Trump’s Iran war now has a midterm election problem
Trump has tied the end of his war on Iran to the midterms. But with Iran holding firm, the political cost is mounting.
United States President Donald Trump has claimed that the seven-month-long war with Iran will end “immediately after” the US midterm elections in November, framing the ongoing conflict as an attempt by Tehran to influence the vote.
Trump’s latest claims of Iranian capitulation are not new. Tehran has thus far withstood sustained strikes by the US and Israel intended to eradicate its military capacity, as well as a naval blockade of Iran’s ports intended to choke the country’s economy. In late August, the US ratcheted up the economic pressure even further, threatening secondary sanctions on Iran’s trading partners.
“It was a statement that was more likely meant for an internal [domestic] audience,” Ali Alavi, an Iran lecturer at SOAS University of London, said of Trump’s predictions of Iran’s post-election collapse. ”It was Trump’s method of communicating that the only reason it seemed as though he was failing in his Iran policy before the midterms is because Iran wanted it to be perceived that way.”
“Iran has prepared for a long war,” Sanam Vakil, director of Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa programme, said. ”It may be that part of that was a secondary plan to hold out long enough to destabilise the US midterm elections once it realised that negotiations with the current administration were not going anywhere.”