A nihilistic president, a bankrupt war: The Iran quagmire could sink the GOP in November

Donald Trump returned to the White House on a promise to drain the swamp and end foreign wars, carried by a rare coalition of Republicans, independents and disaffected Democrats. With the midterm elections one month away, that mandate lies in ruins beside a costly conflict with Iran that most Americans never wanted. Former Texas Rep. Ron Paul argues that congressional Republicans have earned the backlash now rolling toward them. They surrendered their constitutional duty over war powers, then kowtowed to a president who has no real plan to win, just bluster and boast for political marketing applause. Whether public fury hardens into actual votes is the question that will define November.

Key points:

• Generic ballot polling points to a big Democratic win and likely Republican loss of both the House and Senate.
• Paul says Trump launched the most unpopular war in U.S. history on Feb. 28, without an Iranian attack or threat against the United States.
• The national debt has passed $40 trillion, diesel prices are at record highs, and inflation is squeezing the middle class and poor.
• Republicans campaign against the war at home, then vote to sustain it in Washington.
• Paul sees little reason to cheer a Democratic victory, since both parties in D.C. are war parties.

A war the public never ordered

On Feb. 28, Trump ordered a full U.S. assault on Iran. Paul notes that Iran had not attacked or even threatened the United States, and that the American intelligence community continues to say Tehran is not building nuclear weapons. And weren’t those nuclear weapons buried in concrete a year before during the US Operation Midnight Hammer? The barrage of airstrikes are followed by the June 2025 Midnight Hammer Operation, after which Trump claimed Iran’s nuclear program was “completely obliterated.” If that were true, the February assault demands a justification the administration has yet to supply.

History sharpens the contrast. Before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Americans were softened up with warnings that a “smoking gun” could arrive as a “mushroom cloud.” Paul says this time there was no propaganda blitz. A majority of Americans opposed the war before it began, and their opposition only deepened. Wars usually begin with the nation rallying around the flag, and only after years without victory, as in Iraq and Afghanistan, do lawmakers claim they were never really for it. This war skipped the honeymoon.

The Constitution places the power to declare war in Congress, not the Oval Office. For generations, presidents of both parties have stretched that arrangement, and lawmakers have been content to let them, wary of being branded unpatriotic. Paul says Republicans have refused to uphold their obligation to take leading responsibility for war powers, and that failure now sits at the center of the political storm.

Campaign trail promises, Beltway votes

The bills of this war are already arriving at kitchen tables. As the war drags on, Paul points out that the national debt has passed $40 trillion, diesel fuel prices are the highest ever, and inflation is hitting the middle class and poor hardest. The US government is losing control over the oil and the narrative. The promised “cakewalk” again failed to materialize, a familiar and bitter echo of past adventures in the Middle East.

Incumbent Republicans have noticed the rapidly shifting mood. Paul says those seeking re-election are so panicked by voter anger that they call for a quick end to the war on the campaign trail. Once they return inside the Beltway, they vote to keep it going for fear of the president’s temper. “This is not leadership,” Paul writes, and voters seem to agree. By flooding Congress with Democrats, voters can stifle the President’s agenda going forward, and force impeachment votes on figures such as Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.

Diplomacy offered a way out, but it was refused by a nihilistic president. Late last week, Iran’s delegation in New York for the UN General Assembly proposed an off-ramp. Paul describes it as essentially the same Memorandum of Understanding Trump signed last June and promptly disregarded, only on a shorter timeline. By Sunday, the president announced he would reject a deal much like one he had already signed.

The strategy has shifted from decapitation strikes and confidence in a quick victory to a promise of crippling Iran’s economy. Paul sees the flaw plainly. Iran has lived under crippling sanctions for decades and has a high tolerance for economic pain. Hostage to the President’s own ego, the US is sinking in a quicksand quagmire it may not survive in the years ahead.

Two war parties and a wary electorate

The political arithmetic is striking. Generic ballot polling suggests a large Democratic victory and probable loss of Republican control of both chambers. That would be remarkable for a president who rode bipartisan and independent support into office with a mandate to clear out the swamp and end wars, and who has instead presided over an unpopular one.

Paul offers no applause for the likely beneficiaries. In his words, “both parties in DC are war parties,” and he sees little reason to cheer a Democratic win. Voters angry at Republican overreach should remember that a party’s rise on a rival’s failure is not the same as a party’s conversion to restraint.

Still, Paul holds out a measure of hope. Electoral losses can serve as wake-up calls, and he envisions the re-emergence of antiwar Republicans in the spirit of the late Sen. Robert Taft, the Ohio conservative remembered for his skepticism of foreign entanglements, along with a restoration of the Constitution.

Election Day is still a month away, and no ballots have been counted. Polls are not results, and anger in a survey does not always translate into a trip to the voting booth. Americans will soon show whether their disdain for the Iran war and for Trump’s politics is a passing grumble or a true verdict.

Sources include:

Original.Antiwar.com

EIR.news

CBSNews.com