Baghdad’s pledge to stay out of renewed fighting is being tested by reported Israeli jet flights toward Iran through Iraqi airspace, suspected strikes on militia stores reportedly holding Chinese-made air defenses, and drone attacks on Iranian Kurdish opposition bases.
Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi says Iraq will not participate in any war, while Iran-backed factions describe supporting Tehran against the United States and Israel as a duty, raising questions over Baghdad’s ability to control how its territory and airspace are used.
“Iraq will not participate in any war,” Zaidi told state-run Al-Iraqiya television on Friday, saying Baghdad wanted to remain a meeting point for regional rivals and was working to ease the confrontation between Iran and the United States.
On Saturday, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella of Iran-aligned armed factions, declared that standing with Tehran was a moral duty and portrayed the conflict as a struggle between righteousness and falsehood, Rudaw reported.
The statement did not announce a resumption of attacks. It underscored the factions’ commitment to Iran at a time when Zaidi is promising to bring weapons and military decisions under state control.
Baghdad also faces economic and diplomatic costs from the conflict. Zaidi said disruption at the Strait of Hormuz had harmed Iraq and that his government had hoped its political, religious and popular ties with Iran would secure an exemption for Iraqi shipping.
He stressed the importance of relations with Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf states, saying some believed attacks against them had originated in Iraq.
Contested skies
Reports of Israeli fighter jet activity near the Iranian border have put Iraqi airspace at the center of the confrontation even as Baghdad seeks to avoid direct involvement.
Axios reported this week that dozens of Israeli fighter jets flew toward Iran’s border in a demonstration of military capability. The aircraft passed through Syrian and Iraqi airspace before turning back near Iran.
Hardline Iranian lawmaker Mahmoud Nabavian demanded that Iraq tale action against the flights, alleging they were preparations for an attack on Iran.
“The Iraqi government must explain why the Zionist regime’s fighter jets are training and preparing to attack Iran in Iraqi airspace,” Nabavian wrote on X.
“If no action is taken, the Iraqi people, Iraq’s resistance groups and the Iranian nation will fulfill their duty,” he added, without specifying what action he meant.
His warning invoked Iraqi armed groups as potential actors alongside Iran if Baghdad failed to respond.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq has separately accused US forces of conducting 171 violations of Iraqi airspace between September 30 and October 23.
The umbrella group alleged on Saturday that the United States was using military bases in Jordan and Turkey to conduct flights over Nineveh, Duhok, Erbil, Salahuddin, Anbar and Kirkuk provinces.
It said it had detected 17 aircraft on Friday, including reconnaissance drones and specialized aircraft. The figures and allegations were the factions’ account.
The dispute over foreign military flights also complicates efforts to restrain militia operations. When Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah announced a suspension of military operations on September 30, it excluded responses to what it called hostile aircraft and airspace violations until Iraqi government air defenses were fully established, Asharq Al-Awsat reported.
Suspected strikes on weapons stores
Iraqi officials suspect Israel attacked two sites storing Chinese-made man-portable air defense systems recently transferred from Iran to Iraqi factions, Awsat reported Saturday, citing unnamed sources.
The sources said a large shipment was destroyed shortly after arriving at the facilities.
On October 17, the Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Forces reported an explosion at an ammunition storage facility in eastern Baghdad that injured five people. Its initial account pointed to an internal malfunction.
The newspaper also quoted an Iraqi political adviser as saying intelligence officials were examining whether renewed US-Israeli fighting against Iran had already begun covertly on Iraqi soil, targeting weapons shipments to Tehran-aligned groups.
Israeli responsibility and the reported contents of the warehouses remain unconfirmed. The suspected strikes nevertheless raise the prospect that Iraqi factions could become targets in renewed fighting regardless of Baghdad’s stated position.
A state with factions
Zaidi presented his campaign to bring weapons under government control as a test of whether the Iraqi state could exercise sovereignty.
“Are we a state with factions, or factions with a state?” he said in the television interview.
He said his government had reached understandings with five factions, completing arrangements with three and working to finalize them with two others. Discussions were continuing with another two, he said.
Zaidi pledged that no weapons would remain outside state control by June 30, 2027.
