Trump Promises Iran War Ends After Midterms
Trump Promises Iran War Ends After Midterms
The News
President Donald Trump says his war with Iran will end "immediately after" November's midterm elections, arguing Tehran is only holding on in hopes Republicans lose.
"I think the war is going to end immediately after the election," Trump told reporters Wednesday on his way to the GOP's midterm convention in Dallas, adding that the Iranians "can't hold out any longer."
The promise lands one day after the Wall Street Journal reported that Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other top officials have told Trump the opposite: that Iran could resist the U.S. blockade past Inauguration Day in January 2029.
The war, launched with U.S. and Israeli strikes on Feb. 28, hit its 195th day Thursday, according to The American Conservative.
The Numbers
The national average for regular gasoline climbed 7.3 cents Wednesday to $4.22 a gallon — the biggest one-day jump since May — and stood at $4.28 on Thursday, per AAA. Diesel hit a record $5.94. The global oil benchmark topped $100 a barrel for the first time since July.
In a late-August Reuters/Ipsos poll, 31% of Americans said they supported U.S. strikes on Iran and 63% opposed; 83% expected U.S. military involvement to drag on. An August Politico poll found 61% believe the conflict has made life more expensive for their families.
Timeline
U.S. and Israeli strikes open the war. Iran militarizes the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation, choking a waterway that carried a fifth of the world's oil trade.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent suggests gas could be back to $3 a gallon by Labor Day. Trump officials had initially estimated the war would last four to six weeks.
U.S. forces strike Iranian military sites, CENTCOM says, after attempted Iranian attacks on commercial vessels and American personnel. One strike hit a wedding party in southern Iran, killing at least five and injuring more than 60, according to Iranian officials, prompting a U.S. military investigation.
Iran fires missiles at a base hosting U.S. forces in Jordan. U.S. officials confirm no one was killed but caution some servicemembers may have suffered traumatic brain injuries; they call equipment damage "minimal," while CBS reported one A-10 lost a wing and eight F-15s took lighter damage.
The U.S. and Iran trade the largest wave of attacks on shipping since the war began. Iran says it hit 10 ships, including two U.S. vessels, near the Strait of Hormuz after the U.S. destroyed five Iranian oil tankers. The Journal publishes the advisers' warning. Trump speaks in Dallas.
Yemen's Houthis capture the strategic Red Sea port of Mokha from government forces after days of ground fighting, Yemeni officials say — strengthening their ability to threaten energy traffic through the Bab el-Mandeb strait.
Reactions
Trump told the Dallas convention crowd: "The war will be over very shortly after the election... [The Iranians are] hanging out for dear life, hoping that we lose, so they can deal with dumb, weak Democrats and they can have their nuclear bomb."
He said he is under no pressure to cut a deal. "A negotiation could possibly happen, but it's not something we're looking at," Trump said Wednesday, adding that the case for the war is simple: "All you have to do is say: 'Will you let Iran have a nuclear weapon?' And the answer is no."
Trump conceded on gas that "it's going to take a little bit longer than the midterm" for prices to fall.
Republicans on the ballot are less enthusiastic. Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) told Fox News on Tuesday: "I don't think there are many Republicans on the ballot this year that, uh, were happy that this is happening right before an election, but President Trump did the right thing." He said Trump "didn't take political calculation into his decision-making" and that everyone is feeling "some type of pain."
Vance last week declined to call the recent flare-up "a war," Time reported.
Analysts are unconvinced by the timeline. Writing in Foreign Affairs, one expert argued Iran's leadership can absorb the pain: "As breathing slows in parts of Iran's economy, ample oxygen will remain for the country's elite." Al Jazeera reported the political cost is mounting as Iran holds firm, while Raw Story and AlterNet cast the Houthi port seizure and the damaged warplanes as evidence the war is widening, not closing.
What's Next
The midterm elections in November are now the marker Trump himself has set for the war's end — and the test of his claim.
Peace talks are stalled. Iranian leaders have used the Strait of Hormuz as leverage and, according to reporting cited by Time, have signaled they may intensify attacks on U.S. warships and expand shipping restrictions beyond the strait. Recent intelligence assessments reportedly indicate Tehran is prepared to keep fighting for months.
The Treasury Department's pressure campaign — new sanctions, the naval blockade of Iranian ports and threatened secondary sanctions on Iran's trading partners — continues. The administration's Jones Act waiver, extended last month for 90 days to ease fuel shipping between U.S. ports, runs into the fall.
More
Iran's economy is buckling: its currency has fallen to record lows and inflation, unemployment and shortages of essential goods have worsened sharply. That is the basis for Trump's bet that Tehran folds within weeks. The counter-argument from his own advisers, from analysts and from intelligence assessments is that a regime willing to make its people carry the cost can outlast an election calendar.
Poll
Will the Iran war end right after the midterms, as Trump promises?
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