Donald Trump’s war on Iran has upended his second term, devastating the U.S. economy and sending his approval numbers spiraling down the drain. Now, facing midterm elections in which his party might get taken to the cleaners, the White House is reportedly planning a last-minute gambit to drum up support: more war with Iran.
According to a report in The Atlantic, the Trump administration is considering a new strike on Iran before the midterm elections, after a period of relative peace over the past several weeks. The report, citing two administration officials, claims that the White House asked U.S. Central Command to prepare a strike package that would be possible to execute before the elections, indicating that Trump is thinking voters might want him to show he is making headway with Iran as they go to the polls.
In a speech at the U.N. in late September, Trump openly remarked that Iran was waiting to negotiate on a lasting peace settlement until after the midterms, which seemed to be the state of play at the time: an uneasy semi-ceasefire until all parties knew what kind of leverage they had.
“They’re waiting to see how I do in the midterm election,” Trump said. “What they [Iran] don’t realize is I’m not running. The Republican Party is running and I’ll be helping them, but I am not running.”
A pre-election strike would run in opposition to general wisdom over the last few weeks, with most people believing Trump would want to keep things quiet in order to not remind Americans that he had started an economically disastrous conflict for no real reason. But the numbers at the pump don’t lie — and now it seems like Trump is hoping he can bring down gas prices by force.
The Atlantic’s reporting seems to indicate that even the architects of this plan don’t think it will work. Officials said that strikes alone wouldn’t bring Iran back to the negotiating table — meaning, in other words, they’d only be useful in giving Trump a big bad military operation to make himself look strong.
The Atlantic reports that Centcom has, for weeks, been preparing attack plans that would be carried out after the midterms, but only recently started accelerating their timeline. Post-midterm plans put basically everything on the table, from limited strikes to more widespread bombing. The U.S. has already been stretching the limits of its massive arsenal of conventional weapons. In his speech to the U.N., Trump claimed that “massive munitions facilities” were replacing what the U.S. had used up, but considering the sheer volume of weapons fired — and the quantity of arms he is still effectively giving to Israel — it’s unclear what shape the U.S. reserves will actually be in come November.
It’s unclear whether this kind of desperate posturing will actually work. Recent polls show that even members of Trump’s own party are turning on him, and that down-ballot, basically everything he does is hurting Republican candidates. Midterm elections often come down to turnout, and while Trump has been staging emergency rallies in battleground states in order to rally his base, his profound unpopularity could alienate some of the less fervent Republican voters right when he needs them most. Dropping more bombs isn’t likely to get those people back — but where Trump is concerned, a little needless violence and death is always on the table.
