Donald Trump last month hailed the extension of the US-Iran ceasefire and reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, calling on the world’s ships to “start your engines” and for the Middle East to “LET THE OIL FLOW!”
This week Trump seemed to relish the return to battering Iran with near-daily strikes, touting the US military “knocking the hell” out of Iran in a conflict that risks overshadowing his entire presidency.
Behind his bravado it remains unclear how the US president will limit the economic, political and diplomatic costs of the latest escalation, particularly as the autumn midterm elections loom.
“Trump has seemed to come to the end of his rope on [Iran],” said Ron Bonjean, a Republican political strategist. “Reality is setting in that this is going to take a while. It could be months or years before this conflict gets resolved.”
RM Block
The president has gambled that he can force Iran into submission militarily despite his failure to do so earlier in the conflict. It raises the prospect that Trump will preside over a domestically unpopular conflict in the Middle East that could stretch into November or beyond, flying in the face of his vow to make the war short and overwhelmingly successful.
US Central Command (Centcom), which oversees US military operations in the Middle East, said late on Tuesday that it had completed a seventh wave of strikes. It had hit “dozens of military targets near the Strait of Hormuz and Iranian coastal areas” including “Iranian missile and drone sites, naval capabilities and coastal defense systems”.
“It’s very hard to see what continually striking Iran via air power is actually going to net the US. And right now, that seems to be the option that president Trump is continually grabbing towards,” said Becca Wasser, a defence strategy expert at the Center for a New American Security, a think-tank in Washington.
“Escalation to de-escalate ... hasn’t proven to be very successful in the past. There’s continuing to try and squeeze Iran economically as part of a long game. But thus far that hasn’t been as successful as president Trump would like,” she added. “There is no real way out.”
On Monday, Trump added an audacious twist to increasingly fraught attempts to reassert US control over the Strait of Hormuz: a 20 per cent toll on ships using the waterway to reimburse the US for providing security.
[ US begins new wave of strikes against Iran after reimposing naval blockadeOpens in new window ]
But within a day, he was forced to make a sharp pivot. Trump abruptly retreated from the plan after backlash from Gulf allies as well as widespread concerns in business and markets about the viability of the toll and fears that it could drive energy costs even higher.
Democrats quickly pounced on the about-face as evidence that Trump was flailing in his quest to pressure Iran.
“There’s no strategy. He’s making it up as he goes. Meanwhile, you pay more for gas, groceries, and goods,” Jason Crow, the Democratic congressman from Colorado, wrote on X on Tuesday.
Militarily, the danger is that renewed strikes could lead to an escalatory spiral if Iran continues to respond with its own attacks on US allies, troops and assets, calculating that Trump will ultimately back away.
The resumption of hostilities also risks depleting expensive air defence interceptors, additional wear and tear on military equipment and longer recovery time for troops. It could also delay the military’s ability to shift resources and attention to other parts of the world.
“Precision air strikes are very resource-intensive endeavours for the intelligence enterprise, both military and national, and tend to pull assets, attention and focus from other areas we would like to monitor or surveil,” said Karen Gibson, a retired army lieutenant general and former director of intelligence for Centcom.
There is also concern that Trump has been forced to abandon the original goals of the Iran war and settle for the much narrower objective of reopening Gulf shipping routes.
“The entire conflict has now become about the Strait of Hormuz rather than about what we initially went to war over, which was the nuclear programme, the ballistic missile and cruise missile programme and Iran’s ability to utilise proxies across the region to instil terror,” said Elizabeth Dent, former director for the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula in the office of the US secretary of defence.
“We’re not even talking about any of that any more,” she added.
Politically, the resumption of the war has comforted some Republican hawks on Capitol Hill who were unhappy with the ceasefire deal on the grounds that it offered too many concessions to Tehran.
“President Trump is right to impose heavy costs on the Iranian regime for going back on its word. There should be zero tolerance for Iran’s terror attacks on their neighbours and the Strait,” Tom Cotton, the Arkansas Republican senator, wrote on X.
Olivia Wales, a White House spokesperson, said Tehran was to blame for the escalation.
“The United States had an agreement with Iran and they broke it – choosing violence over peace. The president has all options at his disposal to respond to Iranian violations and to secure US national interests,” she said.
[ Why has the Iran-US ceasefire memorandum frayed?Opens in new window ]
But many Republicans, especially those representing swing districts with tough races in the November midterm elections, are increasingly nervous that Trump is failing to wrap up the war.
On Tuesday, US economic data showed what could be at stake for Republicans in electoral battlegrounds. Inflation had fallen last month, thanks to the decline in oil and petrol prices spurred by Trump’s ceasefire in Iran and hopes for more energy supplies through the embattled Strait of Hormuz.
But with the latest escalation in the war, Brent crude is up 15 per cent in just one week. The rally leaves petrol prices poised to surge again during the US holiday season as elections draw nearer.
“There’s not an end in sight to this – people vote with their pocketbooks, not with their world maps,” said Bonjean. “The confusion continues on exactly what the end game is, and how do we get to a place where Iran doesn’t have a nuclear weapon, and our energy prices are reasonable.” – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2026
