Iran sees opening after Trump midterms setback but warns of wider conflict

Iran has seized on US President Donald Trump's midterm elections setback as evidence that his war policy is backfiring, portraying the Republican party's losses as a public rejection of the conflict. But Iran's celebration comes with a stark warning: any renewed US military action could ignite a <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/mena/2026/11/05/live-iran-war-irgc-strait-of-hormuz/" target="_blank" rel="" title="https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/mena/2026/11/05/live-iran-war-irgc-strait-of-hormuz/">wider regional war</a>, threatening assets beyond the Strait of Hormuz.

Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who leads Iran's <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/us/2026/10/31/us-iran-strikes-g20-rubio/" target="_blank" rel="" title="https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/us/2026/10/31/us-iran-strikes-g20-rubio/">negotiations</a>, wrote on X: “Conscience or the cost of living, Americans said no to war, and we endorse this message.” He warned that if the US ignored public opposition and continued the war, “it will learn our 'no' comes with a nightmare”.

Supreme National Security Council chief Mohsen Rezaei said Iran had handed Mr Trump “a strategic defeat on the battlefield and in the Hormuz – and a political defeat in Washington”. “Anyone who takes on <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/mena/iran/" target="_blank" rel="" title="https://www.thenationalnews.com/mena/iran/">Iran</a> will pay the price – from the battlefield to their own doorstep,” he wrote. Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakani said those seeking to overthrow Iran's political system were now “on the path of downfall”.

Ebrahim Azizi, a hardliner in parliament, went further, declaring Mr Trump had cemented his legacy as “the most failed president in US history”. State media also presented the result as a <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/us/2026/11/04/iran-war-midterms-vance-middle-east-policy/" target="_blank" rel="" title="https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/us/2026/11/04/iran-war-midterms-vance-middle-east-policy/">setback for Mr Trump</a>.

The conservative <i>Jam-e Jam</i> newspaper declared it “The twilight of Trumpism”, while the mainstream <i>Hamshahri</i> daily ran a front-page image depicting Mr Trump blindfolded under the headline “Iran's shadow over US elections”. The phrase “lame duck”, used in American politics to describe a president whose influence is diminished towards the end of his term, has also entered the Iranian political vocabulary. The loss of both chambers of Congress has fuelled speculation that Mr Trump is entering that phase of his presidency, although he retains substantial executive and military powers.

But Tehran is not necessarily expecting the election result to translate into a shift in Washington's approach. Iran’s supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, has dismissed expectations of any change. “Those who still harbour even the slightest hope that the behaviour of the hegemonic system might change through partisan or factional shifts … are seriously mistaken,” said a statement attributed to him. Analysts reached a similar conclusion. Arsla Jawaid, associate director at consultancy Control Risks, told <i>The National</i> that “Iran views President Trump and Vice President JD Vance’s admittance of the Iran war leading to Republican losses as vindication of its own resilience, but there isn’t a sense that the results will dramatically shift US policy.”

The rhetoric of victory has been accompanied by increasingly explicit <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/mena/2026/11/03/drills-and-nuclear-warnings-as-climate-of-uncertainty-shrouds-middle-east/" target="_blank" rel="" title="https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/mena/2026/11/03/drills-and-nuclear-warnings-as-climate-of-uncertainty-shrouds-middle-east/">warnings of escalation</a>. Brig Gen Esmail Qaani, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force, which oversees Iran's foreign proxies, warned a renewed conflict could extend beyond <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/mena/2026/11/02/attacks-on-ships-in-strait-of-hormuz-could-be-higher-than-official-count/" target="_blank" rel="" title="https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/mena/2026/11/02/attacks-on-ships-in-strait-of-hormuz-could-be-higher-than-official-count/">the Strait of Hormuz</a>.

The US military “should know that today the entire resistance is one front”, he said. “Otherwise, there will be a war with weapons in Hormuz and the liberation of Bab Al Mandeb [strait].” With the Strait of Hormuz already subject to a US naval blockade and Iranian restrictions, renewed attacks by <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/mena/2026/11/03/hidden-hands-behind-the-houthis-yemen-claims-21-irgc-and-hezbollah-agents-are-supporting-rebels/" target="_blank" rel="" title="https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/mena/2026/11/03/hidden-hands-behind-the-houthis-yemen-claims-21-irgc-and-hezbollah-agents-are-supporting-rebels/">Yemen's Tehran-backed Houthi rebels</a> could further threaten regional shipping and energy exports.

The military warnings come as Iran signals it is preparing for further attacks rather than assuming the US election will produce a diplomatic breakthrough. Analysts say the Iranian leadership is not interpreting the election result as a reprieve from the threat of military action. “There isn't a sense of gaining breathing space but rather one of preparedness and response,” Ms Jawaid said. “We're likely to see more of the same in the coming days: Iran will remain confrontational and continue to prepare for war while intensifying diplomacy from a firm, perhaps more emboldened stance, as negotiation efforts remain under way in Qatar.”

Iran's IRGC on Thursday claimed that two oil tankers and a tugboat caught fire in separate incidents in the Strait of Hormuz overnight. It also said it had seized two US Lucas-type drones after taking control of them electronically. The claims have not been independently verified. A Reuters report before the election said Iranian officials had deliberately prolonged negotiations in a bid to weaken Mr Trump politically, while getting ready for possible US and Israeli strikes.

“Iran is preparing for renewed Israeli and US attacks, not for a deal with America to end the war,” one official said. “The clerical establishment is determined not to give Trump a political victory.” There are also concerns Tehran could miscalculate the consequences of Mr Trump's political setback. Ali Vaez, an Iran analyst at the International Crisis Group, told CNN: “There's definitely still the risk that a president who has lost at the ballot box might feel that he needs redemption on the battlefield.

“And I think one particular problem that a lot of the regional countries, especially the ones that are involved in mediation – like the Qataris and the Pakistanis, are worried about at this point is that the Iranians are pretty determined to turn President Trump into another President [Jimmy] Carter, meaning to politically defeat him by dragging this confrontation out and not realising that now might be the right moment to try to give him a face-saving way out of this conflict,” said Mr Vaez.

“He is certainly weakened politically at home, but that doesn't mean that the United States is weakened militarily and would not be able to resume this war.” The reference to former president Jimmy Carter recalls the 1979-81 Iran hostage crisis, when Iranian revolutionaries seized the US embassy in Tehran and held 52 Americans captive for 444 days. The crisis became a defining foreign policy failure of Mr Carter's presidency and contributed to his defeat by Ronald Reagan in the November 1980 election.

Ms Jawaid said Iran's determination to prolong the confrontation could prove a dangerous gamble, particularly given the country's worsening economic and domestic difficulties. “What is clear is that Iran is prepared, and even determined, to retaliate and drag out the confrontation, betting on the fact that Trump is weakened,” she told <i>The National</i>. “That might be a real gamble given that US policy – a combination of economic pressure and military might – will outweigh and successfully exacerbate Tehran's own pressing domestic challenges in the form of skyrocketing inflation, a devalued currency, and deep political fissures.”

Despite those pressures, Ms Jawaid said the regime remained firmly in control and was unlikely to face an imminent wave of protests capable of challenging its authority. But the longer the conflict continued, she said, the more its domestic problems would intensify and threaten its long-term survival. The election does not remove Mr Trump's authority to order military action. Democrats will take control of Congress in January, giving them greater influence over military spending, oversight and the administration's foreign policy, but not an automatic veto over presidential decisions.