Shifting Iran Rhetoric Leaves Trump's Mideast Strategy in Limbo After Midterm Losses

In the week since Republicans were routed in the midterm elections, President Donald Trump has talked about the Iran war in ways that don't line up. Across exchanges with reporters, broadcast interviews and social media posts, he has pulled back from the idea of new strikes on Iran and, at the same time, from the idea of further talks with Iranian negotiators to end a conflict now eight months old.

The day after the vote, he acknowledged that the war, and the global economic turmoil it has caused, were partly responsible for his party's losses. He maintained that it was still 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, saying the war "militarily is effectively over."

By Thursday the tone had changed again. Trump raised questions about whether he had to hurry toward an endgame, declared that the United States no longer needs a deal with Tehran, and told Vice President JD Vance, his chief negotiator in earlier peace talks, to turn his attention to the administration's domestic anti-fraud campaign. He 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. Speaking to conservative broadcaster Hugh Hewitt, he said, "If something does not work out, I would not hesitate" to act.

The Vance post landed at a delicate moment. According to a person familiar with the matter, who was not authorized to speak publicly, Vance had been weighing a return to talks with senior Iranian negotiators. Trump posted the morning after The Wall Street Journal reported that Vance was considering resuming talks. Trump knew of Vance's deliberations and believed the Iranians were not acting in good faith, that person said. One Middle East diplomat wondered why Trump seemed to be sidelining Vance, who was skeptical about launching the war but ultimately backed it.

The consequences are being felt in Qatar's mediation. Qatar, the chief mediator, is trying to negotiate an interim agreement that would restore traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, the passage for oil and natural gas from the Persian Gulf, 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 White House visit. Trump's Thursday post, they said, produced a sense of limbo. One described the peace push as a holding pattern while people wait for the White House to clarify, and said neither mediators nor the Iranians could tell whether Trump was abandoning a negotiated settlement or posturing after the midterms cost his party control of Congress.

The person familiar with Trump's thinking said he is increasingly confident he can credibly claim to have achieved his military objectives. Oil shipments through the strait are near prewar levels, and he could potentially leave it to Gulf countries to negotiate with Iran over governing the waterway. Passage remains risky, though: the United Nations reports that October had the most incidents against commercial ships in those waters since February.

Democrats were sharply critical. Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, speaking Friday on the sidelines of the Democrats' postelection gathering in Denver, said Trump "is now acting like an arsonist who has set ablaze our foreign policy," and "now he just wants to walk away." The White House declined to comment directly on the president's postelection rhetoric. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaking Friday evening to the Federalist Society, said the economic pain being inflicted on Iran's government is so great that military action is unnecessary. Earlier in the week he said the U.S. does not oppose mediators continuing their work: "If there's a deal to be done, the president will be the first one to be in favor of it," but not a "stupid" or "bad" deal.

Iran has not softened. Its 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. Tehran also refuses to discuss its nuclear program until the U.S. accepts several core conditions it wants in any ceasefire, even though Trump insists the nuclear dispute must be settled in any deal.

Michael Singh of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy expects the stalemate over the strait, and the monthslong U.S. naval blockade curbing Iranian crude exports, to last. He called patience and pressure the most sensible path, with senior officials like the vice president engaged only when the time is right, and said Trump could reverse course on Vance if Iran appears ready to negotiate seriously. The next test comes next week, when Trump visits the Philippines and then the APEC meetings in Shenzhen, China, where he is to hold an unprecedented three-way summit with Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin and is expected to raise Iran and the three powers' nuclear stockpiles.