Col. Douglas Macgregor predicts a far bigger U.S. invasion of Iran soon.

1 October 2026, posted by Eric Zuesse. (All of my recent articles can be seen here.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEqNEAWjrLc

30 September 2026

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GLENN DIESEN: What do you see happening next? Uh [is it] what the US, uh what the Trump administration, might try to do next militarily because they don’t seem to have settled on peace yet? DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: No, I think the rumors of any sort of agreement or deal, as the president likes to call it, are grossly

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exaggerated. There doesn’t appear to be any real willingness to reach an agreement unless it involves the unconditional capitulation of the Iranians to whatever Washington wants. So, I I don’t think we’re going to see much change there. In fact, yesterday I was talking to a colleague

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and he’s, he’s very expert on matters particularly in Russia, and he said to me the interesting thing is that Washington’s proxy in Ukraine has lost the war to Moscow to Russia but the Russians have yet to consolidate or secure their victory. In the same sense,

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I think we can argue that the US military, which is operating as a surrogate for the Israelis, seems to be, seems to have lost the war with Iran over over any number of different issues, not the least of which is control of the Persian Gulf. But the Iranians have yet to secure

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their own victory. In other words, we’re in a, we’re in a limbo at this point. And what history teaches is if the Russians are going to be victorious in Ukraine and the Iranians are going to be victorious in the Middle East, they’ve got to secure their victories. They’ve

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got to take decisive action. Thus far, the Russians have seemed unwilling to do that. And it seems as though the Iranians at this stage are really willing to wait on the assumption, I think, that the pain inflicted on the global economy and also the United

02:32

States by the closure of the strait is going to work to their advantage. And they probably assume that we will never come back to the bases that are being destroyed, which is not a bad assumption. But I I think they are underestimating the determination of the

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Israelis to drag us back into the region. So this leads to some important questions for the Iranians. What are they going to do to ensure that we don’t come back in some other form? We may have largely left at this point, although I guess the drop dead date for

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our departure from Iraq, complete evacuation of the country is 30 September. I assume we’ll we’ll meet that deadline. I don’t know how many of us are still in Iraq. But the point nevertheless remains, what what is Iran going to do? We know that what we’re

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engaged in right now is a massive military buildup for another round of war with Iran. Anybody watching what’s happening in the United States Air Force knows that our our forces are building up. We’re committing more and more airmen and and others to Great Britain and Germany to

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bases in those countries from which presumably we will fly bombers, and large numbers of bombers can be quickly flown in, prepared, loaded with weapons and sent off to action. The question is when does this happen? Well, it could happen before the elections or

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it could happen immediately after. It sounds as though there is a readiness to wait until after the elections. Presumably that’s because we’re trying to replenish a lot of stocks, missiles, precision guided munitions, and so forth. Then we have the 40,000 2,000 pound

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bombs that are being shipped to Israel. And even if Israel wanted to deliver all of those, they couldn’t. So my assumption is that a lot of those were are meant for US use. And we will use Israel as a launch pad for the next round of attacks. So, uh, I think the best that we can say

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at this point is there’s been no real fundamental change in the in the situation between ourselves and Iran, and this is probably the last hurrah for the United States military in its attempt to bring Iran to heal. Now, what does that mean? What what condition

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other than total capitulation are we prepared to accept? I don’t know. And I don’t know how much destruction we can create. We certainly can create a great deal, but will it result in the disintegration of the Iranian state, which is obviously what Israel wants?