That deadline represents an extension of an earlier September target, and some factions have disputed the government’s account of progress.
Rudaw reported on October 19 that Kataib Hezbollah had described negotiations over its weapons as remaining at “square one,” accusing Zaidi of failing to respond to a proposed agreement.
The group also demanded clarification of Baghdad’s positions on US sanctions against Iran and conflicts elsewhere in the region, tying the weapons dispute to issues beyond Iraq’s borders.
Another attack in Kurdistan
A separate drone attack on Saturday highlighted the exposure of Iraq’s Kurdistan Region, where Iranian Kurdish opposition groups have repeatedly come under fire.
An explosive-laden drone struck a camp northeast of Erbil, Reuters reported, citing security sources.
The Kurdistan Komala Party of Iran said one of its bases in the Alana Valley was hit, causing material damage but no casualties. The available account did not establish who launched the drone.
Iran has repeatedly launched missile and drone strikes against Iranian Kurdish opposition groups based in northern Iraq, accusing them of organizing attacks and fueling unrest inside Iran.
Baghdad agreed in 2023 to disarm the groups and relocate them away from the Iranian border.
The groups also figured in discussions about a possible ground offensive after the US-Israeli war began in February. Reuters reported in March that Iranian Kurdish factions had consulted Washington about attacking Iranian security forces in the country’s west, although it could not establish the extent of CIA involvement or whether US weapons had been supplied.
Trump initially welcomed the prospect of Kurdish fighters crossing into Iran, telling Reuters on March 5 that it would be “wonderful.” Two days later, he said he had told them to stay out.
“They’re willing to go in, but we really—I’ve told them I don’t want them to go in,” Trump told reporters. “The war is complicated enough without having, getting the Kurds involved.”
Nazanin Sharifian, an Iran-born former Mossad officer running for Israel’s parliament with Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar party, told Iran International that Israel should step up military and economic pressure on the Islamic Republic’s leaders and work to end their rule.
“We must do everything we can to bring down the leaders of the Islamic Republic, so this regime is gone and the people of Iran are free,” she told Iran International’s Babak Eshaghi.
Sharifian, a Persian speaker who was born in Iran in 1982 and lived there until she was seven, is a candidate for the Knesset in Tuesday’s election. If Yashar joins the next coalition, she could hold a role in government.
‘The last hope of Iran’
Sharifian called the Islamic Republic Israel’s greatest enemy and an enemy of Iranians as well. Iran’s wealth, she said, goes to Hezbollah and the Houthis instead of to the people it belongs to.
Asked what Yashar’s policy toward Tehran would be, she said it would continue the course set by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Eisenkot’s main rival.
“We must intensify this pressure on the leaders of the Islamic Republic,” she said. “We do not want to put pressure on the people of Iran. The people of Iran are the last hope of Iran.”
She called for every available means to be used to end the Islamic Republic’s rule. “I have great faith in the people of Iran,” she said.
Her emphasis on pressure differs from her party leader’s. Eisenkot, a former military chief, said this month that the Islamic Republic’s fall is necessary but cannot be achieved by military action, and that it must come from within Iranian society.
From Tehran to the Mossad
Sharifian was born into a Jewish family. After the 1979 revolution, some relatives left for the United States and Israel, but her father, who ran businesses in Tehran and Isfahan, refused at first to leave. The family fled when she was seven.
In Israel she served in the army, then in the Shin Bet internal security service and the Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency. Her Persian, she said, was one reason she was moved to the Mossad. She has since taught Persian and Middle East strategy to hundreds of Israeli students.
“I am very proud that my being is Iranian,” she said. Representing Iranians in Israel would be a great honor, she said, adding: “I expect to speak Persian in the Israeli parliament in the future.”
She hopes to bring more people of Iranian origin into Israel’s state institutions, she said, and that one day Iran will be returned to its people.
In 1987, with Khomeini still calling for Israel’s destruction, Israel’s defense minister called Iran its best friend. Today every candidate for prime minister wants the Islamic Republic gone. Israel’s leaders have changed their minds about Iran’s rulers, but seldom disagreed.
