Donald Trump threatened to restart the war with Iran after the midterms. Will he follow through?
After Tuesday’s Republican wipeout — which the President conceded was caused in large part by backlash to the war — all eyes are on the Middle East for a potential resumption of the eight-month-old conflict.
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One US official told Axios last week Mr Trump might be more inclined to order a major military operation if Republicans lost badly in the midterms.
“If he feels embarrassed or disenfranchised he will do something bold,” the official said. “That’s what everyone are telling the Iranians. Their best shot to get a deal is right now.”
A day before Americans headed to the polls, former Fox News host and ex-Trump ally Tucker Carlson made the extraordinary claim that the President, under pressure from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “may be within days of launching a nuclear strike on Iran”.
“The target would be Pickaxe Mountain in central Iran, where Israeli intelligence claims the Iranian government has restarted its nuclear enrichment program,” the prominent conservative podcaster wrote in a post on X viewed 95 million times.
“No conventional weapon in the American arsenal can penetrate 300 feet of solid granite to destroy the tunnels where enrichment is supposedly taking place. The only military option is a nuclear strike. Netanyahu has been pushing hard for one. ‘Bibi calls Trump about it every day,’ says an informed observer.”
‘Sleepwalking’ to nuclear war
Carlson, one of the most vocal former MAGA commentators who walked away from Mr Trump over the war, claimed “we’ve been sleepwalking toward this moment for months”.
“Since February, the administration has quietly rewritten America’s nuclear doctrine to make first use of so-called ‘battlefield nukes’ easier and therefore more likely,” he said.
“No one in Washington in either party seems bothered by this. Now we’re on the brink of it. Close observers say Trump is likely to decide by next weekend whether or not to use nuclear weapons. That would be November 7, six days from now.
“To his credit, he’s hesitating. At the moment, Trump is listening to his Vice President, JD Vance, and to his envoy and friend Steve Witkoff, both of whom argue a deal with Iran can be made.”
Carlson’s warning followed that of Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, who said last week he had been briefed on a possible resumption of military operations against Iran, describing the plan as “insane”.
“It will lead to devastating escalation, and the likely destruction of our commitment to the rule of law,” he said at Middle East Institute event in Washington following a trip to Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
Later, writing on X, Mr Murphy said, “Trump is reportedly planning to restart war with Iran after the election. 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.”
He added that the plan “will not achieve objectives and will set off a new cycle of escalation”.
Trump ‘executed’ in Tehran
Following Tuesday’s midterms, which saw Republicans lose control over both houses of Congress in a massive blue wave, Tehran taunted Mr Trump over the defeat.
As thousands mocked Mr Trump at a rally in the Iranian capital — where an actor portraying the US President was hanged in a staged execution — a senior official said the Islamic republic had handed him a strategic and political defeat.
Eight months after US-Israeli strikes started the war, voters angered by rising diesel and consumer prices turned on Mr Trump’s Republicans.
“The Iranian nation handed Trump a strategic defeat on the battlefield and in the Hormuz — and a POLITICAL DEFEAT in Washington,” Mohsen Rezai, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said on X.
Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei warned the war could widen if US attacks resume, after Tuesday’s US strikes on Iran’s Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran’s blockade of shipping in the strait, gateway to the Gulf’s energy exports, has sent oil prices soaring, pushing up living costs.
The US President said it was “largely true” that the war caused his defeat, after Mr Vance said it was “the reason we lost”.
“I think it’s largely true because it drove the gasoline up a little bit short term,” said Mr Trump, when asked about Mr Vance’s comment.
“But at the same time, if I had it to do again, I’d have to do it again. Because long term, it’s the only answer. You can’t let Iran have a nuclear weapon,” he added.
Democrat says ‘war must end’
However, Mr Trump ruled out firing Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, a staunch proponent of the war, saying, “I think he’s doing a very good job.”
Top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer said on Wednesday that the Iran war “must end” and suggested his party’s incoming majority in Congress could use their control over government funding to press for that goal.
“This war must end. It must end,” Mr Schumer told journalists, later noting that the “power of the purse” is “one of the ways of deterring a president who does war without the consent of the American people”.
In central Tehran, demonstrators chanted “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” beneath a giant display declaring, “The people of Iran set the price.”
Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s chief negotiator in talks with Washington, wrote on X, “Conscience or the cost of living, Americans said NO TO WAR, and we endorse this message.”
Iran’s judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei also hailed the election results, saying Trump had been “defeated both militarily and politically”.
The midterms results could constrain Mr Trump’s ability to enact his agenda, though the President retains the power to order new strikes.
On Tuesday the US launched strikes on Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz, with Iranian state media reporting five explosions in rapid succession.
“They built an anti-aircraft facility … as soon as it was completed, we hit it last night very nicely,” Mr Trump told US media, but he called it a “minor attack”.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said a US MQ-1 drone was “intercepted and destroyed” over Qeshm Island. There was no confirmation from the US side.
America ‘locked and loaded’
On Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported US Gulf allies were bracing for a new round of strikes on Iran that would trigger retaliatory attacks on their own economic and civilian infrastructure.
Mr Trump was leaning towards a large post-election strike targeting Iranian infrastructure and nuclear sites but had not made up his mind, according to the Journal.
Earlier this week the President said he still had to “take care” of one or two targets, including so-called Pickaxe Mountain in central Iran, a suspected nuclear site which Tehran denies is such a facility.
However, he told the Financial Times newspaper on Tuesday that a full-scale resumption of war may not be necessary.
“We seem to be getting everything we want,” he said. “I’m ready, we’re ready. We’re locked and loaded if we need to go, but there may be no reason for it.”
Diplomatic efforts by mediators have been in full swing in an attempt to prevent any resumption of fighting.
On Tuesday, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian said his government was still trying to resolve the crisis through dialogue.
Qatar, a mediator in the protracted wrangling, said it remained hopeful of an interim deal.
Both sides “are currently reviewing the ideas and proposals we have presented”, Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed Al Ansari told reporters.
China also said on Wednesday that avoiding a return to hostilities was a top priority in its diplomatic efforts with the countries.
The war, triggered in February when the US and Israel pummelled Iran in a massive wave of strikes, has been at a stalemate for months.
Mohamad Bazzi, director of the Centre for Near Eastern Studies at New York University, said Mr Trump could use a Republican defeat in the midterms “as an excuse to exact revenge on Iran’s leaders, whom he blames for rising prices and his historically low approval rating that fell to 30 per cent in early October”.
“If Republicans lose badly, Trump’s impulsiveness and thirst for vengeance could make him more inclined to order a large-scale attack that targets not only Iran’s nuclear facilities, but also its civilian infrastructure, including power plants, oil refineries, bridges and factories,” Mr Bazzi wrote in The Guardian.
“On Saturday, Mojtaba Khamenei warned that Iran’s response would be ‘immediate’ and ‘without any geographical limitations’ — hinting that Tehran could strike targets beyond the Middle East.
“In the coming days, it will become clear if Trump can swallow his pride and his quest for vengeance, and make a deal with Iran. Or if he will repeat the same mistakes – and hubris — that led him to launch this catastrophic war in the first place.”
— with AFP
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