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I don’t know what what we want other than whatever Israel wants. So, it’s a very difficult situation right now, but I don’t see much uh sunshine on the horizon, let’s put it that way. DIESEN: I’m glad you compared it a bit to the Ukrainian case because uh you know in

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this instance as well we have European leaders who want to say they want to fight Russia but they don’t explain how they’re going to defeat Russia. They don’t, they can’t point [to] a military they can use, and they don’t even explain what war means. Are they going to fight them

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in Ukraine and going to launch missiles? But there’s not a convincing path to victory and I guess that’s a similarity to Iran. Do, do you see any convincing story here in terms of how the US can win this war? Because you know, this combination of geography and the new

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weapons technologies puts Iran in a very favorable position. Uh, do you think the US would go in with a land force like actually take over parts of Iran or Yemen for that matter or will it be bombing campaigned? MACGREGOR: Well, the truth is we have almost no army at all by

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historical standards. We’re under 450,000 in the so-called standing army or regular army. We don’t even use those words of regular army much anymore. I don’t know what the plan is. It would involving reservists and national guardsmen. I think that would probably rub up

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against the Congress in ways that are not very popular. And I’m sure that President President Trump doesn’t really want to bring in large numbers of reserves and national guard. I don’t see much happening on the ground. Now that doesn’t exclude some possibilities. Could we conceivably find

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a way using Marines and soldiers to get into the Gulf it uh other than to make President Trump and his supporters happy and by that I mean the Israelis who are pushing him into war. Uh there’s Chabahar, you know, on the uh coast of the Indian Ocean or

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the Arabian Sea, whatever you want to call it. I don’t know that that will be well received because that’s a very important port for a lot of people outside of the region. So I you know I just don’t know what you think you can accomplish with ground troops. Now can

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you do things with special operations forces? Probably. But that didn’t go very well the last time we tried it. And I think at that point we decided perhaps we should take another approach to deal with the supposed enriched uranium. Uh so right now I think this is largely an

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air and missile operation. The real question is when it becomes clear that Iran is not going to capitulate, do we turn to the use of nuclear weapons? And I don’t care if somebody wants to call it a tactical nuclear weapon or or otherwise. A nuclear weapon

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is a nuclear weapon that ostensibly opens Pandora’s box. That can lead to all sorts of terrible outcomes, rapid escalation. it could even bring in the the Russians and the Chinese. We seem to have assumed that we’ve pacified the Chinese on the basis of this last visit.

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…

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[Trump has] betrayed every trust that you can imagine from his own party, from his own support base. And I think Americans are increasingly disgusted by what they see as a, an exercise dressed up as as government which is almost kleptocracy. So uh I don’t know that the the whole

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midterms plays that much of a role. I think one of the few times when President Trump has been completely honest is when he’s spoken and said I’m really not worried about the midterms. And I think he has to make a decision or had to make a decision. Do I bend

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uh in the direction of my supporters, my base, and others who are opposed to these policies, or do I stick with them? And I think he’s decided he’s better off sticking with these policies because that’s where the money is. The billionaires that support him, the

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billionaires that got him elected, the billionaires that are driving policy, they’re his best shot at staying in office. If he betrays them at this point, which I would call Charlie Kirk like, in other words, goes through an epiphany and says, “Oh, I was wrong.” Uh, does he end up like Charlie Kirk?

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ALSO ON SEPTEMBER 30th FROM DIESEN:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHnVs0oWv74 

“Larry Johnson: Europe-Russia War is now ‘Inevitable’”

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MY COMMENTS:

Although I generally agree with Macgregor, I’ve found falsehoods in some of his assertions, and whenever I have pointed those out to him he responded hostilely if at all, and refused my offer to supply him with documentation; so, this time, I shall instead publicly raise this factual question about his key allegations:

He alleged, and I asked ChatGPT “Is this statement credible?” about: “‘We’re committing more and more airmen and and others to Great Britain and Germany to bases in those countries from which presumably we will fly bombers, and large numbers of bombers can be quickly flown in, prepared, loaded with weapons and sent off to action’ bombing Iran”?

ChatGPT documented and then summarized:

BRITAIN: YES, AND IT IS ALREADY HAPPENING. Fairford currently hosts approximately a dozen U.S. B-1 bombers; it has already launched U.S. bomber operations against Iran; it has the personnel, runway, maintenance and nearby weapons-storage infrastructure necessary to sustain those operations; and additional bombers can be surged there.

GERMANY: POSSIBLE AS AN ENABLING/STAGING NETWORK, BUT” very unlikely.

