We won’t belabor the geography this morning. Last month, U.S. Central Command hit Iranian targets on Kharg Island, where Iran used to conduct about 90% of its petroleum exports. We did not hit that island over the weekend, concentrating our attention much farther east, around the Strait of Hormuz and Larak Island on Sunday.

We hit unspecified targets again last night, and we think they were part of the same target set around the Strait.
This is another in the long series of rope-a-dope military operations Iran has attempted to conduct since its traditional military was crushed. That has made command and control by those attempting to portray themselves as the legitimate government of the nation of Iran increasingly complex.

Strike planning now apparently involves men struggling to move drone aircraft the size of automobiles onto launching rails. Sometimes without phones to determine when they should be lit off and launched.

Or, at what.

The CENTCOM strikes are not intended to hit civilian targets, or at least not directly. The hope appears to be that conditions will become so uncomfortable that the people will rise again, as they did last spring, when thousands were in the streets looking for a little freedom of expression and the Revolutionary Guard responded with deadly force.

So that tension is building as the dedicated IRGC prepares to go to its own death—so long as it isn’t first.

So, those are the islands in the stream this morning.

Deirdre now has to try to remember how many days there are until 03 November, and whether we can hope for peace—or suffer two years of impeachments until we actually have a new President outside the stream we have all been swimming in since 2016.

Copyright 2026 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com