President Donald Trump has long angered his own Republican Party over the Iran War, from keeping his supposed victory plan secret to promising victory so often that it often is not believed. Now a new report reveals that, in light of Republicans' massive midterm election losses, Trump and his inner circle are blaming the war for the president's predicament.
"People close to President Trump are blaming the Iran war for widespread Republican losses on Tuesday night," Wall Street Journal national security reporter Alex Ward posted on X on Tuesday. "Some WH officials and GOP allies said the midterm elections would have looked very diff if the war wrapped up months ago. Fingerpointing inside admin has begun."
One person put in particular peril in Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. Many Republicans join Democrats in Congress in expressing dissatisfaction with Hegseth's handling of the Iran War, from his refusal to provide a consistent explanation for why America invaded Iran to his purging of high-ranking military officials for political rather than merit-based reasons. It is widely-believed that in a Democrat-run Congress, Hegseth would face impeachment or at least be compelled to testify. Some political observers also believe that Hegseth will be fired in the aftermath of a Democratic sweep, much as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld resigned after former President George W. Bush's Iraq War cost Republicans Congress in the 2006 midterm elections.
Experts are not surprised that the Iran War harmed the economy enough to hurt Trump and the Republicans at the ballot box. In April, AlterNet heard from White House spokesperson Kush Desai about economists who said the Iran War would raise prices indefinitely.
“President Trump has been clear about short-term disruptions as a result of Operation Epic Fury, and the Administration went into this military engagement with a plan to mitigate these disruptions to America’s long-term economic resurgence," Desai told AlterNet. "As energy markets begin to stabilize, historic tax refund checks hit the mail, and the rest of the Trump administration’s pro-growth agenda continues taking effect, Americans can rest assured that the best is yet to come.”
By contrast, former President Bill Clinton's top economic adviser Dr. Robert J. Shapiro told AlterNet at the time that “even if hostilities do not restart, the price of oil will not return to pre-Trump levels because there’s a new risk premium that they could restart at any time, increasing tanker insurance costs for example, and because oil infrastructure has been degraded, reducing supply for some time,” Shapiro explained to AlterNet. “An Iran-controlled toll to use the Strait will produce big bucks for Iran, but its impact on world prices for oil, natural gas, helium, etc. should be minimal. Another source of economic friction will be the now-intense uncertainty about what the Trump administration will do next—in the Mideast and in scores of policies at home; and uncertainty dampens investment.”
He added, “As it is, the economy was weakening before this crisis began, and these and other factors will exacerbate those downward pressures. A resolution over the next two weeks will not stop the deterioration in economic conditions.”