Consequently, since the U.S. no longer has any substantial numbers of troops in GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) countries, except Qatar, Kuwait, and UAE, all of which are directly opposite Iran on the Persian Gulf and therefore can easily be decimated by Iran’s missiles, any land-forces from the U.S. would be extremely vulnerable. My inquiries to ChatGPT about that possibility produced a sequence of calculations, closing with: “The publicly visible U.S. posture around Iran presently looks overwhelmingly configured for another air/naval war and defense of U.S. installations — not for a large conventional ground invasion of Iran.”

I asked a few more questions, and it concluded “There is a measurable reinforcement of U.S. offensive capability, and today’s news makes the picture substantially clearer,” that the dozen B-1B bombers at Fairford are supplemented for air-refueling them, by “further tanker movements toward Middle East” plus an “unusually concentrated movement” of a “C-17 stream through Europe toward Israel/Middle East” plus a “C-17 stream through Europe toward Israel/Middle East” plus a third aircraft carrier now being added to the current two-carrier strike force, plus “up to 10,000 more troops reportedly being sent,” so that “I would now call this a significant military reinforcement.”

ChatGPT’s reply to my question “Is the U.S. sending troops to Israel?” (another possible U.S. staging-area) was: “As of October 1, 2026, I find no current announcement that the United States is sending a new deployment of U.S. ground troops to Israel. There is an important qualification: U.S. troops are already in Israel. About 200 U.S. military personnel were deployed there in October 2025 to establish and operate the Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC), which was intended to monitor the Gaza ceasefire and coordinate humanitarian and security arrangements. …” Its response to my question “Are the 40,000 2,000-pound bombs that Trump is sending to Israel now already there?” was

No. The 40,000 bombs in the newly reported package are not already in Israel. In fact, as of October 1, 2026, the transaction itself has not yet completed the U.S. arms-sale process.

The distinction is important. The newly reported $2.8 billion package consists of 20,000 MK-84 2,000-pound bombs + 20,000 BLU-117 2,000-pound bombs, plus 20,000 I-2000 penetrator warheads. On September 16, ABC reported that the State Department had informally notified congressional committees, but had not yet initiated the formal review process and the package had not been finalized. ABC News [That source said “While the State Department has informally notified key congressional committees about the pending sale, the administration has not yet initiated a formal review process and the package has not been finalized, the sources said.”] Moreover, the Washington Post specifically reports that delivery of orders this large can take multiple years. The Washington Post [That source also said: “The Trump administration is pressing the leaders of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee to approve the sale. … Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) said Tuesday he intended to build support against the arms sale. “Donald Trump is sending bombs paid for by American taxpayers to a government led by a wanted war criminal — all while the Netanyahu government continues to bomb Gaza and Lebanon, and block justice and accountability for Americans killed on its watch,” he said. ‘This is not putting Americans first. We will work to stop it,’ he added.”]

So, only an invasion from Britain seems at all likely. Macgregor’s prediction that “we will use Israel as a launch pad for the next round of attacks” seems exceedingly unlikely to be true.

I asked ChatGPT “Do you continue to believe that ‘The publicly visible U.S. posture around Iran presently looks overwhelmingly configured for another air/naval war and defense of U.S. installations — not for a large conventional ground invasion of Iran.’?” It now said no:

The most important fact I had missed is the 82nd Airborne Division. Elements of its 1st Brigade Combat Team — including two infantry battalions — were deployed to the Middle East in March, and the Army announced in late August that deployed elements of the 82nd would remain there into 2027 because of “operational requirements.” These are genuine ground-assault troops, not air-defense or logistics personnel.

And today’s new deployment contains another ground component. The approximately 9,000 personnel now heading toward the region aren’t simply a third carrier’s sailors. AP reports that the force includes the Makin Island Amphibious Ready Group carrying the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit, with about 2,000 Marines, in addition to more than 7,000 sailors.

