The Iranian October Surprise

Suppose the United States manages to impose an economic stranglehold on Iran.

Suppose Iran feels desperate by late September. The regime is beginning to wobble.

Do you really think the Iranians would admit defeat and come to the negotiating table with their tale between their legs?

I personally doubt it.

Surely there are folks in Iran ginning up an October surprise that would devastate the Republicans (and Donald Trump) in the midterm elections. I’m a bit concerned about those possible Iranian ideas.

The Iranians don’t have to be able to hit the U.S. mainland with a nuclear weapon to cause a ton of trouble for us. Chemical or biological agents could be smuggled into the U.S. (or manufactured here) and then released by Iranian operatives in a few strategic locations.  

The attack need not be that sophisticated. Even a few well-placed conventional weapons (or, for instance, airplanes; or, perhaps, this time around, trucks or trains) could do a lot of damage and affect the midterms.

Or a large-scale cyberattack would be quite an October surprise and quite a lasting disaster.

But my imagination is pretty limited. Be more creative!

Couldn’t the Iranians do something that would make the Strait of Hormuz unnavigable for the foreseeable future? Couldn’t they release some radiation, or blast a hole in an oil tanker to cause a large oil spill, or sink a couple of large ships in the relatively narrow navigable shipping lanes?

If we really do manage to back the Iranians into a corner, I sure hope someone’s thinking about what the Iranians might do to wiggle their way out of that nook — or simply to exact revenge on Donald Trump, the guy who started it all.

The more you think about this, the more depressed you’ll become.

If Iran launches an October surprise, what will Trump do (possibly with broad public support at that point) in the days after Election Day?  If the Iranians have killed a bunch of Americans, or put a real dent in our way of life, America might be mad. And Trump, of course, doesn’t like to lose. That could be a nasty combination.

Trump doesn’t have conventional weapons to spare, but might he nuke Pickaxe Mountain, the underground Iranian nuclear facility that can’t be reached with conventional weapons? Nuke Fordow, the other underground facility? Nuke ’em both? Add Tehran to the mix?

My imagination isn’t sufficiently expansive to predict what the future might hold.

But I can sense the timing, and the direction, of what might happen shortly, and I don’t like the picture my crystal ball portends.

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Mark Herrmann spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and later oversaw litigation, compliance and employment matters at a large international company. He is the author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law and Drug and Device Product Liability Litigation Strategy (affiliate links). You can reach him by email at [email protected].