How the Iran war helped Democrats win the midterms

Trump sought to bring Iran to its knees. Instead, Tehran brought the costs of war into American homes, fuelling the backlash against his party. American University of Beirut, Distinguished Public Policy Fellow and non-resident Senior Fellow at the Arab Center Washington DC.

This week, Iran’s response to the US-Israeli attacks led to one of the most dramatic political turnarounds in modern American history. Trump’s failed war on its own, however, is not why the Democrats pounded the Republicans and now control the Senate and House of Representatives for the next two years. Rather, it reflected and amplified many dynamics in American society that caused discontented, angry and fearful citizens to repudiate Trump’s Republicans and support Democrats.

The US president wrongly believed that his war on Iran would pummel the country into submission and turn it into a vassal state of the US and Israel. Iran survived, attacked the US, Israel and Arab lands, and brought the painful economic costs of war into every American home.