WASHINGTON (Reuters) — Top aides to US President Donald Trump are pushing to keep the Iran war from escalating before November’s midterm elections to staunch Republican electoral losses, four people familiar with the discussions said, a strategy that is already under strain as the United States and Iran resume their back-and-forth attacks.

White House officials will consider ramping up military action after the November 3 vote, said the sources, who requested anonymity to describe internal thinking, though any return to full-scale conflict is far from a given.

For now, they said, the administration is focused on tightening the economic pressure on Iran in an effort to extract concessions in any future negotiation that months of military action failed to secure.

“We are keeping the pressure on Iran,” one White House official said. “But November is a priority.”

Keeping the war mostly contained until then would help prevent the unpopular conflict from dominating the news as Trump’s Republicans campaign to defend thin majorities in the Senate and House of Representatives, said the sources, three of whom are White House officials.

Only 31 percent of Americans approve of the war, while some 63% disapprove, according to a late August Reuters/Ipsos poll, and voters are particularly unhappy about high gas prices.

A tactical pause could also give the US military some breathing room to replenish its heavily depleted munitions stockpiles, the sources said.

But pulling off the play-it-cool strategy looks more difficult by the day. While the conflict remains much less intense than it was during the spring or during a flare-up in the middle of the summer, both sides have exchanged tit-for-tat strikes in recent days.

Iran’s leaders, emboldened after months of disrupting traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and facing little internal unrest, will likely keep striking at US and allied Gulf targets, including military bases, vessels and energy infrastructure at least periodically, analysts said.

The US will face pressure to retaliate, potentially leading to an escalatory spiral that brings both sides back to a full-scale air war — whether or not the administration wants........

© The Times of Israel