Iran deliberately prolonging US talks to weaken Trump before midterms, officials say

Iran has deliberately prolonged talks with the United States in an effort to weaken Donald Trump politically ahead of November’s US midterm elections, three senior Iranian officials and an Iranian insider have told Reuters.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, they said Tehran was convinced the US president was ready to resort to renewed attacks to try to break the stalemate in the eight-month-old war.

“Iran is preparing for renewed Israeli and US attacks, not for a deal with America to end the war,” one of the officials said. “The clerical establishment is determined not to give Trump a political victory.”

Tehran analyst Saeed Leylaz said that, by prolonging the talks, “Iran is influencing the US election without taking any unlawful action”, while Alex Vatanka of the Middle East Institute in Washington said the clerical establishment clearly wanted to hurt Trump politically.

The war, which began in February when the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran, has helped drive Trump’s approval rating to a record low as polls suggest Americans worried about high petrol prices will punish his Republican Party in the November 3 congressional elections.

Trump has repeatedly said he expects oil prices to drop after the elections but has not offered a detailed plan to end the war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the vital global energy shipping route effectively closed by Iran since the war began. Iranian attacks, both threatened and real, have kept ship traffic through the strait to a trickle, while a US maritime blockade and trade sanctions have cut off Iran’s oil export revenues.

With Tehran refusing concessions it believes could benefit Trump politically, there is little chance of a breakthrough before the elections, the officials said.