Middle East and North Africa

Republicans have a foreign policy problem. Whatever the outcome of the war in Iran, the GOP keeps drifting further from the issue that matters most to U.S. voters: affordability. Off-year elections just demonstrated that housing, health care, and education are paramount to voters who struggling to make ends meet—yet President Donald Trump has turned his attention overseas. It started with Venezuela, where U.S. forces seized President Nicolás Maduro and brought him back to the United States for trial.

But now Trump has raised the stakes further, joining Israel in a massive operation against Iran that killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and plunged the region into chaos. The bombing campaign has only intensified, and Iran’s regime—which replaced Khamenei with his even more hardline son—has retaliated by launching missiles across the region and choking off oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz. Oil prices have skyrocketed and markets have tumbled. For ordinary Americans, the consequence of the chaos is simple: Prices go up, including at the gas pump.

Republicans have a foreign policy problem. Whatever the outcome of the war in Iran, the GOP keeps drifting further from the issue that matters most to U.S. voters: affordability. Off-year elections just demonstrated that housing, health care, and education are paramount to voters who struggling to make ends meet—yet President Donald Trump has turned his attention overseas. It started with Venezuela, where U.S. forces seized President Nicolás Maduro and brought him back to the United States for trial.

But now Trump has raised the stakes further, joining Israel in a massive operation against Iran that killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and plunged the region into chaos. The bombing campaign has only intensified, and Iran’s regime—which replaced Khamenei with his even more hardline son—has retaliated by launching missiles across the region and choking off oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz. Oil prices have skyrocketed and markets have tumbled. For ordinary Americans, the consequence of the chaos is simple: Prices go up, including at the gas pump.

The war has been deeply unpopular from the start. Republicans back the operation, but balk at deploying ground troops, which becomes more likely as the conflict intensifies. Some of the right’s biggest media voices, including podcaster Joe Rogan, have turned against Trump. And Democrats and Independents, who together make up more than half of the electorate, are strongly opposed.

With rare exceptions (including the 1942 or 2002 midterms, which both followed attacks on U.S. soil), wartime presidents do not deliver electoral success for their party. And when voters sense the president is more focused abroad than at home, they punish him for it.

This can hold even after a successful military operation, as President George H.W. Bush learned in 1992. His political downfall is a warning to Republicans and a reminder to Democrats: Stay focused on the economy.

When Operation Desert Storm ended on Feb. 28, 1991, Bush and the GOP seemed invulnerable. The operation had a single objective: Expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait, which Saddam Hussein had invaded in August 1990. Hussein’s invasion had........

© Foreign Policy