🔶 Trump’s aides want to keep the Iran war “calm” until November

🔶 Trump’s aides want to keep the Iran war “calm” until November

Reuters, in a report citing four sources, wrote that senior aides to Donald Trump, the U.S. president, are trying to prevent escalation of the war with Iran before the midterm elections in November, in order to reduce the extent of Republican electoral setbacks. The four people who are involved in these discussions said this; a strategy that has already been under pressure in the wake of a tit-for-tat exchange of fire between the United States and Iran.

According to Reuters sources who asked not to be named, White House officials after the Nov. 3 election (Nov. 12 in Iran’s calendar) will review whether to escalate military action. However, a return to an all-out confrontation is by no means certain. The U.S. military has said that the recent attacks were carried out in response to attacks against American forces and the movement of ships in the region.

According to these sources, the U.S. government currently wants to put more economic pressure on Iran to bring the country under pressure to grant concessions in possible future negotiations—concessions that months of military action have failed to achieve.

One White House official told Reuters: “We will keep pressure on Iran, but November is a priority.”

Sources said that keeping the war limited—largely until then—will help prevent this unpopular conflict from becoming the main news topic, at a time when Trump’s Republican backers have launched an election campaign to preserve their fragile majorities in the Senate and the House of Representatives. Three of these sources are White House officials.

Based on a late-August Reuters/Ipsos poll, only 31% of Americans approve of the war with Iran, while about 63% oppose it. Voters, in particular, are dissatisfied with high gasoline prices.