‘No Good Options’ for Iran War After President Trump’s Midterm Defeat
A broader offensive, continued pressure, a negotiated compromise, or a limited strike are potential options, according to Raz Zimmit, director of the Iran and the Shiite Axis research program at INSS
Giorgia Valente / The Media Line Staff
The Democratic victory in the United States midterm elections has reshaped the balance of power in Washington, but it has not resolved the confrontation with Iran. President Donald Trump still controls the White House, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remains in office amid a difficult government-formation process, and Tehran is treating the Republican defeat as evidence that the war has imposed political costs on its adversaries. Whether the new political landscape encourages escalation or negotiation remains uncertain.
The fragility of the situation was demonstrated on Monday, when US forces conducted limited strikes against Iranian targets on Qeshm Island, described by American officials as defensive operations rather than the resumption of major hostilities. On Thursday, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) reported that two oil tankers and a tugboat had caught fire in separate incidents in the Strait of Hormuz, including one tanker allegedly striking a mine. The Iranian account has not been independently verified.
The November 3 vote handed Democrats control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate, after a campaign in which the economic consequences of the Iran war became a significant liability for Republicans. But the newly elected Congress will not take office until January 3, 2027. Until then, Republicans retain their existing congressional majorities, and even afterward, Democratic control would not automatically remove the president’s ability to order military action. Congress can contest funding and authorizations, but the scope of presidential war powers remains disputed.
The question is whether another campaign would achieve what previous operations failed to settle or reproduce the same stalemate.
For Dr. Nabi Sonboli, a senior expert at Iran’s Institute for Political and International Studies, the central uncertainty is President Trump himself. “I prefer not to expect any wise decisions from Trump and his team. Confrontation is still possible,” he told The Media Line.
Sonboli also doubts that congressional opposition could contain an escalation. “The US Congress is not able to control Trump/Netanyahu axis no matter how much costs they impose on the US.”
Dr. Raz Zimmt, director of the Iran and the Shiite Axis research program at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies, sees the US administration confronting a series of imperfect choices. “It’s very difficult to assess, first of all, what will be the decision by President Trump,” he told The Media Line. He identified a broader offensive, continued pressure, a negotiated compromise, or a limited strike as potential options.
“One is to continue with his plans to strike Iran. I think he realizes that there are many risks involved in this third round of war against Iran,” Zimmt said. “The second option is to continue with the status quo, putting more pressure on Iran. But again, there is no guarantee that at the end of the day it will convince Iran to offer more concessions.”
A diplomatic alternative also faces obstacles. Zimmt said Iran might accept limited concessions concerning the sequence of a possible agreement, but not the substantial compromises Washington seeks. A narrower military option would carry its own danger: even an attack intended to end the confrontation could trigger an Iranian response that prolongs it. “But again, nobody can guarantee that the Iranians will not respond in a way which would escalate things even further,” he said.
“So, what we see currently is that the immediate threat of striking Iran seems to be on hold, both because of the political calculations in the US, but also because of the continued negotiations,” Zimmt said. Limited clashes around the Strait of Hormuz and unresolved disputes over sanctions, shipping, and nuclear activity continue to make escalation possible.
Tehran’s interpretation of the American vote is different. Dr. Ebrahim Roshandel, a former Iranian diplomat and strategic affairs analyst now based in the US, said the election result has prompted the Islamic Republic to strengthen its domestic narrative of resistance. “Now, after this result came from the election, Iranian leader and the IRGC commanders strongly try to change the narrative inside of Iran,” he told The Media Line. “At the same time, it doesn’t mean that they are going to open the new door in diplomatic way to negotiate or respond to the United States, because they have some conditions already.”
Roshandel believes Tehran wants Arab states to reassess their reliance on Washington, preferring that they see accommodation with Iran as an alternative. “The first things, I believe, they try to give the message to regional countries, mostly Arab countries, to make a big gap between United States and the Arab countries,” he said.
He also argued that Tehran is attentive to divisions within the administration over the war, naming senior officials whom he believes favor different approaches to negotiations and military force. Those are his interpretations, not verified accounts of the officials’ positions.
Zimmt cautioned that the Republican defeat does not remove the military threat to Iran. “There’s no doubt that the Iranians consider the failure, the defeat of the Republicans as a major success, but we still have to remember, and the Iranians realize that, that it doesn’t solve the Iranian problem,” he said. “Trump is still very much capable of striking Iran. The Iranians certainly don’t want that to happen.”
A parallel political uncertainty is unfolding in Israel. The Oct. 27 Knesset election left Netanyahu’s allied parties with 53 of 120 seats, compared with 48 for a bloc associated with opposition figure Gadi Eisenkot. The two Arab-led parties won 19 seats, leaving no obvious governing majority and negotiations over the next government unresolved. Netanyahu continues to lead the country on a caretaker basis, but his political position is weaker than before the vote.
Even so, Zimmt cautioned against assuming that a change of government would fundamentally transform Israel’s assessment of Iran. “Eisenkot might certainly adopt a less hawkish position, but when it comes to the perception in Israel, when it comes to the Iranian threats, the nuclear threat, there is no real difference between Eisenkot and Netanyahu,” he said. “And again, at the end of the day, everyone realizes that the decision is made when it comes to the Iranian file in Washington, not in Jerusalem.”
