US President Donald Trump went to war seeking regime change in Iran. Instead, it was his own grip on Washington that gave way, as voters weary of the war and hit by soaring fuel prices handed Democrats control of Congress. That leaves a weakened president facing a choice between a negotiated exit and a riskier escalation.
In Tehran and among its allies, the result was swiftly cast as a verdict on the conflict. Across the Gulf, officials were left wondering which way Trump would turn. “Iran succeeded in regime change in America,” was the first reaction of one source close to a US Gulf ally. Officials in the Gulf states were stunned into silence by the scale of the Democratic sweep in Tuesday’s US midterm elections, the source said.
The war that began with US-Israeli strikes on February 28 spread across the region as Tehran fired missiles and drones at Gulf targets and shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, disrupting global energy supplies. The US-Israeli campaign badly damaged Iran’s military capabilities but failed to deliver a decisive outcome, leaving the issue of Iran’s nuclear programme unresolved.
A weakened Trump, facing a Democratic Congress able to constrain his military options, has greater incentive to seek a deal, said two sources close to Gulf government circles. A full-scale assault on Iran now looks less likely, they said. Further limited strikes on nuclear facilities may offer the US a way to claim its objectives had been met and draw a line under the conflict, as China steps up efforts to broker a settlement.
Yet an agreement that allows Iran to claim clear victory and leaves Trump looking defeated can provoke recklessness as readily as restraint, Gulf analysts said. The rebuke from the US electorate came a week after Israeli voters delivered their own blow to the war’s other architect, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. His right-wing bloc won 53 of the Knesset’s 120 seats in the October 27 election, eight short of a majority, leaving him fighting to retain power.
Two beleaguered leaders, each with his political future increasingly tied to the war’s outcome, may come to see escalation not as a risk but as a way out of their political predicament. Such a calculation may be irrational, but no less dangerous. In Tehran, leaders savoured Trump’s humiliation but did not lower their guard, with Iran’s chief negotiator hailing a “NO TO WAR” result.