For most of the last week I’d been preparing an article on the financial insanity of the AI industry and the unrealistic market values that demonstrated this. The timing seemed appropriate given that Anthropic was preparing to go public later this month with the largest IPO in world history, seeking to value that five-year-old, massively money-losing start-up at $2 trillion.My deep AI financial skepticism seemed further validated towards the end of the week. On Thursday, the earnings reported by Google-parent Alphabet were less than expected, partly due to the huge drag of the company’s AI capital spending. Investors punished the Tech giant by shaving a half-trillion dollars off its market value, leading to major headlines in the Friday Wall Street Journal.This AI-related weakness led to further market jitters later that same day as Tech stocks suffered an additional rout. The value of the Tech-heavy NASDAQ dropped by another couple of trillion dollars, generating a banner headline on the front-page of the Journal‘s weekend edition.As they sometimes say, a trillion here and a trillion there, and pretty soon you’re talking serious money. So my planned article on how delusional investors had been bidding up AI stock prices to insane heights seemed pleasingly prescient, and more timely than ever.However, there are insanities and there are insanities, and the seeming insanity of AI financials was suddenly swept aside by a different and far greater one.It’s a serious problem if herds of delusional investors have boosted AI companies to absurd valuations. But it’s a far greater problem if a delusional American president has apparently decided to launch yet another round of attacks against Iran based upon a military plan that those who have seen it describe as “insane.”That latter adjective was provided in a public forum by Sen. Chris Murphy, who had been one of the Congressmen briefed on the details.U.S. Senator Chris Murphy: “… Some of us have been briefed on the war plan. And while I cannot disclose any details, I can say this: the plan is insane…” https://t.co/OH33wpKWsb— Javier Blas (@JavierBlas) October 29, 2026Furthermore his grim appraisal seemed supported by the sudden firing of one of our top Pentagon generals, the three-star commander responsible for overall military planning.That same word “insane” was widely used by a number of the podcasters whom I follow, with their reporting based upon some of the circulating military leaks.Last year retired Lt. Col. Daniel Davis had been nominated for a senior intelligence position in the Trump Administration before being vetoed by the Israel Lobby, and he was greatly alarmed by what he had heard.Video LinkProminent Attorney Robert Barnes worked for Trump and had been a strong political supporter, someone still retaining excellent sources within the Trump Administration.Video LinkBrandon Weichert was a well-connected and highly regarded MAGA military analyst who had supported Trump for nearly a decade. On Friday he discussed the situation with former CIA Analyst Larry Johnson.Video LinkThat same day, Johnson was also interviewed along with Col. Larry Wilkerson. As the longtime chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, Wilkerson had spent decades operating in the topmost circles of our national security establishment.Video LinkAccording to those experts, Trump had finalized his plans for another attack against Iran, then discussed these at a crucial Thursday meeting with his top military advisors, a meeting that was widely reported in our media.The top U.S. commander in the Middle East briefed President Trump on Thursday on military options for Iran, a rare in-person visit to the White House as the U.S. weighs resuming major combat operations, according to U.S. officials and other people with direct knowledge of the meeting.Joining Adm. Brad Cooper was Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine. The meeting included other cabinet members and covered other topics including the continuing U.S. blockade, some of the people said.The top-level gathering followed a Wednesday session at the White House in which the military officers met with Vice President JD Vance, one of the people said…Cooper rarely briefs Trump in person, so the meeting could signal that the U.S. is moving closer to significant military operations. He met with the president in July, when the two huddled with Hegseth and Caine on Air Force One in Delaware. A Pentagon spokesperson and a spokesperson for U.S. Central Command, which Cooper heads, declined to comment.The White House discussions come as some lawmakers have expressed alarm that Trump could soon renew hostilities with Tehran. Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat who said he has previously been briefed on some of the classified planning, called the plans “insane.”A day or two earlier, the Journal had reported some details of these new combat plans:DUBAI—The U.S. has told several Gulf Arab countries to be prepared for a short, intense military campaign after the U.S. midterm elections, people briefed on the conversations said.The communications through diplomatic and military channels are among a growing number of indications that the U.S. and Israel are readying to launch a new round of heavy combat operations against Iran, risking a major escalation in hopes of degrading Tehran’s strength and pushing it toward negotiations.The U.S. military is sending an additional Patriot system to Israel from Texas to beef up its missile defenses in the country, according to flight-tracking data and two officials with knowledge of the movement. The U.S. has also moved troops off bases in the Middle East where they were vulnerable in preparation for an escalation, The Wall Street Journal has reported.U.S. forces in the region have been restocking their munitions, and bomber aircraft and jet fighters are preparing for strikes, some of the officials said. An additional aircraft-carrier strike group and Marine expeditionary unit are also poised to join an armada of roughly 20 other warships operating in the Middle East next month, although some ships could rotate out.Perhaps these knowledgeable experts were mistaken or perhaps our notoriously erratic and mercurial chief executive would change his mind. But as of now, it does sound like we are about to restart the war against Iran soon after the Tuesday midterms, possibly as early as Wednesday. Many of the details of Trump’s alleged plans seemed quite alarming.The first round of the war had lasted forty days, and during that time we had burned through a large fraction of our global stockpiles of stand-off munitions and interceptor missiles, weapons that would take many years to replace. During the much shorter second round, we had further depleted these supplies.More than 20,000 airstrikes had hit virtually all accessible Iranian military targets. So in the “short, intense campaign” being planned this time, we would apparently attack Iran’s vital civilian and energy infrastructure. The Iranians had repeatedly warned that if we did so, they would retaliate in far greater measure against the similar facilities of our Gulf Arab allies, whose bases and airspace we have been using in those attacks.More than 40% of all global oil exports come from the Persian Gulf countries. If the fragile local infrastructure were severely damaged or destroyed, much of that fuel supply would be lost with catastrophic consequences for the world economy, consequences that would persist for years.The Trump Administration claimed that Iran’s nuclear development program was located deep beneath Pickaxe Mountain, and military analysts agreed that the hundred meters or more of granite protecting those facilities could not possibly be penetrated by even our most powerful conventional explosives. Therefore, there were widespread reports that Trump wanted to strike that site with tactical nuclear weapons, and perhaps for that reason Under Secretary of Defense Elbridge Colby had recently been revising our official nuclear use doctrine to help legitimate such operations.Rumors were also circulating that our new round of attacks on Iran would involve further decapitation strikes aimed at assassinating the top Iranian leaders just as we had successfully done in our original surprise attack at the end of February.According to seemingly credible sources, Trump’s decision to restart the war was best explained by the propaganda-bubble of unreality in which he regularly resided. Contrary to all evidence, he had now somehow convinced himself that he had been overwhelmingly victorious in his previous rounds of combat against Iran.Under that severely distorted perspective, maintained and promoted by the Israeli officials, pro-Israel advisors, and Israel Lobby donors who surrounded him, the Iranian regime was now very close to crumbling, and his mistake had been to discontinue his combat operations when he did. So he believed that one more sharp military shock might be enough to overthrow the Iranian government and have it replaced by a new leadership team friendly towards Israel and completely subordinate to the United States.Read the Whole ArticleThe post A Delusional President With ‘Insane’ Military Plans? appeared first on LewRockwell.