Donald Trump said he has no immediate plans to launch strikes on Iran following midterm elections in which the Democrats took control of Congress in a landslide win over his Republican party.
Still, the next few weeks will be key, with Trump either being chastened by the election results — which laid bare the strong anti-Iran war sentiment among Americans — or thinking he needs to act before the new Congress members take office in early January.
Trump speaks during a campaign rally in Dubuque, Iowa. AP
“We seem to be getting everything we want,” Trump said in an interview with the Financial Times about the conflict, though he added the US is still prepared for an escalation with the Islamic Republic if necessary. “I’m ready, we’re ready. We’re locked and loaded if we need to go, but there may be no reason for it.”
Later, Trump said the war — now into its ninth month — wasn’t a primary reason for the Republicans being routed, despite Americans balking at the resulting surge in energy prices.
“People understood the importance of what I’ve done with Iran,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News. “You can’t let the number one state sponsor of terror have a nuclear weapon. It’s the most dangerous country in the world, and we wiped them out practically. Haven’t finished a job, and maybe I will, and maybe I won’t.”
Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s parliament speaker and a senior negotiator with the US, said the midterms showed Americans have voted “NO TO WAR.”