That means the developing picture includes two amphibious Marine forces: the 11th MEU already aboard the Boxer group and the 13th MEU now heading toward the theater. Together, that’s roughly 4,000–4,500 Marines, although MEUs contain aviation, logistics and command elements as well as infantry. Add the deployed 82nd Airborne infantry elements and whatever SOF remain in theater, and the United States has a meaningful capability for limited offensive ground operations.

But the scale still matters enormously. A large conventional invasion of Iran would require forces vastly exceeding this. Former CENTCOM commander Joseph Votel estimated in July that even a substantially narrower operation to seize mainland territory around the Strait of Hormuz could require at least 100,000 troops.

So I would replace my earlier sentence with:

The publicly visible U.S. posture is predominantly configured for a major offensive air-and-naval campaign against Iran, while also providing substantial defensive capability and an increasingly significant — but still comparatively small — ground force capable of amphibious assaults, airborne operations, seizures of particular Iranian positions or territory, and special-operations raids. It does not presently resemble the force required for a large-scale invasion and occupation of Iran.

That is materially different from what I said earlier.

And today’s deployment makes the distinction particularly clear. The Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group adds enormous air-strike capacity, while the Makin Island/13th MEU group adds ground-assault capacity. AP says that if the arriving forces overlap with those already there, the U.S. naval presence alone will exceed 20,000 sailors and Marines and include hundreds of aircraft.

So if by “ground invasion” we mean any U.S. forces physically entering Iranian territory, I would no longer say the posture argues strongly against it. The force structure is quite compatible with limited incursions or seizures of specific objectives. What the currently visible buildup still argues against is an Iraq-2003-style invasion intended to conquer and occupy Iran as a whole.

Reuters today said that Iran is “reviewing plans to expand potential targets beyond US-linked assets to countries that support US military operations and possibly to locations outside the Middle East.” That could include Britain. Iran still has time for a pre-emptive attack on that.

While the U.S. is bulking-up to invade Iran, Iran is preparing itself for everything up to but not including a nuclear invasion, which might bring Russia and/or China into the war against America.

On July 12th I headlined “WHY IRAN DOESN’T NEED A NUCLEAR WEAPON TO DEFEAT U.S. & ISRAEL” and predicted that “Iran will force America out of the Middle East if Netanyahu and/or Trump decides to do another major bombing campaign against Iran. Moreover, the lack of drinking water in Qatar, UAE, Israel, and Saudi Arabia, that would result, would kill millions of people there, and might overthrow their leaders.”

The invasion that America seems now to be preparing against Iran would almost certainly set off revolutions against the GCC monarchies. Trump’s decision to carry out the invasion that he is now setting up would thus effectively end the U.S. empire. Inasmuch as they didn’t force Trump — they could certainly buy him off — not to do this, there are questions: Why did they not? Are they stupid? Why is what is being published here, not being published there? Are they THAT supportive of Israel, to simply allow this to happen? I cannot understand those people.

I do not currently expect that either an all-out war between America and Iran, or between NATO and Russia, will occur (unless Trump goes nuclear). However, I have found that both Douglas Macgregor and Larry Johnson are among the few geostrategic commentators with the highest percentages of their predictions coming true, and consequently I noted here their opinions. I still am expecting the American empire to end gradually, not apocalyptically, and for its (the U.S.-dominated) U.N. to be replaced by a democratic federal World Government (possibly as an extension from the current SCO) as the creator and enforcer of international (and no intranational) laws, outlawing and terminating any empire. The new organization’s headquarters would probably be somewhere in Asia, and not in a country that has ever been in (nor favorable toward) the U.S. empire. This would be the end of the Age of Empires — not MERELY of the last empire.  Of course, there would be an alternative to this type of end: WW III. I am not expecting it, but no one can predict how far Trump is willing to go — he could opt for it.

Furthermore, European leaders (spokespersons for U.S. colonies) have raised the possibility of trying to take over control of Kaliningrad, a part of Russia. Today, Russia’s Government sent to European Governments a letter warning that any such attempt would be dealt with by all means, which would be up to and including — if necessary — a nuclear response.

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s latest book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.