TRUMP EXTENDS WAR TIMELINE. If you had told Republican leaders on Feb. 28, the day President Donald Trump began the war in Iran, that the war would not be over by Memorial Day; that it would not be over by the 4th of July; that it would not be over by Labor Day; and that it would not be over by Election Day — those Republican leaders would likely have been horrified at the prospect of facing midterm voters amid an unresolved war that the president originally said would last just a few weeks.
But that is where the GOP is today. As he headed to Dallas on Wednesday to open the Republican midterm convention, Trump described increased fighting with Iran and then made a prediction: “I think the war is going to end immediately after the election. I think the war will end immediately after the election. Because they can’t hold out any longer. They’re desperate to try and affect the election so that we can get a nice weak group of people in there and leave them alone and let them have their nuclear weapon. All they want is a nuclear weapon.”
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Iran, the president continued, “is in shambles right now.” Inflation is high. The government is not paying the military. It has lost full control of the Strait of Hormuz. But at a minimum, Iran is still able to keep up the war, and that means the economic effects of the war, most notably higher energy prices, will go on for a while.
“Shortly, but right after the election, because they’d like to have it that way, but right after the election, oil prices are going to be tumbling downward,” Trump said. “They’re going to be tumbling down, and we’ll get them down, I think, for gasoline. We’ll get them below $2 a gallon, but not until after the midterms. I think it’s going to take a little bit longer than the midterms.”
Trump’s statements, made in a brief exchange with reporters before boarding the plane to Dallas, were a preview of what he would tell cheering Republicans in a one-hour-and-forty-five-minute speech at the American Airlines Center later that night.
Discussing “affordability,” which is one of his least favorite words, Trump told the crowd that “food prices and almost every other item are rapidly going down.” Then he quickly added: “And by the way, oil will be going down as soon as we win the war with Iran, which is taking place right now. We’ll win it. We’re winning it.”
Trump then began a comic riff on changing the name of the Strait of Hormuz — the bane of his existence for the last several months — to the Trump Strait. “I should get something out of this,” the president said in an apparent reference to all the aggravation and political problems the war has brought.
People complain to him about the war, Trump said. “It happens to me all the time. Guys come up, you know, ‘I wish you didn’t do the war in Iran. Gasoline’s up, blah, blah, blah.’ And I say, ‘Well, let me ask you … one question. Can Iran have a nuclear weapon?'” At that point, Trump recounted, the person would immediately say, “Absolutely not.” And then Trump would say, “Well, then, I’m right.”
The alternative to his position, Trump added, would be disaster. “If we didn’t hit them with our beautiful … B-2 bombers, they would have a nuclear weapon right now, and I would be addressing them as Supreme Leader,” Trump said. But now, after ferocious U.S. and Israeli attacks, Iran is “hanging on for dear life, hoping that we lose so they can deal with dumb, weak Democrats, and they can have their nuclear bomb. But we’re not going to let that happen.”
The news about Iran in Trump’s speech — that he expects the war to continue through the midterm elections — followed reports that some aides have told the president the war might last even longer than that. On Wednesday evening, the Wall Street Journal reported that Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, as well as other officials, have “discussed with the president that Tehran could continue to resist U.S. pressure under the blockade and other military tactics, potentially extending the conflict past Inauguration Day in January 2029.” The message, in other words, was that the war could go on for as long as Trump is president.
All of this was far from mind on Feb. 28, when Trump announced that U.S. and Israeli forces had attacked Iran. Trump’s political argument for the war was that it would be short. Week after week, he said it would be over very, very soon. Now, the war is in its seventh month, and Trump is saying he expects it to last into its eighth and ninth months.
The war has done tremendous damage to Iran. Most importantly, it has set back Iran’s nuclear program for a very long time. That, after all, was the main goal of the conflict. But even after achieving the war’s goal, the president is preparing the country for it to go on.
