After Midterm Losses, Trump's Shifting Iran Rhetoric Leaves Middle East Mediators in Limbo

In the days since Republicans lost badly in last week's midterm elections, President Donald Trump has said a great deal about where the eight-month-old war with Iran goes next, and the statements do not point in one direction. In exchanges with reporters, broadcast interviews and social media posts, he has stepped back from the idea of fresh strikes and, at the same time, from the idea of more talks with Iranian negotiators.

The day after the election, Trump acknowledged that the war, and the global economic turmoil it has caused, were partly to blame for his party's losses, though he maintained it was the right thing to do. At the start of this week he met at the White House with Qatar's prime minister, then told reporters he thought it highly unlikely he would need to order new major strikes, and said the war "militarily is effectively over."

By Thursday the tone had changed. He questioned whether he had to hurry toward an endgame and declared that the United States no longer needs a deal with Tehran. In a social media post he told Vice President JD Vance, who had been his chief negotiator in earlier peace talks, to focus his "complete and total attention" on the administration's anti-fraud campaign aimed at Democrat-controlled cities and states. Trump also warned that the U.S. military is "locked and loaded" and watching Pickaxe Mountain, a facility tied to Iran's nuclear program, for signs of activity. "If something does not work out, I would not hesitate" to act, he told conservative broadcaster Hugh Hewitt.

Qatar, the chief mediator, is still trying to negotiate an interim agreement that would restore traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, the passage for oil and natural gas flowing from the Persian Gulf to world markets, while leaving room for further U.S.-Iran talks. Two Middle East diplomats familiar with the process, speaking anonymously because of its sensitivity, said things looked on track after the Qatari prime minister's meeting with Trump. Thursday's post, they said, created a sense of limbo. One wondered why Trump seemed to be sidelining Vance, who had been skeptical about launching the war but ultimately backed it. The other described the peace push as a holding pattern, with mediators and Iranians alike unsure whether Trump was abandoning a negotiated settlement or posturing after losing control of Congress.

A person familiar with the matter, also anonymous, offered some context. Vance had been weighing a return to talks with senior Iranian negotiators, and The Wall Street Journal reported as much. Trump's post came the next morning. He knew of Vance's deliberations, the person said, but believed the Iranians were not acting in good faith. The person added that Trump is increasingly confident he can credibly claim to have met his military objectives, and that with oil shipments through the strait near prewar levels, he might leave it to Gulf countries to negotiate with Iran over governing the waterway. Passage remains dangerous, though: the United Nations reports October had the most incidents against commercial ships there since February.

Iran, for its part, will not discuss its nuclear program until the U.S. accepts several core conditions Tehran wants in any ceasefire. Trump insists the nuclear dispute must be settled as part of any deal. On Friday, Iran's deputy U.N. ambassador, Gholamhossein Darzi, told the Security Council that Iran "has never closed the door to diplomacy," but warned of "an immediate and decisive response" if the U.S. or Israel resumed bombing.

The White House declined to address the postelection rhetoric directly. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaking to the Federalist Society on Friday evening, said the economic pain being inflicted on Iran was so great that military action was unnecessary. Earlier in the week he said the U.S. does not oppose mediators continuing, and that Trump would back a deal, "but it's not going to be a stupid deal." Democratic Sen. Cory Booker, speaking in Denver at his party's postelection gathering, called Trump an arsonist who set foreign policy ablaze and now wants to walk away.

Michael Singh of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy expects the stalemate over Hormuz and the monthslong U.S. naval blockade of Iranian crude to continue for some time. He called patience and pressure the most sensible course, with senior officials like Vance engaged only when the moment is right. Next week Trump travels to the Philippines and then to the APEC meetings in Shenzhen, China, where he is to hold an unprecedented three-way summit with Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, with Iran and the three powers' nuclear stockpiles expected on the agenda.