U.S. Midterms Loom Over a Deadlock Between Trump and Tehran
The Thai-flagged bulk carrier Mayuree Naree, which was struck by a missile near the Strait of Hormuz in February, is seen stranded off the coast of Qeshm Island, Iran, on Sept.
11, 2026 —Fatemeh Bahrami-Anadolu-Getty Images Iran may have found a weapon in the American electoral calendar.
With the midterm elections two weeks away, Tehran is intensifying attacks on shipping in and around the Strait of Hormuz, calculating that higher energy prices will deepen President Donald Trump’s political troubles and make another U.S. military campaign too costly to contemplate.
The wager is seductive: an American president anxious about diesel prices and his party’s prospects in the midterms, Iran seems to believe, will have little appetite for another major war.
Trump’s declaration that he will refrain from striking Iran before the Nov.
3 vote appears to vindicate this view, even as he periodically threatens to use force again.
Having survived two rounds of war and absorbed punishing economic losses, Iran’s leaders believe they can endure a little longer.
By disrupting Gulf commerce, they gain leverage their conventional forces cannot provide.
They also hope to make that leverage permanent and compel Washington to accept Tehran’s authority over passage through the world’s most important energy chokepoint.
Yet the past nine months of war against Iran have made it clear that renewed military conflict before the midterms or after the elections is unlikely to resolve the disputes between the U.S. and Iran.
The two countries will eventually have to sit across the negotiating table to resolve their long-running disputes.
Miscalculations in Tehran and Washington Tehran may be misreading how political peril shapes an adversary’s decisions.
Trump could decide that appearing powerless as Iranian attacks push up prices is more damaging than another round of military strikes.
Reports that his administration has considered fresh strikes suggest the military option remains in play.
5News aggregated this summary from the outlet’s public feed. The full article, with all the context, is on time.com — the content belongs to TIME.
