Iran hails US voters rejecting war while Khamenei warns hostility won’t end

Iran's Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei declared that anyone expecting a shift in US policy toward his country is "seriously mistaken," following midterm elections that saw Democrats gain control of both chambers of Congress. His statement came hours after President Donald Trump acknowledged that the ongoing US-Israel war on Iran likely contributed to his Republican Party's poor election performance.

Khamenei's Warning

"Those who still harbour even the slightest hope that the behaviour of the hegemonic system might change through partisan or factional shifts, or who imagine that making concessions to the United States can dissuade it from hostility towards the Iranian nation, are seriously mistaken," Khamenei said in a written statement published on his website.

The supreme leader highlighted Iran's control of the Strait of Hormuz, through which one fifth of the world's oil and gas passed before the conflict, and what he called the elimination of US military bases in regional countries as achievements in response to US "aggression and crimes." He warned that any renewed US attack would draw a far wider response.

Mixed Iranian Reactions

While Khamenei struck a cautious note, other Iranian officials reacted more celebratorily to the Republican defeat. "Conscience or the cost of living, Americans said NO TO WAR, and we endorse this message," said Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran's chief negotiator with Washington and parliament speaker.

Mohammad Mokhber, an adviser to the supreme leader, claimed Trump had been "slapped in the face by his own people" and asserted that "the true winner in this arena was Iran, which transferred the cost of the war into the United States." Judiciary chief Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei went further, writing that "Trump was defeated both in war and in politics; we will certainly impose further defeats on him."

Regional Tensions

The US has warned it could carry out a short but intensive military campaign against Iran after the midterms. Hamidreza Moghadamfar, an adviser to the commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, stated that Iran would hit targets beyond US bases if Gulf states allowed Washington to launch attacks from their territory, specifically naming the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

Some in Tehran fear that because Iranian officials have framed the election result as a defeat imposed by Iran, Trump might "personalize the matter" and launch a new round of war "in an act of revenge." Meanwhile, Iranians hope a Democratic-controlled Congress could restrain Trump and make him "less reckless" over the war, with some Republicans already wary ahead of the 2028 elections.