Tehran appears to be boosting pressure on Washington ahead of the crucial midterm vote, but shows little desire to return to a full-scale war.
https://p.dw.com/p/5MTB7Brent crude — the global benchmark for prices — jumped to over $100 per barrel this week [FILE: September 5, 2026]Image: Atta Kenare/AFPAdvertisementThe war with Iran "is going to end immediately after the [US midterm] election because they can't hold out any longer," US President Donald Trump said of Iran's leaders on Wednesday.
Speaking at the Republican midterm convention, the first such event to be held at a massive arena in Dallas, Texas, Trump described the November 7 vote as "one of the most important elections of your lives," and once again defended the war against Iran.
The US president restated his argument that he had launched the attacks to prevent Tehran from developing a nuclear weapon. He also promised that oil prices would fall as soon as the US had won the war.
But even if Trump's promises are taken at face value, rising gas prices are sure to hurt Republicans' electoral prospects in the midterms.
On Wednesday, Brent crude — the global benchmark for prices — jumped to over $100 (€86) per barrel. The fighting escalated again this week, with the US striking Iranian oil tankers in retaliation for Iran's targeting of a US warship.
"Iran still appears to see escalation primarily as a controlled instrument of coercive bargaining, rather than as an end in itself," said Mohammad Ghaedi, a Middle East expert and professor at the Department of Political Science at George Washington University.
"Iran is trying to impose costs on the United States without raising those costs so dramatically that Washington feels compelled to return to full-scale war," he explained.
"That helps explain why the number of missiles fired at US naval vessels has remained relatively limited."
The regime wants to demonstrate that it can threaten US forces and disrupt the maritime traffic in the region, the expert said, "but it also wants to keep the confrontation below a threshold that could trigger a much larger American response."
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Tehran's preferred outcome would be a return to the Memorandum of Understanding signed in Islamabad in June, Ghaedi said, referring to a preliminary deal that paused the full-scale conflict.
At the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in late August, Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian reiterated that, if the United States returns to the memorandum, Iran would return as well.
From Tehran, however, this scenario seems increasingly unlikely.
Ghaedi said the first provision of the memorandum presents a major obstacle, as it requires an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon — "something Tehran sees as unlikely before Israel's elections."
Israel is going to the polls to elect a new parliament on October 27, just days before the US is set to hold its midterm vote. In Tehran, many believe that a decisive turning point in the conflict will not come until after these two elections.
On September 2, the Reuters news agency reported that senior advisers to President Trump were urging him to limit any escalation of the conflict, fearing political repercussions for the Republicans at the midterms.
The White House is reportedly considering expanding the military action after the elections.
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Tehran, Ghaedi said, "has little interest in pushing the conflict into a much higher level of escalation."
"If Democrats gain control of Congress and try to constrain Trump's conduct of the war, Iran would be even more cautious about doing anything that could create a rally-around-the-flag effect or push Democrats closer to Trump."
While military developments are hard to predict, the US will likely continue to boost economic pressure on Iran.
But Ahmad Alavi, an Iranian economics professor based in Sweden, warns that economic pressure alone would not result in political concessions.
"If the leadership of the Islamic Republic concludes that the goal of the pressure is not to change its behavior but to weaken or overthrow it, it might view concessions as a greater threat to its survival and resort instead to escalating military actions," he told DW.
Tehran would be more willing to make concessions if there were a genuine prospect of easing pressure and an established channel for negotiations, he added.
Meanwhile, Oman and several other Gulf states are once again seeking a diplomatic solution to the conflict.
The foreign ministers of the Gulf states are planning to meet with their Iranian counterpart in Salalah, Oman, next week, to try to reach a deal that would temporarily ensure the safety of commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, the Financial Times reported.
However, such an agreement would likely require Washington's approval, given the prolonged US naval blockade against Iran.
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Iran's leaders have continued to signal defiance as the conflict drags on.
"We will continue the war until final victory," Ali Nikzad, deputy speaker of parliament, told reporters on September 9.
Hossein Mohebbi, a spokesman for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), also demanded on September 8 that the US "completely cease hostilities" and refrain from further threats if it wanted to end the current situation.
At the same time, he threatened a more comprehensive Iranian response should the US attacks continue.
On September 10, the IRGC released a video that, according to Iranian sources, shows the capture of a US Anduril Dive-LD unmanned underwater vehicle in the Strait of Hormuz. The vehicle is said to have been deployed on a covert mine-clearing mission.
This article was originally written in German.
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