That is the thread through 47 years of Israeli policy toward the Islamic Republic, and it runs straight into next Tuesday’s election. Whoever wins, the goal will be the same. What changes is how hard, how openly and with whom Israel pursues it.
Before 1979, Iran was Israel’s most important partner in the region. Under David Ben-Gurion’s “periphery doctrine,” Israel courted non-Arab neighbors to outflank hostile Arab states, and the Shah’s Iran was the prize.
Tehran recognized Israel de facto in 1950, sold it oil through a jointly owned pipeline, and let its intelligence services work with Israel’s Mossad. Israeli engineers, farmers and arms dealers worked across Iran. The relationship was discreet, profitable and close.
The revolution ended it overnight. Islamic Republic's founder Rouhollah Khomeini cut ties, and Israel’s mission in Tehran was handed to the Palestine Liberation Organization.
Israel’s first leaders after 1979 did not try to bring the new order down. They sold it weapons.
When Iraq invaded Iran in 1980, Menachem Begin’s government shipped arms to Tehran, and Israeli sales ran to an estimated $500 million between 1981 and 1983, according to Tel Aviv University’s Jaffe Institute. Saddam Hussein was the threat, and Iran was the counterweight. In 1985 and 1986, under Shimon Peres, Israel was the go-between in the Iran-Contra affair, passing American missiles to Tehran.
Yitzhak Rabin, then defense minister, explained the logic in October 1987. “Iran is Israel’s best friend and we do not intend to change our position in relation to Tehran, because Khomeini’s regime will not last forever,” he said. The expectation that the Islamic Republic would fall was already there. Israel simply did not think at the time that it was its job to hasten it.
Rabin was also the one who turned. Back as prime minister in 1992, he received the first intelligence reports on an Iranian nuclear program and concluded, aides recalled, that only a nuclear Iran could pose an existential threat Israel could not answer. Part of his case for peace with the Palestinians and Jordan was to clear the near front before facing the far one.
Ariel Sharon took the same view further. In November 2002, as the United States prepared to invade Iraq, he told The Times of London that Iran should be put under pressure “the day after” Baghdad fell, calling it a center of world terror.
As prime minister he carried aerial photographs of Iranian sites to George W. Bush and said Israel “cannot accept” a nuclear Iran. Ehud Olmert, his successor, kept the military option on the table while, according to later reporting, the first cyberattacks on Iran’s centrifuges were set in motion with Washington.
None of them spoke of regime change. Their target was the bomb.
Benjamin Netanyahu made Iran his signature cause. Across 15 years in office before 2021, he drew a cartoon bomb at the United Nations, addressed the US Congress against the 2015 nuclear deal, and displayed an archive of Iranian nuclear documents his agents had smuggled out of Tehran.
He also began speaking past the government to the people. He recorded messages to Iranians, offering water technology during the drought and insisting that Israel’s quarrel was “not with the Iranian people.”
The message was new: the problem is not Iran, it is the people who rule it.
Naftali Bennett, prime minister in 2021 and 2022, turned that view into a doctrine. Israel, he argued, had spent decades fighting the arms of the octopus, Hezbollah and Hamas, while leaving the head untouched.
He said he launched about 30 operations against the Islamic Republic with the Mossad and other agencies, not all of them military, and predicted it would collapse like the Soviet Union.
Yair Lapid, who succeeded him for six months, spent his term lobbying against a revived nuclear deal.
Since returning to power at the end of 2022, Netanyahu has moved from hoping to aiming. In June 2025, as Israeli jets struck Iran in the 12-day war, he told Iranians that “as we achieve our objective, we are also clearing the path for you to achieve your freedom.”
The war that began on February 28 this year, fought with the United States, killed former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Last week Netanyahu went further than any Israeli leader before him: “This regime must fall and I will topple it.”
Netanyahu, leading Likud, has made bringing down the Islamic Republic his campaign’s primary objective and says he has told the security services to work toward it. He has also said he opposes a preemptive strike before the vote.
Gadi Eisenkot, the former military chief whose Yashar party is Likud’s main rival, says the Islamic Republic’s fall is necessary but cannot be achieved by force. “This must come from within the Iranian people,” he said, and he would strike again only if Tehran raced for a bomb.
