Trump is in a corner and likely to lash out at Iran again. Here’s how to avert that disaster

Guardian-Oct 28th2026

As another Iran catastrophe looms, one question matters more than any other: how to stop it before it’s too late? Whatever the eventual outcome of Israel’s election and next week’s US midterm polls, Donald Trump, playing the Lone Ranger, and Benjamin Netanyahu, his badass Tonto, appear hell-bent on resuming the illegal war of choice they began in June last year and expanded in February. Like a Shakespearean tragedy moving inexorably to a bloody denouement, the worst is yet to come. And yet three things seem certain: the US and Israel will again fail to totally destroy Iran’s largely hypothetical nuclear capabilities; its regime will survive; and millions of ordinary people, there and around the world, will pay the price for this unjustified, reckless aggression.

Ducking and weaving, Trump is desperate to dodge the blame for the Republicans’ anticipated midterm meltdown, largely triggered by war-related fuel and consumer price inflation. He claimed Ukraine’s attacks on Russian refineries were responsible, but that didn’t wash. He cut a treacherous diesel deal with Vladimir Putin but, as usual, Russia’s smirking mafioso conned him. He urged US allies to tap their strategic reserves but, unsurprisingly, vilified and sidelined European leaders, who view his war as an unmitigated disaster and declined to bail him out. Trump also reportedly rebuffed last-gasp, electorally driven pressure from Netanyahu to hit Iran this month, fearful it would unleash a Democratic tsunami.

Yet once the midterm polls close, and whatever the results, all these considerations fall away. What voters think will no longer matter to Trump. At that point, he can do more or less what he wants, in foreign and defence policy, for his final two years. And what he wants has little to do with imaginary Iranian nukes, a democratic uprising in Tehran, or any of his other bogus justifications for waging war. Trump will be free to do what he does best: vendetta politics. Iran’s greatest sin is to have defied the imperial will. He wanted an easy Venezuela-style, regime-altering victory (and sweetheart oil deals). What he got was a middle digit, burnt fingers and a forever war. Just as he vengefully pursues opponents at home, so he now victimises Iranians. It’s not rational or ideological. Like everything with Trump, ultimately it’s personal.

Netanyahu’s reasons for wanting another bash are thoroughly dishonourable too, but in a different way. Given his myriad, chronic failures before and after the 2023 Hamas massacres, his trashing of Israel’s international reputation by his criminal actions in Gaza and Lebanon, and his Trump-ish slide into bigoted, ultra-nationalist authoritarianism, Netanyahu is fighting for his job and, potentially, his freedom. He insists, despite his record, that only he can ensure Israel’s security. He suggests, outrageously, that opposition victory could pave the way for Israel’s destruction in a second, nuclear Holocaust. Israel’s military chiefs suspect he may restart the Iran war in order to dominate and manipulate the inevitable post-election coalition talks – hoping to stay in power and out of jail.

The likely, mortifying consequences of a renewed US-Israel onslaught after 3 November should be fully understood. For starters, the price of oil will spike again, perhaps to unprecedented levels, negatively affecting people all around the world. Pentagon officials, possibly peddling disinformation, suggest Iran is preparing to retaliate with missile and drone attacks against Saudi and other Gulf oil refineries, infrastructure and underwater internet cables, while reinforcing blockades of the strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea’s Bab al-Mandab strait. The impact on international energy supplies, transportation and international trade generally could be far worse than last spring.