Will Trump relaunch his war on Iran after the midterm elections?

Reports have suggested a vulnerable president could start a new bombing campaign. But that wouldn’t bring a deal any closer

Will Donald Trump decide to resume a large-scale war against Iran after the US midterm elections?

That question has loomed over the campaign for weeks, as officials leaked plans for a new round of joint US-Israeli military strikes that would target Iran’s underground nuclear facilities, missile arsenals and civilian infrastructure.

If Trump was reluctant to restart the war before the elections – fearing an even bigger loss for Republicans who are facing widespread voter anger over rising energy prices and other costs – he would have less to lose once the country got past 3 November.

But even if the president can avoid deeper losses for his party, would a renewed bombing campaign bring Trump any closer to a deal that would enable him to declare victory and move past the disastrous conflict he started eight months ago? That’s unlikely.

Trump can’t bomb his way out of the mess he created in Iran. One of the central rationales being floated by the Pentagon is that an “intensive” multi-day attack would force Iran to make new concessions in stalled negotiations. But this is the same folly that dragged the US into a senseless war in the first place, when Trump seemed to be convinced that the Iranian regime would fall within a few days of a surprise attack that killed its top leadership.

And Trump shows little sign that he has learned from the mistakes that led him into this quagmire, especially after he repeatedly promised his supporters that he would not start new wars in the Middle East. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, spent months persuading Trump to join Israel in a war aimed at regime-change in Tehran. Netanyahu is at it again, urging Trump in a phone call on Saturday to restart the bombing soon after the midterms. Netanyahu wants a renewed war with Iran as he fights for his political survival, after his rightwing governing coalition failed to secure a majority in Israel’s parliamentary elections last week.

The president might still opt for a deal with Iran, instead of a wider war.

Over the past week, negotiators from Qatar organized multiple rounds of talks with Iranian officials, trying to avert a new round of intense fighting. Those talks reportedly led to progress on an interim deal, with Iranian leaders offering to reopen the strait of Hormuz within two days if Washington agrees to lift a blockade on Iran’s ports and release billions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets. After the US and Israel attacked in late February, Tehran largely closed the critical waterway, through which more than a fifth of the world’s oil supply passed each day.

But an interim agreement reached in June to reopen the strait of Hormuz collapsed, and other negotiations led by Qatar and Pakistan stalled for months. The US and Iran mistrust each other deeply – and Trump makes it worse by vacillating between wanting a deal and repeatedly threatening to “annihilate” Iran.

“Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before?” Trump asked in his speech at the UN general assembly in September. “Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly … Do I drive them into hell?”

While Trump’s threats are usually dismissed by the media as part of his bluster, the president’s vows to “wipe out” Iran naturally sow more distrust among Iranian leaders. And Trump could use a Republican defeat in the midterms as an excuse to exact revenge on Iran’s leaders, whom he blames for rising prices and his historically low approval rating that fell to 30% in early October.

If Republicans lose badly, Trump’s impulsiveness and thirst for vengeance could make him more inclined to order a large-scale attack that targets not only Iran’s nuclear facilities, but also its civilian infrastructure, including power plants, oil refineries, bridges and factories.

And if Trump follows through on his repeated threats to destroy Iran’s infrastructure, those attacks could further devastate the Iranian economy and would likely constitute war crimes under international law.

“If he feels embarrassed or disenfranchised he will do something bold,” one US official told Axios last week, explaining the possibility of Trump lashing out after a humiliating loss in the midterms. What might that humiliation look like? Democrats winning control of both houses of Congress and securing larger majorities than expected, especially in the Senate.

At a rally in Florida last month, Trump said he was considering “another little Epic Fury”, referring to the weeks-long US and Israeli bombing campaign against Iran that started on 28 February. In the war’s early hours, US and Israeli airstrikes killed dozens of senior Iranian military and political officials, including the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

At first, Trump was seduced by the prospect of a quick victory, thinking he and Netanyahu could topple the Islamic regime that rose to power after Iran’s 1979 revolution.

But the Iranian regime was prepared to fight for its survival, despite the assassination of its top leaders: Iran retaliated with missile and drone strikes against US military bases across the Middle East; it closed the strait of Hormuz; and it destroyed oil pipelines and gas fields in neighboring Gulf countries, driving up global energy prices.

Iranian leaders also quickly appointed Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba, as the new supreme leader, and expanded the influence of hardliners within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the country’s most powerful military force.

Trump’s war ended up trading one Khamenei for another – and emboldening Iran’s leaders to use their control over the strait of Hormuz to demand new concessions. And Iranian officials say they would retaliate for any new US military campaign that targets their country’s infrastructure with large scale attacks on American bases and the energy infrastructure of neighboring Gulf countries.

On Saturday, Mojtaba Khamenei warned that Iran’s response would be “immediate” and “without any geographical limitations” – hinting that Tehran could strike targets beyond the Middle East.

In the coming days, it will become clear if Trump can swallow his pride, and his quest for vengeance, and make a deal with Iran. Or if he will repeat the same mistakes – and hubris – that led him to launch this catastrophic war in the first place.

Mohamad Bazzi is a Guardian US columnist. He is also director of the Center for Near Eastern Studies, and a journalism professor, at New York University