Bennett and Lapid, running together on the Together list, want to hit harder, not softer. Bennett says attacks by Tehran’s allies should be answered on Iranian soil. Lapid has called for striking Iran’s energy infrastructure, including the Kharg Island oil terminal.
Avigdor Lieberman of Yisrael Beiteinu has long called for overthrowing the Islamic Republic and says past efforts fell short. Itamar Ben-Gvir of the far-right Jewish Power backs military operations until Israel’s goals are met. Mansour Abbas, whose Ra’am party draws Arab Israeli voters, has set out no position on Iran.
From Rabin’s prediction that Khomeini’s rule would not last to Netanyahu’s promise to end it himself, the conclusion has barely moved. What Israelis will choose on Tuesday is not whether to want the Islamic Republic gone, but how loudly to say it and how much to risk to get there.
A possible resumption of US strikes on Iran would serve an increasingly economic war, weakening Tehran’s ability to challenge a blockade that Washington appears prepared to maintain for the foreseeable future.
A strike on Iran could "absolutely" come this weekend, the US ambassador to Turkey, Tom Barrack, said Friday, and the administration hasn’t said what it would be for.
The New York Times reports that US and Israeli planners have drawn up a short, intensive campaign for after the November 3 midterms, aimed at Iran’s missile and drone arsenal, nuclear sites and energy infrastructure.
Critics read the reports as proof that there is no strategy anymore. That reads the war through the lens of February, when the economic campaign existed to support the war. Whether the administration designed it this way or simply ended up here, the strikes now serve the economic campaign, which is proving more harmful to the regime than the strikes ever were.
Washington has committed to the blockade and treats the strikes as optional. Speaking to reporters Friday, President Trump said the choice was whether to finish it off or let it wither, and that with oil moving through Hormuz the US was getting everything it wanted. Mike Waltz, the US ambassador to the United Nations, told the Financial Times the same day that the president and the Navy can maintain the blockade for the foreseeable future while the administration keeps tightening economic pressure.
The US is now running a siege. It has sharply restricted Iran’s access to oil buyers, international finance and regional trade. The job of the military is to keep the cordon from being broken. The shift in strategy came in July, when the US restored the blockade after the June memorandum collapsed and the strikes that followed were about the strait.
Central Command said its July strikes were meant to degrade Iran’s ability to attack commercial shipping. The next round of strikes would be the first planned campaign since the blockade and the sanctions began doing real damage to the regime.
Iran’s imports since the war began show its priority — bringing in the supplies it needs to be able to fight its way out of the blockade. It is bringing in truck parts, missile fuel ingredients and missile and drone components to rebuild the launchers and stockpiles. The Wall Street Journal counted about 1,300 shipments of dual-use components from Chinese suppliers to Iran’s defense ministry in the first half of the year.
On October 1 the Treasury sanctioned Iran’s truck and auto makers, which it called an essential part of Iran’s defense industrial base, and the suppliers in Turkey, the Emirates and East Asia feeding them parts. Iran is assembling missiles from stockpiled components in small numbers, the Journal reported in September, and the blockade has made the solid-fuel components it can’t make harder to import.
Iran loaded no crude oil onto tankers in September, according to Bloomberg. CENTCOM says the blockade has stopped $25 billion in oil exports. The United Arab Emirates halted all trade and financial dealings with Iran in August. The regime has no way to persuade its own base or the Persian Gulf states that it has an answer.
That leaves Tehran a short list of cards to play against the blockade and the sanctions.
The first is attacking commercial shipping in the strait. Maritime security sources recorded at least 12 attacks on tankers around the Strait of Hormuz in the week to October 5, the highest weekly total of the war.
The second is pressuring its neighbors. Iran threatens Persian Gulf energy infrastructure, US bases and undersea cables, and it has the Houthis at Bab el-Mandeb, all meant to push the Persian Gulf states to lobby Washington to end the blockade.
The third is to strain US munition supplies. Mohsen Rezaei, Iran’s security chief, said this week that a long war favors Iran because the test is which side can sustain a cycle of production, deployment and response.
The fourth is to keep offering a deal that it likely won’t make. Tehran’s standing offer is to reopen the strait in seven days in exchange for ending the blockade, easing oil sanctions and releasing frozen assets.
