Trump runs risk of 'devastating' GOP's midterm chances with new military conflict

Donald Trump could sink the GOP's midterm chances even further should he take military action in Iran.

Whether the president does so is yet to be seen, but CNN political analyst Stephen Collinson believes the administration may take action. It would follow strikes made last year on Iran, and could plunge the US into a war with the potential to go wrong enough that it would affect the voting intention at home.

Collinson wrote, "Iran, the seat of the ancient Persian civilization, is more contiguous and less plagued by sectarian divides than Iraq — which splintered after the US invasion in 2003. But no one wants to test the impact of a power vacuum if the government falls, in the absence of any clear path to a return to democracy.

"And the short, sharp thunderclap strike of the type Trump prefers and that doesn’t conflict with the no-foreign-quagmires mantra of his MAGA movement may not be sufficient to topple the clerical regime in Tehran.

"But a longer military engagement with uncertain consequences would severely test Americans’ trust in their president. A war that went wrong could devastate Republicans in November’s already unpromising midterm elections."

Trump may also be bolstered by his administration's recent activities in Venezuela. Collinson added, "A sense of hubris has gathered around the White House since the toppling of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro last month.

"But major US combat deaths in an Iranian war could effectively drain all the power and legitimacy from Trump’s second term."

Part of the problem too, Collinson says, is that Trump has no problem in kindling a counter protest in Iran.

"Trump’s predecessors avoiding encouraging a counter-revolution in Iran because they feared providing a pretext for even more fierce repression against demonstrators seen as US proxies," he wrote.

"Trump had no such qualms and his vow that the US was “locked and loaded” to punish Tehran for its crackdowns conceivably brought more people onto the streets.

"One option for Trump would be to ink a rudimentary deal and hype it as a great victory — the great salesman’s certainly done this before.

This might placate war-weary US voters, but it would send a clear message of a climbdown to US adversaries and tarnish his global strongman aura."