A return to war between the United States and Iran is far from a certainty, and an ongoing tense standoff is still the most likely scenario, but there is no question that the chances of renewed conflict between Washington and Tehran will jump after America’s midterm elections on November 3.
Many have misinterpreted Iran’s latest additional moves to better defend the Pickaxe Mountain nuclear facility as a sign that the Islamic Republic is possibly trying to rush out to a nuclear weapon.
The Jerusalem Post has confirmed that Iran has no significant active nuclear operations currently at Pickaxe Mountain and that Israeli concerns there are more about the future.
The Post was also told by numerous sources that it is unclear that even American mega bunker busters such as the 30,000-pound Massive Ordnance Penetrator bomb could fully penetrate the Pickaxe Mountain nuclear facility – even prior to any of the recent new defenses.
Iran may be trying to deter US, Israeli ground operations
In that sense, the new defenses are likely an attempt to deter the US and Israel from staging a ground operation at the mountain.
The US staged a successful temporary ground operation in Iran at the height of the war in early 2026 to rescue shot-down pilots, and Israel staged a ground operation to destroy a major underground Iranian-built Syrian nuclear facility in Masyaf, Syria, in September 2024.
Iran wants to convince both Washington and Jerusalem that pulling off such an operation at Pickaxe Mountain would be much harder, more costly, and therefore not worth the risk.
In that sense, all of Iran’s efforts currently show it is preparing for war in the near future and will try to strike America and its allies’ weak underbellies: energy facilities, slow and large ships, and other economically damaging targets.
Despite constant warnings from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz, there is still little inclination from Iran to get caught up in another war with Israel.
Iran’s regime saw that Israel’s war-fighting was more merciless than America’s in the sense of targeting top Iranian officials and that Jerusalem was more ready to continue attacking Iran indefinitely as compared to Washington, which was worried about a drawn-out conflict.
In that sense, all of the warnings about Iran seeking to pick a fight with Israel are mostly about lower-grade hostilities, such as attempting terror attacks against Israelis, or Jews globally, or small targeted attacks on Israel which would fall short of requiring a massive Israeli response.
Iranian threats potentially intended to force US concessions
Such Iranian threats against Israel are more about forcing the US into making concessions out of fears that an Iranian attack, which would bring Israel back into the war, would lead to Washington losing control and creating greater regional instability.
In August, the US’s military power achieved a shift vs Iran in which the harm to the West’s economy was regularly reduced while the harm to Iran’s economy continually worsened.
All of this led US President Donald Trump to bet that Iran would blink before the US midterm elections. In that scenario, he could declare victory leading into those elections and potentially even regain some of the nuclear concessions ceded earlier, in the summer.
Trump’s error was projecting Western rationalism onto the IRGC and religious fanatics running Iran, who believe their regime is aided by divine messianic currents.
The president and his team have alternated between proclaiming that a deal with Iran is imminent after the midterm elections and threatening a return to full war with the regime after the midterms.
Iran believes that when Trump’s Republican Party loses the midterms, he will make more concessions to extract himself from this otherwise potentially endless conflict, which appears to sap his popularity daily.
And if Trump does not give in after the midterm elections, the Islamic Republic may escalate to cause enough chaos to bring him back to those concessions.
None of this is a grand strategy in which Iran could badly hurt the US or Israel in any deep or strategic way.
Iran has more ballistic missiles left over, around 1,600, than the US and Israel expected in April, but the number is so much lower than the around 6,000 it had expected to reach by now. Further, its future production has been slowed by about as much as 90%.
Most importantly, the regime cannot fire more than a few dozen rockets in a day vs the several hundred it was able to fire daily in early 2026.
Iran’s preparations are therefore more about either deterring the US from launching a new massive attack, being better prepared to outlast such an attack if it happens, or carrying out a limited Iranian offensive to try to get some more concessions from the US.
For months, America’s midterms have been viewed as a turning point in the conflict.
Developments in recent weeks suggest that turning point could mean more conflict. The whole world will be watching closely after November 3.