The fifth is the nuclear program, which the regime can negotiate to death over enrichment and dangle in front of Washington for the same price.
A strike goes down that list. The missile and drone arsenal the Times describes, and the launchers, mine-layers, naval sites, radars and air defenses CENTCOM has hit since July, are the hardware behind the regime’s threat to the strait and its neighbors.
Fewer launchers means fewer ships hit and a weaker threat to the Persian Gulf. Hitting stockpiles and production sites limits its ability to strain and outlast US munition supplies, and a strike tests Rezaei’s claim directly. Destroying enough of those capabilities would weaken Iran’s offer to stop attacking shipping in exchange for lifting the blockade.
Washington would have less reason to pay for a threat Iran could no longer credibly sustain. Hitting Pickaxe Mountain doesn’t end the nuclear program, but it leaves Tehran less to bargain with when it asks for sanctions relief.
Holding a blockade is expensive. Destroyers are doing work that cheap systems should do, and the Navy is stretched thin. Fewer Iranian launchers firing at the escort mission means the Navy can hold the line longer without forcing a decision in Washington.
The regime has shown it will take the strikes. Ali Khamenei and Ali Larijani are dead, Mojtaba Khamenei succeeded his father, and Tehran still won’t concede on any deal the US could accept. What it can’t take is the economic war.
The blockade turned the clock against Tehran. The regime’s strategy since February has been to wait — for the administration to lose patience, for the midterms, for the next policy swing.
The US can hold a blockade for the foreseeable future at a cost it can carry. A prolonged loss of oil revenue will make Tehran’s strategy of waiting out Washington increasingly difficult to sustain. The strikes exist to keep that clock running.
Washington and Tehran traded increasingly hostile threats on Friday, with President Donald Trump raising the possibility of further military action and Iranian officials warning of attacks on regional infrastructure, while diplomatic efforts in Istanbul produced no breakthrough.
Trump said the United States “may do another little Epic Fury,” referring to the US military operation against Iran, but gave no details on the timing or scope of any renewed action.
His remarks came after US Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack said an American strike could come as early as this weekend, while stressing that Trump remained open to a deal. Trump later distanced himself from Barrack’s suggestion, saying he knew nothing about plans for a weekend strike.
The possibility of renewed strikes has also been under discussion in Washington and Israel. The Atlantic reported that Trump was considering several days of strikes after the November 3 midterm elections, potentially targeting Iranian missile and drone capabilities, energy infrastructure and nuclear facilities. ABC News separately reported on Thursday that US and Israeli military planners had drawn up plans for renewed attacks.
Tehran threatens wider response
Tehran, meanwhile, has been preparing its response to another potential round of attacks, with its threats increasingly directed at infrastructure beyond Iran’s borders.
Two senior Iranian security officials told Reuters that Tehran had developed plans to strike undersea communications cables in the Persian Gulf if the United States and Israel resumed military operations. One official said Iran could also seek to prevent repairs to prolong the disruption.
The Wall Street Journal separately reported that Iran had threatened to attack airports, pipelines and other civilian and economic infrastructure in neighboring Persian Gulf countries if US-Israeli strikes resumed.
The Revolutionary Guards added to the warnings. Senior commander Yadollah Javani said Iran would become a killing field for American troops attempting a ground invasion, while Guards spokesman Hossein Mohebbi circulated a graphic showing a burning oil tanker and oil prices climbing to $117 a barrel.
The Guards’ navy also said two supertankers had struck mines in the Strait of Hormuz, where disruption to shipping has become a central part of the confrontation.
Istanbul talks yield no breakthrough
Against this backdrop, Turkey hosted foreign ministers from Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Britain, France and Germany in Istanbul on Friday for talks focused on regional conflicts, including the Iran war, shipping security and the fighting in Yemen.
The four regional countries, known collectively as the R4, also met separately and issued a declaration supporting the Islamabad memorandum, calling for a negotiated settlement and opposing attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure, including commercial vessels.
They called for the swift restoration of safe and unrestricted passage through the Strait of Hormuz, warning that disruptions threaten global supplies of energy, fertilizer and food. The ministers also agreed to maintain close consultations on regional security.
