Source : BRICS NEWS
WASHINGTON, November 5, 2026 – The United States military is finishing preparations for a possible resumption of major combat operations against Iran, including sending more assets to the region, American officials told Axios, as President Donald Trump weighs his next move after his party’s defeat in Tuesday’s midterm elections.
BRICS News highlighted the report in a post on X, writing that the US military was “finalizing preparations for resumption of large-scale attacks on Iran, Axios reports.” According to Axios, no final decision has been made, and even the president’s closest aides are unsure what he will do next.
Axios reported that all of Mr Trump’s options are problematic. Returning to war would be highly unpopular, keeping fuel prices high and probably not producing a better military result. Negotiating carries the risk that Iranian officials refuse concessions or, sensing weakness after the president’s political loss, raise their demands. A third path, which aides describe as to “strangle”, would keep the current naval blockade and crippling economic sanctions in place while continuing to test Tehran’s appetite for a deal, but could take months to show progress.
Mr Trump has said for weeks that he would end the war one way or another after the election. “It’s one thing to lose the midterms. But Trump doesn’t want to look like a loser twice,” one of his former advisers told Axios.
The defeat has added a new political calculation. Vice President JD Vance wrote on X on Wednesday that “the reason we lost is the war”, adding: “If you’d like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so,” ABC News reported. Mr Trump told reporters that Mr Vance’s assessment was “largely true” because the war drove up fuel prices, but said he would do it again: “We had no choice. You can’t let Iran have a nuclear weapon.” Asked when he would end the war, he replied: “Whenever I wanted to. But it’s got to be done right, because they can’t have a nuclear weapon.”
Diplomacy is running alongside the military build-up. Qatari mediators are working to secure US and Iranian support for a draft agreement that would head off a return to fighting and could lead to direct talks in the coming days, regional sources told Axios. The mediators had asked White House officials before the election what Mr Trump would do if he lost, but his advisers could not say either way. “We told everybody that we want to see first how the elections turn out for us,” a US official said.
Iranian officials have celebrated the election result. “The Iranian nation handed Trump a strategic defeat on the battlefield and in the Hormuz — and a POLITICAL DEFEAT in Washington,” Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, wrote on X, according to Axios. Diplomats, Trump advisers and regional experts told the outlet that such gloating could make a return to war more likely. “Tehran’s temptation is likely to mistake Trump’s political weakness for military weakness and overplay its hand, when the smarter move is to bank a deal while Washington still wants one,” said Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group.
Not everyone around the president favours escalation. CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and other advisers want Mr Trump to let the naval blockade and economic pressure campaign run longer, Axios reported. In a phone interview with Axios on Monday, before the vote, Mr Trump said he was “in no rush” to decide whether to resume the fighting. “One way or the other, we will do something, but there is no rush,” he said.
Source: BRICS News on X
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