US midterms put Trump’s Iran war and Pakistan’s mediation under pressure

By Nida Amir Afridi (Ms)

The writer is PhD scholar at University of the Punjab

 With US midterms on November 3 and polls pointing to a Democratic House, a politically wounded Donald Trump may have to recalibrate the eight-month war on Iran, a shift that will test Pakistan’s mediating role in the region.

The electoral calculus is unkind to the White House. The Cook Political Report’s ratings of October 9 projected Democratic gains of nine to 19 House seats, putting the party at 224 to 234 seats, with 21 districts still rated toss-ups. Silver Bulletin’s FLIPR model, as reported by Newsweek, gave Democrats a 92.9 per cent chance of taking the House and 73.9 per cent in the Senate, while Kalshi traders priced the House at 90 per cent and the Senate at 63 on October 16. The Senate is the harder reach, since six of Cook’s seven Senate toss-ups, among them Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Ohio and Texas, sit in Republican hands.

The surveys behind those models are blunter. A CNN/SSRS poll conducted from July 23 to 27 found Mr Trump’s approval at 34 per cent against 62 per cent disapproval, and only 24 per cent of independents approving. Emerson College recorded 39 per cent approval and a generic-ballot lead for Democrats of 53 to 42. A YouGov survey of October 10 to 12 gave Democrats an eight-point advantage. Mr Trump has not hidden from the verdict; he told a Dallas audience to behave as though he were on the ballot, and NPR/PBS/Marist put his favourability at 37 per cent in September.

The first policy pivot is already visible in Washington. Mr Trump has ruled out fresh attacks on Iran before the vote, although CBS reported on October 8 that The Atlantic had him weighing a pre-election strike, and he has said victory would come right after the election, perhaps before. Bazaar rumours of an October surprise, in other words, were not idle. Tehran has read the calendar too. Three senior Iranian officials and an insider say Iran is deliberately prolonging talks to weaken Mr Trump before the midterms, convinced he is ready to resort to renewed attacks to break the stalemate. President Masoud Pezeshkian said on October 20 that there would be no return to talks until the pressure campaign stops.

That impasse has a history in which Pakistan figures prominently. The US and Israel began strikes on Iran on February 28, after nuclear talks had been running since early in the month. Pakistani officials delivered Washington’s 15-point proposal on March 25, and Pakistan then mediated a two-week ceasefire; the Islamabad talks failed, the United States imposed a naval blockade, and the Islamabad Memorandum was followed by renewed fighting on July 8. The Pakistani army chief is now expected to visit Iran, with the state apparatus in Islamabad plainly hoping to keep its diplomatic corridors open to both capitals.

The ground reality is a standoff over water. Washington keeps its blockade on Iran’s southern ports while Iran attacks ships trying to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, and Kharg Island, which handles about 90 per cent of Iranian exports, features in discussion of Mr Trump’s military options. Tehran’s seven conditions for reopening the strait include a ceasefire across the Middle East, the unfreezing of assets abroad, the lifting of oil sanctions and an end to the blockade, a package that Mr Trump rejected when Iran presented its seven-day ceasefire proposal in September. The conflict long ago left Iran’s borders, because Hezbollah joined on March 2 and Lebanon remains under a ceasefire in name only, with Israeli airstrikes continuing. Planners weighing a new campaign must also consider the Houthis’ next move. Russia has stepped into the vacuum, and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov travelled to Tehran to prevent a return to large-scale war.

None of this can be separated from the sanctions architecture Mr Trump himself dismantled and rebuilt. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action of 2015 traded curbs on enrichment for relief; Washington walked away from it in May 2018 and restored sanctions under a campaign of maximum pressure, and the drone strike that killed General Qassem Soleimani at Baghdad airport in January 2020 showed how quickly the shadow war could become a direct one. The deal’s absence matters. Steve Witkoff has said that Iran began the February round by insisting on a right to enrich and by noting that its 460 kilograms of 60 per cent enriched uranium could in theory produce 11 weapons. American garrisons in the Gulf sit within reach of that argument; Senator Chris Murphy was reportedly denied access to a US base in Qatar, which hints at how closely the Pentagon is guarding its posture.

If the Democratic wave arrives, its first effect would be procedural. A House under Democratic control would acquire the subpoena and the power of the purse, and with them the means to force hearings and war-powers votes on a conflict that has run for eight months without a congressional vote on its aims. Hawkish elements around the president would then confront a legislature that can slow a ground operation even if it cannot end the war. Mr Trump, for his part, may find a negotiated exit more attractive once the electoral pressure is spent, though the military side of that ledger is awkward. An analyst told Al Jazeera that restoring key munitions to pre-war levels would take three to four years.

For Pakistan, the stakes are geographic before they are diplomatic. Islamabad shares a frontier of some 900 kilometres with Iran, has bet its credibility on the Islamabad process, and cannot afford a Hormuz closure that lengthens its own energy queues. A weaker Mr Trump would be more open to a face-saving formula, but a more vengeful Tehran might price its concessions higher, and the Gulf monarchies will watch “Whether such timeline assertions hold up under a transformed congressional matrix remains to be seen, but for Islamabad, the window to secure its southwestern frontier is narrowing rapidly. Whether such timeline assertions hold up under a transformed congressional matrix remains to be seen, but for Islamabad, the window to secure its southwestern frontier is narrowing rapidly.”