He was equally direct about Netanyahu’s influence over Trump. “First of all, Netanyahu doesn’t make the decisions. With all due respect to Netanyahu, he probably tried to convince President Trump to strike Iran before the elections. He failed to do that, and currently he doesn’t have any ability to make Trump do anything,” he said.
On election day, President Trump said he and Netanyahu had agreed that Washington would stop providing what he described as $4 billion a year to Israel after the end of 2026. It was unclear which funding he meant or how the change would be implemented. The existing memorandum providing $3.8 billion in annual military assistance runs through September 2028.
Beyond these political changes, Israel’s underlying security concerns remain. Zimmt disputes the idea that missile production should be the principal measure of whether another operation is necessary. “Yes, Iran still has a lot of missile capabilities, but this is not the main problem,” he said. “The main problem right now is that we still have no solution whatsoever to the nuclear capabilities which are still held by Iran.”
He described two unsatisfactory paths: a negotiated agreement that could deliver economic benefits to the Iranian government, or military action that might damage facilities without eliminating the knowledge, equipment, and material associated with the program. The International Atomic Energy Agency has been unable to verify the present location and composition of much of Iran’s enriched-uranium stockpile after losing access to key facilities. The agency estimated that Iran held 440.9 kilograms of uranium enriched up to 60% as of June 13, 2025. That enrichment level is far above the level used in ordinary civilian power generation, but it does not establish that Iran possesses a nuclear weapon. The figure is a historical estimate, not a verified measure of the current stockpile.
One proposed target is Pickaxe Mountain, the deeply buried complex near Natanz. Its operational status remains difficult to verify independently. For Zimmt, an aerial attack might delay the site’s use but would not settle the broader nuclear issue.
“It won’t deprive Iran from its 440 kilograms of enriched uranium. It’s not going to deprive Iran from its hundreds of advanced centrifuges,” he said. “And the only way to deal with the underground tunnels is through special operation, and this is something which is probably not going to happen.”
More ambitious proposals, including strikes against Iranian oil installations and other vital industries, involve a different set of risks. Zimmt said such attacks could severely worsen Iran’s economic crisis and even leave it resembling a failed state, without producing the intended concessions or a change of government. “And so, again, there are no good options right now,” he concluded.
Roshandel’s assessment places greater emphasis on the possibilities for internal political change. He said he has urged the White House to engage with Iranian opposition figures, describing this as an alternative source of leverage. “I remember that in April I sent my third letter to the White House, and I asked President Trump to use other leverage, which is the opposition. But unfortunately, they ignored it,” he said.
He also described domestic weaknesses that military pressure alone cannot resolve: inflation, economic dysfunction, arrests of political activists, and environmental problems. “So, I believe that we will see some breakdown. We will see some huge level of the protest is coming very shortly, maybe in two, three months, we will see that,” he said. He also predicted that the regime could collapse within a year. Zimmt, however, cautioned in a recent analysis that Iran’s deep crises do not make regime change imminent.
The Strait of Hormuz remains both a point of strategic leverage and a potential trigger for renewed conflict. Iranian interference with shipping and the American blockade have aggravated regional uncertainty and energy costs. Gulf states have strong incentives to avoid another exchange that could endanger shipping, oil facilities, or American bases on their territory, even as they remain concerned about Iran’s military capabilities.
Roshandel said Iran would seek concessions from regional governments by emphasizing their dependence on safe passage through the strait. At the same time, he pointed to Qatar as a potentially important intermediary. “My point of view is Qatar has the great potential right now to be more active than before this election to convince both sides to come back to the negotiation,” he said. But he also described Iranian hardliners as demanding sanctions relief, removal of the blockade, and revenge against American officials, a combination that could complicate compromise.
Diplomatic contacts have already produced a draft proposal. According to Reuters, Iranian negotiators left Doha on Sunday after talks with Qatari mediators. An official briefed on the discussions said their departure was not due to difficulties in the negotiations, that a draft proposal was circulating, and that another meeting was possible. Tehran has linked the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz to ending the US naval blockade under a seven-step framework, and Iranian officials have said that implementation could be accelerated to two days if its demands are met. No final agreement has been announced.
Roshandel warned that the consequences of continued confrontation could extend beyond Iran’s borders. “Iran is not going to stop supporting proxy groups, and they are trying to re-emerge or reorganize the new part of the proxies, more operational like Houthis in Yemen. They can make many, many places unstable.” He also expects Tehran to continue supporting aligned armed groups in Iraq and Lebanon.
Russia has also been involved in diplomatic contacts. Russian President Vladimir Putin met Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, in Moscow on Thursday. The Kremlin confirmed the meeting but did not disclose its precise agenda. Zimmt pointed to the encounter as a possible element in wider efforts to avert another confrontation, without claiming that it had produced a breakthrough.
Sonboli, by contrast, emphasized the absence of trust rather than the mechanics of mediation. “Many in Iran expect the war to continue for some time and they have got ready for that,” he said. He argued that Tehran had not sought the war, asserting that: “Peace needs a level of trust and Trump/Netanyahu proved that they are not trustable.”
He also invoked the experience of the George W. Bush administration and the costs of earlier US wars. “That war imposed 5 trillion dollars on the US and there is no reason that we believe the current administration is wiser under Trump,” he concluded.
Brought to you by www.srnnews.com
