Less than a month before the US mid-term elections, the US military is making final preparations for a renewed major strike against Iran.
According to Axios reporting on October 7th, the US Department of Defense has recently asked Central Command to ‘complete’ preparations for launching major combat operations against Iran. The order does not specify a date for the war; Trump has not yet made a final decision. However, potential actions could include carrying out large-scale bombings of Iran’s energy, infrastructure, and nuclear targets. It is likely that US military forces and Israeli troops will operate in coordination.
Renewed large-scale attacks against Iran has evolved from a political threat into a military option that can be immediately put into action by the president.
And this timing is quite delicate.
The U.S. midterm elections will take place on November 3rd. The Atlantic magazine revealed on the same day that the White House has asked the Pentagon to prepare a plan for attacking Iran before the midterm elections. CENTCOM is developing specific options, but there is still debate over the scale and objectives of the operation. Trump recently also said publicly that the United States might launch another attack after the elections, but added, “Perhaps before the elections.”
This means that the timeline of the war has inevitably become intertwined with domestic politics in the United States.
Trump is currently facing a problem: the war in Iran was supposed to demonstrate America’s military superiority, but it is now becoming a burden for the Republican Party in elections.
According to Reuters, American voters are becoming increasingly tired of the ongoing war in Iran. The war has driven up energy prices, further squeezing household budgets. Some Republican candidates are even beginning to distance themselves from Trump on the issue of Iran. The Atlantic Monthly reports that the average price of gasoline in the United States is currently about $4.37 per gallon, while when the US and Israel began attacking Iran on February 28, the price was less than $3 per gallon. Oil prices reached nearly $118 per barrel during the spring.
So, there was a Trump-style idea within the White House: since the delayed war is harming the election prospects, could a new military operation be used to create a scenario where “the United States regains the initiative”?
Supporters of the measure believe that if the new sanctions force Iran to make concessions and improve shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, Trump could claim to have achieved a temporary victory over his constituents, and convince the market that oil prices are about to fall. Some supporters even argue that even if there is no immediate effect, showing that the United States has regained control could help the Republican Party regain its political momentum.
But there is an obvious paradox here.
Trump wants to solve oil prices and election issues through military action, and military action itself is precisely what is most likely to push up oil prices again.
The Atlantic Monthly notes that even those who support early strikes acknowledge that limited airstrikes alone are not sufficient to force Iran into negotiations, nor can they immediately restore safe navigation in the Hormuz Strait, and certainly cannot guarantee a drop in gasoline prices by November 3rd. In the past, whenever the United States resumed strikes after a ceasefire, oil prices usually rose first.
If actions escalate further to include Iranian energy facilities, the risks will only increase. The potential large-scale operations disclosed by Axios involve not just nuclear facilities, but also energy and other infrastructure. This means that if Trump chooses a symbolic air strike instead of a real-scale bombing attempt aimed at severely damaging Iran’s economic capabilities, the market is likely to see not the “end of war,” but rather a significant increase in uncertainty regarding the Middle East’s energy supply.
Therefore, the US military's current preparations for war do not mean that war is inevitable. In fact, according to Israeli officials cited by Axios, the probability of large-scale operations before the mid-term elections is still low. The real time window for a significant increase in such actions might be after the elections.
But the danger lies here: once the military options are ready, Trump will no longer be faced with the question of “whether the United States should fight again”, but rather “when to fight and how much to fight”.
And before November 3rd, this decision was not only a military decision, but also an energy price gamble, and it was also a Republican party election bet.
If Trump wins the bet, he could claim that he has once again subdued Iran. If he loses, the soaring oil prices, Iran’s retaliation, and civilian casualties in the United States could all appear before American voters a few weeks before the election.
This also made the following month one of the most sensitive windows in this war: The US military has loaded their guns, and now there is nothing definite left—only whether Trump will pull the trigger.
