There is some speculation in Washington about a so-called October Surprise being engineered by either party or their supporters to change the outcome of the upcoming election. The original October Surprise took place in 1980, when Ronald Reagan’s campaign manager William Casey conspired with several senior CIA officers in Europe to convince the Iranian government to delay the release of the American Embassy hostages until after the November election against Jimmy Carter. Casey believed that any earlier release of the hostages would give a boost to the Carter campaign, demonstrating that the Democratic Party’s policy of how to deal with Iran was working. The Iranian government was approached secretly using CIA resources and complied with the request, believing that it would result in a less hostile relationship with the new administration. In the event, Reagan defeated Carter and some believed that the continuation of the hostage crisis had made the administration look feckless and hurt the incumbent just enough to change the outcome of the election. Since that time “October Surprise” has become shorthand for playing a political dirty trick shortly before the election to directly impact negatively on a candidate’s credibility or ability to respond to problems.
Another recent version of the Surprise is to spread lies about a candidate’s personal history or regarding his or her acceptance of support from enemies like Russia or China, such as the Clinton campaign attempted to do in 2016. And as a variation on that since the United States became enamored of wars and rumors of war, it involves acceptance of getting engaged in a couple of little wars to demonstrate national resolve and willingness to directly confront America’s enemies to compare one candidate with the other. This also involves considerable creativity and the exercising of one’s imagination as America’s national security has not actually been threatened or challenged by anyone since the Cuban missile crisis of 1963, though the current contretemps with Russia over Ukraine does indeed threaten going nuclear.
Certainly, it is not beyond one’s understanding of just how America’s two top political parties have become so cynical and desperate to win at any cost that wholesale distortion of reality might be considered fair game. Or if it is a foreign player interested in the outcome of the election, staging some kind of provocation or even a false flag operation that would result in a dramatic foreign policy development that could influence voters is possible. If this interference takes place shortly before an actual election with little chance that there will be any way to rebut what is being claimed, it might be referred to as an October Surprise.
I have been thinking of the possibility of an October Surprise in the current context, in which the US is heavily engaged in two undeclared wars which have become controversial among voters, to put it mildly. Unfortunately, the candidates don’t speak much about why we are engaged at all in conflicts that could have been resolved in various ways very early on and there is a certain similarity in how Democrats and Republicans respond to the fighting: both tend to support both Ukraine and Israel with only minor objections to some details in what is taking place. Both parties regard cooperating with Volodymyr Zelensky and Benjamin Netanyahu as unshakable rock-solid foreign relationships, or at least that is what they say in public.
I believe that in reality the Ukraine war is something that the US and NATO are looking for a way out of, but Israel is another story and might well be working up a trap for both US parties that might be considered equivalent to an October Surprise. Apparently I am not the only one thinking that way, including Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut who told CNN’s Erin Burnett that “I certainly worry that Prime Minister Netanyahu is watching the American election as he makes decisions about his military campaigns in the north and in Gaza.” Let us accept that Israel has the most powerful foreign policy lobby in the United States and its associated billionaires also represent the majority of political donations going to both parties. It and its Lobby also interfere in American politics and policies more than any other country, and its power is such that many have come around to the view that on key issues Israel is in control of the politicians in Washington. As evidence of that, witness the outrageous bowing and cheering that war criminal Netanyahu received in Washington from the US Congress even though a majority of Americans want to stop arming Israel and protecting it in places like the UN. Compare a groveling Congress with the disdain and walk-out Netanyahu received from the UN membership when he spoke more recently, where he denounced the UN as a “a swamp of antisemitic bile,” if you want to learn what the rest of the world thinks about the Jewish state and its leader.
And Netanyahu himself has made no secret of his desire to have Donald Trump win the presidency next month as he correctly perceives that Trump would give him anything he wants whenever he wants it, just as he did in 2016-2020, when he endorsed Israel as a Jewish state plausibly including the West Bank and Gaza that could deal with its Palestinian minority as it sees fit. Biden/Harris have also supported Israel enthusiastically with only minor reservations, but the Democratic Party has a small but highly visible and growing anti-war element that is in part behind demonstrations taking place all over the US against the genocide in Gaza. Trump, on the contrary, also has several times voiced his willingness to attack and destroy Iran, including his reaction to Iran’s recent retaliatory Israel strike as “The President Should Blow That Country To Smithereens,” which the Democrats, fearing a major regional escalation, have up until now backed away from, though they have pledged that they would stop Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon if it should seek to do so. They haven’t explained how they would do that and Netanyahu is now threatening to attack what he refers to as Iranian nuclear sites while his government and Biden are also discussing hitting Iran’s oil facilities. There would be plenty of support from Republicans to do just that with the ultra-hawkish Senator Lindsey Graham saying that “These oil refineries need to be hit and hit hard because that is the source of cash for the regime to perpetrate their terror.”
Israel is at the same time increasing its pressure on Lebanon and as well on Syria, where it is bombing targets that it claims to be either “Iranian” or “terrorist-Hezbollah” in nature. Note that Israel, even when it is clearly the aggressor, is always able to define itself as a victim, something which the bought and paid for US government and western media also usually fall in line to do. Netanyahu will increase his attacks on Lebanon and on Gaza and will also respond to Iran’s recent missile attack on Israeli territory with an escalation. The idea will be to draw the United States into the conflict to do the real fighting to destroy Iran. Who would be better in that role than a president or president elect Donald Trump who over the past two weeks has been reacting to an evidence-free claim that the Iranian government has been plotting to assassinate him? Trump has also declared to a group of Jewish Republicans that his Republican Party to be the only US political party that is genuinely pro-Israel! How convenient!
So it will work out this way and be explained by Netanyahu as follow – poor perpetual victim Israel, plagued by an antisemitic United Nations, enemies everywhere, is currently under attack by overwhelming hostile forces and is fighting valiantly, only protected in its hour of need due to its great friend and ally the United States of America. But wait! In its hour of extreme peril, when it is being assailed by the Jew hating probably nuclear armed Iranian mullahs, America is having an election in which one of the two parties, the Democrats, itself has a faction that is awash with antisemitism and is seeking to destroy the state of Israel! Yahweh be thanked that the other party the Republicans is four-square solid in defense of both Israel and the Jewish people! The Americans will hopefully know how to vote!
And the Republican party will be helped in that effort to promote the legend of the antisemitic Democrats by both the Israel Lobby and the fire breathing Dispensationalists within its ranks who currently appear to make up the bulk of the GOP, led by the creepy Christian Zionist head case Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House. So let’s see how this plays out. I predict that the desirability of America being Israel’s bonded slave, due to God’s command concerning his Chosen, will at a certain level surface in the remaining campaign, driven by Israel deliberately provoking situations that will force the United States government to fully commit itself to the Jewish state’s “defense.” That will be spun to become a last-minute endorsement of Donald Trump and what he stands for in terms of his willingness to go about physically destroying all of Israel’s adversaries in the Middle East. I suspect it might prove to be enough confusion to tip the result in a close election. We will know in about a month!
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected].
