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Something very strange is going on. Iran is negotiating its surrender. The war is over and Iran has lost.. I have been assured that the United States has destroyed Iran's ability of their proxies to project power in the Middle East.
Yet somehow, despite this war goal being accomplished and the war being over, Saudi Arabia is still being attacked by Iran's Proxies..
At least 12 people were killed and over 300 injured in a Houthi missile attack on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh on Saturday, October 10, 2026. This marks the third strike on the facility in one week and the deadliest attack in a Gulf Arab country since the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran began in February.
In response, President Donald Trump stated the U.S. is considering joining Saudi Arabia’s military campaign against the Houthis, while the U.S. Embassy issued a security alert urging American citizens to avoid the Riyadh airport.
So to summarize, it looks like the war is expanding, Iran's proxies continue to be able to strike US allies, and Iran's proxies are escalating the conflict instead of backing down.
With early voting opening up soon for many states, what are the chances Iran has an October surprise in store for Trump? Trump has stated that the U.S. will not resume military strikes on Iran before the November 3, 2026 (midterm election). The U.S. military is deploying roughly 9,000 to 10,000 additional troops to the Middle East, including the USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group and the USS Makin Island amphibious readiness group, which departed San Diego on October 4–5, 2026. This surge brings the total U.S. military presence in the region to over 60,000 personnel and establishes three aircraft carrier strike groups in the theater for the first time since April 2026.
So Iran knows that Trump wants the Iran War to quiet down before the Midterms, but he is preparing to escalate once it is over. Why would they play along with this? I believe there is a good chance they will escalate and cause Trump and Republicans political embarrassment soon. But maybe this doesn't matter, because for some reason, the Houthis don't count. So I guess everything is going according to plan. So this all could just be nothing.
I'm genuinely confused about why the Iranians (apparently) care about the midterms. Didn't we just get through four years of the Democrats letting Israel do whatever it pleased? Congressional dems have already shown that they have no intention of doing anything that might put a stop to the war, and see it as someone they don't like taking a hit to do something they wanted done anyways.
The Russians, in contrast, seem to understand now that the political establishment is pretty thoroughly neoconservative regardless of the sentiments of the American people, which is why they're willing to take cash to do something that helps the political fortunes of an administration that hasn't been very friendly with them.
I do think that either country could achieve a lot by pointing out that Lindsay Graham openly mocked Trump to the press while selling him on this war, presenting him as gullible and dismissing the voices of his supporters. Reminding him that the neoconservatives he's taking hits for despite him might make him less inclined to do as they say.
The goal for Iran is to establish that attacking them is a mistake which will cost the ruling party their majority.
From where I stand, this is very sound reasoning with regard to their long-term interests. They correctly model both US parties as being more interested in clinging to power than following the long term interests of the US (whatever these may be) in foreign policy.
If Trump had known how messy his special military operation would get, he would not have attacked Iran. (Unless Bibi has way more dirt on him than I think.)
While it was psychologically important for Trump to negotiate a better deal with Iran than Obama's deal, he will not sacrifice his presidency on the alter of keeping Iran from having nukes. The plan was clearly to bomb Iran, hopefully get a regime change, or at least shock and awe them enough that they will agree to terms which Trump can easily sell as a victory. "Look at me, I am a decisive Republican president who gets shit done, not some pussyfoot Democrat who is too chickenshit to bomb our enemies in case the bombs have a disparate impact on minorities." Only it turned out that Obama had good reasons not to go to war with Iran -- squeamishness about bombing Muslims was certainly no fault of his.
It is also in the short-term interests of Iran to get the Democrats back into power. They do not own the war, and they can probably concede the strait to Iran without the Republicans making a stink. By contrast, Trump needs the war to continue until he gets out something which he can sell as a victory or he dies, whatever happens first.
Traditionally, both the Republicans and the Democrats have been against a Russian hegemony, but Trump was always lukewarm in his support of Ukraine. Presumably because he thought him negotiating a peace deal would win him the Nobel, but also MAGA is politically closer to Russia than to Western Europe. Besides, while the Western leaders treat him with disdain just because he threatened to end the Persian civilization, the non-democratic leaders take him as serious as anyone.
This doesn't strike me as plausible. The GOP establishment doesn't care in the slightest about losing the midterms, and, even before the war, it seemed to be actively trying to throw them. They could've passed any number of bills, including voter ID, that would've motivated supporters and demoralized opponents, but instead they passed a left-leaning housing bill and blocked Trump from making recess appointments.
The neocons who convinced Trump to engage in this war are thrilled with the outcome. They plan to blame the midterms on immigration enforcement and see if they can get an amnesty on top of everything else.
I think it's pretty clear that he was talked into the war on that pretense, and then, up until the MoU, it seemed very clear that he was intent on getting out of it. I defended him quite a bit on that point; he'd made a bad decision and trusted people he shouldn't have, but he seemed appropriately upset with Israel and wanted to withdraw.
After Israel sabotaged the MoU, though, he doesn't seem to be trying anymore. As far as I can tell, he's just endlessly repeating the "Iran's weeks away from a nuke" line that AIPAC's been peddling since decades before I was born. The gasoline deal indicated that he does personally care about the midterms, but I think the neoconservative entryists are running the asylum at this point, and the beliefs of Trump himself don't appear to have any bearing on the Iran war's execution at all. Given what the Biden admin was like, I don't think the Dems would be any different, especially seeing as the odds of a competitive Republican candidate ever emerging again shrink by the day.
As the saying goes, congressional Republicans are openly pro-Israel and not-so-secretly gay, congressional Democrats are openly gay and not-so-secretly pro-Israel.
I think the marginal Republican senators not voting for Trump's policies are retiring senators who were successfully primaried by MAGA (Cassidy, Cornyn), too chicken to contest a primary against MAGA (Tillis), or undead (McConnell). All of these guys have reasons for their recalcitrance which do not apply to the GOPe as a whole. "I'm going to use my lame duck vote to push back against the guy who ended my political career" may be an ignoble motive, but it is not exactly a surprising one.
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