President Donald Trump said on Oct. 8 that Washington is holding productive discussions with Iran and will not resume military attacks before the Nov. 3 midterm elections. At the same time the US is sending more aircraft carriers to the Middle East, so talks and military pressure are moving in parallel.
In a post on Truth Social on Oct. 8, Trump wrote that the United States is engaged in “productive discussions” with Iran and will not attack it before the midterms. He repeated that Iran must not have nuclear weapons. According to Taiwan’s Liberty Times (a Central News Agency report) and the AP, the remarks came right after speculation spread that a new round of strikes was coming before the vote.
광고 문의 · 300×250The war, which began when the US and Israel attacked Iran in late February, is now about seven months old. Trump first said the operation would last only a few weeks, but it has dragged on; Liberty Times reports it has fed inflation, pulled down his approval ratings and weighed on Republican prospects.
Strike-prep reports and an oil spike
The trigger was US media reporting. The Atlantic said the administration was weighing air strikes on Iran before the midterms, and Axios, citing US officials, reported that the Pentagon had told Central Command days earlier to finish preparations to restart large-scale operations, possibly before the election. Axios noted that renewed fighting within three to four weeks could affect the race, partly through higher oil prices.
After those reports, international oil prices jumped about 5 percent in a day. In the same post Trump claimed Iran’s economy and military are in poor shape, that the US blockade of Iranian ports will continue, and that crude shipped through the Strait of Hormuz has hit a “record high”. That figure is the president’s own claim and has not been independently verified. Before the war the strait carried roughly a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas shipments.
Talks stalled while forces build up
Negotiations are not dead. The AP reports that Iran proposed reopening the Strait of Hormuz within seven days if the US met certain conditions; Trump rejected the offer publicly at the end of last month and talks looked stalled. Iran then said last week that it had received a US counterproposal, and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Oct. 8 that he expects Tehran to reply formally within a few days.
The military posture, meanwhile, is thickening. US officials said the USS Theodore Roosevelt, the third carrier sent for this war, could arrive with thousands of sailors and escort ships as early as late October. The same day the USS Abraham Lincoln was due back at its home port of San Diego after the longest deployment of any carrier supporting the war, with reports of poor mental health and shortages of food and hygiene supplies. The Asia-based USS George Washington replaced the Lincoln in August, and the USS George H.W. Bush, deployed in the region for about six months, recently called at Phuket, Thailand.
The AP said Trump has recently voiced confidence on the campaign trail that the war could end within days of the election, while not ruling out a return to full-scale operations. Because the pledge is limited to the period before the vote, some read it as a sign that tension could rise again after the election if diplomacy does not break through. Iran’s formal reply, expected within days, is the next marker.
