{"id":18090,"date":"2026-11-05T20:00:48","date_gmt":"2026-11-05T12:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=18090"},"modified":"2026-11-05T20:00:55","modified_gmt":"2026-11-05T12:00:55","slug":"iran-strikes-kept-quiet-during-midterm-homestretch-set-off-worries-on-transparency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=18090","title":{"rendered":"Iran strikes kept quiet during midterm homestretch set off worries on transparency"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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A series of reported secret U.S. military attacks carried out against Iran in the lead up to Tuesday\u2019s midterm elections is raising alarms around public transparency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The United States\u2019s Monday strike on Iranian targets in the Strait of Hormuz \u2014 including an anti-aircraft facility on the strategic Qeshm Island \u2014 marked the latest in a series of American attacks over the past few weeks, The Wall Street Journal first reported. The military operations have not been publicly acknowledged by the U.S. or Iran, and the Pentagon has not disclosed any bombing of Iranian targets since two days of strikes in early September.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

President Trump on Tuesday insisted there was no return to fighting, calling the Monday attack \u201cminor\u201d rather than a return to all-out war, messaging at odds with his insistence last month that Washington would \u201cnot be attacking Iran at any time prior to the Midterm Elections.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That, coupled with the Pentagon\u2019s silence around a deeply unpopular war as Americans were set to head to the polls, calls into question exactly how much the government is obligated to disclose to the public about its military operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rachel VanLandingham, a former Air Force judge advocate and now a law professor at Southwestern Law School, said there is no clear statutory requirement for the Executive Branch to publicly disclose discrete military operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stay
During previous wars like Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon held regular press briefings to keep the public informed, \u201ca norm that has been greatly deviated from under [Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth\u2019s] Pentagon, which has taken concrete steps to squash transparency,\u201d she told The Hill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One former Pentagon spokesperson had a far more blunt assessment, telling The Hill that the administration \u201cbombed Qeshm Island during a news cycle where no one is going to cover this,\u201d pointing to the timing as falling less than a day before the midterms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo the extent that this is incredibly unpopular, they probably don\u2019t want a lot of people talking about it,\u201d they said. \u201cThe lack of disclosure raises real transparency concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

U.S. Central Command, the military arm that oversees warfighters in the Middle East, did not respond to questions from The Hill on any recent U.S. strikes on Iran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s unsurprising the Trump administration would look to tamp down on any potential coverage around the Iran war, a conflict that has stretched more than eight months, roiled global markets and sent fuel costs soaring with no relief in sight \u2014 the latter of which was a major consideration as Americans headed to the voting booth Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Washington and Tehran have continued to exchange strikes since this summer but have not returned to the intense missile and drone barrages seen in the early stages of the conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s clear that the White House was trying to keep the conflict part of this Iran war quieter and not allow it at the near zero hour to hurt its electoral chances or become a factor in in the domestic election more than it already was,\u201d said Jason Campbell, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Monday Trump insisted that Iran is not a forever war, but a \u201csoft war\u201d that he could end at any time he chooses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not fighting a war . . . When was the last time we fired anything? This isn\u2019t a war, this is a very soft war,\u201d Trump said on Hannity, shortly after the U.S. military struck Qeshm Island. \u201cThis is not much of a war, Sean, because there hasn\u2019t been shooting for months.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But following an astonishing GOP loss in the midterms, with Democrats taking back both the House and the Senate by unforeseen numbers, Vice President Vance on Wednesday broke his silence, saying: \u201cThe reason we lost is the war.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump, meanwhile, told reporters Wednesday that he knew the war would impact voting but \u201cwhether it impacted it or not Iran can\u2019t have a nuclear weapon, and they will never have a nuclear weapon.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Public information on the war has dropped to all by a trickle in Trump\u2019s second term, with Hegseth declining to hold any press briefings on the matter since this spring. The Pentagon chief has been particularly hostile to reporters from legacy outlets \u2014 banishing them from the Pentagon\u2019s hallways without an escort back in October 2025 \u2014 and any negative coverage surrounding the conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The former Pentagon spokesperson said in a typical administration, for every kinetic strike, the building would release a statement shortly after the fact and the current secretary of Defense generally would have some remark about it, but there\u2019s no laws stipulating that must be the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not illegal to not do it,\u201d they said of public disclosure. \u201cNixon bombed Cambodia and didn\u2019t tell anybody about it for two days. It wasn\u2019t a crime. But it\u2019s just a thing that\u2019s done.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But they added that there are \u201cno more norms of media engagement from the Pentagon. All that has gone away.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As to what an administration is legally required to disclose, VanLandingham said there are overlapping requirements to inform certain members of Congress of certain operations, but not for general public disclosure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The War Powers Resolution requires that the president provide periodic updates on the status, scope and duration of a war or deployment to Congress every six months, \u201cbut that\u2019s about the only real statutory reporting requirement \u2014 after the initial report within 48 hours of initiation of hostilities or deployment into area in which hostilities are imminent \u2014 for the war in general,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There also are several Congressional mandated provisions in the annual National Defense Authorization Act that require disclosure of U.S. military fatalities to family members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAccountability is impossible without transparency, and that\u2019s the administration\u2019s goal here \u2014 to avoid accountability for their wartime actions,\u201d VanLandingham added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A series of reported secret U.S. military attacks carried out against Iran in the lead up to Tuesday\u2019s midterm elections is raising alarms around public transparency. The United States\u2019s Monday strike on Iranian targets in the Strait of Hormuz \u2014 including an anti-aircraft facility on the strategic Qeshm Island \u2014 marked the latest in a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":18091,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1790,1608,2717],"class_list":["post-18090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-iran","tag-military","tag-pentagon"],"yoast_head":"\nIran strikes kept quiet during midterm homestretch set off worries on transparency - LISTEN WORLD<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=18090\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Iran strikes kept quiet during midterm homestretch set off worries on transparency - LISTEN WORLD\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A series of reported secret U.S. military attacks carried out against Iran in the lead up to Tuesday\u2019s midterm elections is raising alarms around public transparency. 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