Report Claims Iran Considered Attacking US Bases in Middle East

Attacks were said to be discussed before Yemen drone strike on Saudi Arabia


The media furor surrounding the Iranian threat continues apace on Monday, with a dubious claim that Iran gave serious consideration to attacking US military bases in the Middle East in September, before deciding against it.

The report is built around quotes from an unnamed Iranian official, who claimed there were five secret meetings on the matter, which ended with the Yemeni drone strike on Saudi Arabia. This intends to present the Yemeni attack as an Iranian attack, something US officials have tried to do, but which both Iran and the Yemeni Houthi movement have denied.

That the story doesn’t make sense is an afterthought, as the goal is to portray Iran as an aggressor, exemplified by the unnamed official quoting an unnamed Iranian commander saying “it is time to take out our swords and teach them a lesson.”

Yet since the story doesn’t end with an actual Iranian attack, but just an attack that officials want to blame on Iran, the portrayal of Iran’s aggressiveness also doesn’t pan out even in-narrative.

The report claims concerns about a “direct confrontation” leading to a devastating war was what stopped Iran from attacking the US, which makes sense, but contradicts US generals claiming over the weekend that the US had not deterred Iran from attacking.

Iranian officials, naturally, rejected this report, saying these meetings never took place. There is no evidence the meetings did take place either, and since there was no attack there is no reason to even suspect that there were multiple meetings about the attack, beyond that being a way to keep Iran in the headlines.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.