Shifting Iran Rhetoric After Midterms Leaves Trump's Mideast Path in Limbo

In the week since Republicans lost badly in the midterm elections, President Donald Trump has given the public several different accounts of where the Iran war is headed. Through exchanges with reporters, broadcast interviews and social media posts, he has stepped back from more strikes and, at the same time, from more talks with Iranian negotiators, in a conflict now eight months old.

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. He maintained that going to war was the right decision. Early this week he met Qatar's prime minister at the White House, then told reporters it was highly unlikely he would need to order new major strikes. The war, he said, is "militarily effectively over."

By Thursday the tone had changed again. Trump questioned whether he needed to hurry toward an endgame and declared that the U.S. 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 the earlier peace talks with Iran, to give his "complete and total attention" to the administration's domestic anti-fraud campaign. Throughout, Trump warned that the U.S. military is "locked and loaded" and watching Pickaxe Mountain, a facility linked to Iran's nuclear program, for signs of activity. Speaking to conservative broadcaster Hugh Hewitt, he said that if something does not work out, he would not hesitate to act.

According to a person familiar with the matter, who spoke anonymously, Vance had been weighing a return to talks with senior Iranian negotiators. The Wall Street Journal reported that deliberation, and Trump posted his message the next morning. He knew of Vance's thinking and believed the Iranians were not acting in good faith, the person said. Trump is also increasingly confident he can credibly claim to have met his military objectives. With oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz near prewar levels, he could leave Gulf countries to negotiate with Iran over governing the waterway. Still, the passage remains dangerous: the United Nations reports that October saw the most incidents against commercial ships there since February.

Qatar, the chief mediator, is still working toward an interim agreement that would restore traffic through the strait while leaving room for more U.S.-Iran discussions. Two Middle East diplomats, speaking anonymously because of the sensitivity of the matter, 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 was skeptical of launching the war but ultimately backed it. The other described the peace effort as a holding pattern, with mediators and Iranians unsure whether Trump was abandoning a deal or posturing after midterms that cost his party control of Congress.

Political reaction was sharp. Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, speaking Friday at his party's postelection gathering in Denver, said Trump is acting like an arsonist who has set American foreign policy ablaze and now wants to walk away. The White House declined to comment directly on the president's postelection rhetoric. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in a Friday evening speech to the Federalist Society, said the economic pain being inflicted on Iran is so great that military action is unnecessary. Earlier in the week he said the U.S. does not oppose mediators continuing, and that the president would welcome a deal, but not a "stupid" or "bad" one.

Iran has not softened its position. It will not negotiate over its nuclear program until the U.S. accepts several core conditions it wants in any ceasefire, while Trump insists the nuclear differences, the thorniest issue, be resolved in any deal. Iran's deputy U.N. ambassador, Gholamhossein Darzi, told the Security Council on Friday that Iran has never closed the door to diplomacy, but would respond immediately and decisively if the U.S. or Israel resumed bombing.

Michael Singh of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, who worked on Middle East issues in George W. Bush's White House, expects the stalemate over Hormuz and the monthslong U.S. naval blockade of Iranian crude to continue. He called patience and pressure the most sensible path, with senior officials such as Vance brought in only when the time is right. Trump could reverse course on Vance if Iran appears serious.

The ambiguity will travel with Trump next week to the Philippines and to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meetings in Shenzhen, China. There he is to hold an unprecedented three-way summit with Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, where Iran and the three powers' nuclear stockpiles are expected to come up.