Iran war, long illness, certain election death for Trump. “Every major conflict has led to a contraction in the economy”
Every major conflict in which the USA was involved had the effect of a contraction of the economy, explains Professor Radu Carp. In the context in which the autumn elections will be decided by the state of the economy, the duration of the conflict in Iran will be decisive in the election.
President Donald Trump would like to end the war as quickly as possible. PHOTO: Profimedia
The Israeli-American attack in Iran drew harsh criticism from the MAGA area. Conservative commentator Tucker Carlson has launched an unusual public attack on President Donald Trump, calling it straight “absolutely disgusting and evil” US military attack on Iran.
Trump has built his political career on a promise to end “regime change wars” in the Middle East. Over the years, Carlson has praised him for his restraint in military interventions in the region.
Carlson's position highlights the increasingly visible tensions within the MAGA movement. Some supporters remain firmly aligned with the administration's foreign policy, while others see involvement in a new conflict in the Middle East as contradicting the original promises.
Additionally, according to a Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll released the other day, more Democrats than Republicans said they would definitely vote this fall — 79 percent versus 65 percent among registered voters. That 14 percentage point lead is the largest Democrats have reported on the question before the midterm elections since at least 2006, the source said.
Radu Carp: “It's an uncomfortable intervention for President Trump who would have wanted a surgical intervention, within 24 hours”
In this context, “Adevărul” discussed with political scientist Radu Carp, professor at the Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Bucharest, about the danger of Trump losing his majority in the House of Representatives as a result of the war in Iran.
“We don't know, we can't anticipate, because we're talking about so-called rupture events. We're witnessing developments that are not anticipated at the moment, and I don't think we can say anything about the impact on the elections”.
We have to see what are the scenarios regarding the conduct of the war. “One of those scenarios is that the war will go on for a very long time. In that case, Trump can always claim victory, saying he's achieved his goal of removing the leader from power in Tehran. So anything is possible, and we don't really know how that will affect the election.”
The professor claims that within the Republican Party there is opposition to any kind of US involvement in foreign conflicts. Additionally, US involvement in the Iran conflict has been strongly contested by the Democratic Party. “There haven't been many voices in the Republican Party supporting the president. There are still a lot of questions waiting to be answered.”
In addition, critics also came from the MAGA area. “It's an inconvenient intervention for President Trump who would have wanted a surgical intervention, within 24 hours, on the model of Venezuela, unfortunately, it is not possible, Iran is completely different.”
“The longer it takes, the greater the economic contraction will be in the US”
Carp argues that things are still ongoing and the US election situation will depend a lot on how long this war lasts and at what cost. “In any case, the data shows us that in any major conflict that the United States has been involved in, it creates a major economic problem. We saw that when the Iraq war started, we saw that when the Afghanistan war started. So I expect the American economy, even though it had a very good start earlier this year, to contract by the time of the election. It's the math of the numbers of the last major conflicts that America has been involved in. And that's why the fear is that the longer it goes on, the more the greater the economic contraction will be“, explains the teacher.
In this context, the main concern that will affect the autumn elections will be the state of the economy, he says.
The professor claims that Iran is completely different from Irak. “Iraq has a territory much more willing to these types of operations. Even so, nothing could be done until an intervention on the ground was organized. And even with this intervention it took quite a long time for the regime in power to change. So I only see from the inside that there is a change, but from a military point of view things are very, very complicated.”
“If the economy does well, then the Republicans will lose, but not by a huge margin”
The political scientist claims that Iran does not have a tradition of terrorist attacks, and at least from this point of view, the Trump administration will not lose points in the elections. “It is another branch of Islam, no less violent, but which does not have the experience of terrorist-type radicalism in urban centers and in the West. I do not think that there will be terrorist attacks from this perspective. Of course, we do not know what the strategy of the regime in Tehran is. It is very possible that a series of sabotages will also enter into this strategy. But that is completely different.”.
Carp concludes by showing that the influence on the fall election depends on the length of the Iran war: It can be long-lasting or, Trump, “suddenly, because of the very high costs, he can declare that he has brought back a victory”. It all depends on how the next few days will look.
“I think no one would have expected that Iran would have such a strong response to the neighboring states, and this contributes to the formation of alliances that were not thought before in the Middle East”he explains.
He believes that the elections will be played on the internal card. “If the economy does well, then the Republicans will lose, but not by a huge margin. If the economy does worse, they will lose by the margin that is now given in the polls or even more“, concluded Professor Radu Carp.
