudi Defense Ministry and on Aramco at Yanbu, the Guards say seven ships burned overnight and threaten “the bases of the aggressors in the region,” and Iraqi sources say Baghdad has ordered the Houthis’ offices closed.

The Gulf. An attack on Dammam’s King Fahd International Airport on Wednesday evening killed a Saudi citizen and an Indian resident and injured eight (Arab News); the Houthis claimed it today and said they had also struck the Defense Ministry in Riyadh and Aramco’s facilities at Yanbu, which Saudi authorities had not confirmed (Ynet). The Revolutionary Guards’ navy said it had hit four ships transferring oil at sea and that three more struck mines overnight, and that “the confrontation will extend to the bases of the aggressors in the region” if the Americans keep encouraging ships through the passage (CBS News); UKMTO, the British maritime monitor, did not report the attacks and has noted that some shippers are now reluctant to report incidents (AP), and Brent crude rose past $112 this morning (CBS News). Iraqi government sources told Alhurra, the American government’s Arabic-language broadcaster, that Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi ordered the Houthis’ offices in Iraq closed after his first visit to Saudi Arabia on Wednesday; the government’s spokesman denied that any exist (Alhurra).

Europe. President Emmanuel Macron said this morning, after a security council meeting at the Élysée with the intelligence services, that only marches called by the unions will be allowed on Saturday: “when they are not trade union organizations, wherever we can, we will ban them.” He called the violence of October 17 “political and even seditious acts carried out by organized far-left groups that aim to bring down the Republic” (AFP). The police and gendarmes will be a fifth stronger than last week, with soldiers and armored vehicles, and Lyon has banned every march (AFP, Nouvel Obs). The European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize went today to the International Criminal Court (EUobserver), not to the Iranian twin sisters Taraneh and Romina Rahimi, 21, sentenced to death and to 36 years in prison for taking part in the protests, who were finalists (AFP).

Israel votes on Tuesday, October 27. The Forum’s Michael Rubin gives lunch briefings in Philadelphia, November 5; Washington, November 6; Miami, November 18; Boca Raton, November 19; and Palm Beach, November 20. My own, on the midterms, Iran and Israel: Palo Alto, November 9; San Francisco, November 10; Los Angeles, November 13; and San Diego, November 16. Benjamin Baird, who directs MEF Action, speaks in New York, December 3. To meet, or to host an evening for the Forum, reply to this email.

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