The Istanbul meetings brought regional and European governments together in support of diplomacy but produced no announced progress toward a US-Iran agreement.
With Washington considering further military action and Tehran threatening to widen its response to renewed strikes, the gap between the two sides remained considerable despite continuing mediation efforts.
Escalating war rhetoric from Iran, the United States and Israel, coupled with military movements across the region, has heightened fears of another conflict, as Iranians debate online whether war could bring political change or deepen the country's crises.
Iranian social media users are closely following statements by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as diplomatic and military movements across the region.
Many view the developments as possible signs of an impending US-Israeli attack.
A central debate is whether another war could bring down the Islamic Republic or simply inflict further damage on Iran.
Those supporting military action describe war as a necessary evil to end the political system, arguing that previous attempts to bring about change have failed.
Opponents warn that another conflict could destroy energy infrastructure and refineries, deepen economic hardship and leave Iranian society in an even worse position.
“We are inside Iran and face all kinds of financial, security and social problems, but we are willing to pay the price to end this nightmare,” one user wrote.
Another user wrote: “This uncertainty is really a thousand times worse than war. We cannot even plan a trip, let alone make decisions about work, education or running a business.”
Others strongly rejected that view.
“War brings destruction, chaos, disease and so many other problems,” one user wrote. “The outcome will not necessarily be what you imagine. It could be much worse than things are now.”
Another highlighted the vulnerability of people without secure salaries, who could lose their livelihoods if fighting disrupted economic activity.
One user summed up the conflicting attitudes they had encountered.
“I have seen many people in Iran waiting for an attack so that things can finally be settled… and others who wanted an agreement to be reached,” the user wrote. “Feelings differ, but everyone is tired of this situation.”
Some are urging others to stock up on water, food and medicine and keep cash on hand. Others warn people living near military or government facilities to consider leaving.
Users have also expressed concern for elderly people, those with illnesses and people living alone.
Hardliners push for confrontation
Ultra-hardline voices have also expressed enthusiasm for military confrontation, but for very different reasons.
They argue that negotiations with Washington have merely given Iran's adversaries time to regroup and prepare for a stronger attack.
Some have sharply criticized officials who pursued diplomacy and called for Iran to launch a pre-emptive strike if war appears imminent.
“Why shouldn't Iran start the war this time instead of always waiting to be caught off guard?” one user wrote.
Another argued that Iran did not need nuclear weapons to inflict serious damage on its adversaries.
“We don't even need an atomic bomb to retaliate,” the user wrote, arguing instead for strikes on nuclear power plants in Israel and the United Arab Emirates.
The calls for confrontation reflect a very different political outlook from anti-government users hoping outside military action could bring down the Islamic Republic.
But both illustrate how repeated rounds of fighting and failed diplomacy have led some on opposing sides of Iran's political divide to see another war as preferable to the current uncertainty.
Parents prepare for the worst
Parents' concerns about children's safety have intensified following the deaths of more than 100 schoolchildren in a US attack on Minab at the beginning of the recent war.
Some are urging families to keep children home from school if the likelihood of an attack increases. Others are discussing plans to collect children from schools and move them to safer locations as quickly as possible if fighting resumes.
An Instagram post featuring a firefighter has attracted particular attention. The firefighter said that while inspecting safety arrangements at a girls' high school, a school official told them instructions had been issued to prepare identification tags for students.
On Friday, an Education Ministry spokesperson denied that such measures were being implemented and accused “enemies or ignorant individuals” of spreading fear.
One user said they had checked with relatives in Tehran and concluded that the reports were accurate, claiming families they contacted had requested identification tags and were awaiting their delivery.
Fear of another internet blackout
The prospect of another shutdown of international internet access is adding to the anxiety.
Users fear authorities could cut international connectivity immediately if hostilities resume. The prospect is particularly troubling after previous shutdowns made it difficult to contact relatives and access reliable information.
One user recalled that during the war in June last year, the internet was cut several days after fighting began. When war broke out again at the end of February, the shutdown came within hours.
“Now, instead of checking the news in the morning, I open Google's domain to see whether it loads,” the user wrote, “so I can find out whether the war has started.”
