Will Iran be Trump's Waterloo?

With about 230 days till the mid-terms, Trump's Iran war might be the thing that puts an end to his one person domination of US policy.

Donald Trump famously said “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK? It’s like incredible.” All the evidence so far has suggested that he was right.

But few things shift the winds of US politics like wars.

When America starts a military action, there’s usually an immediate ‘rally around the flag’ effect. Public support levels rise to 70%, sometimes higher.

This Iran action is starting off at least 20 points below what might be considered a normal level.

With Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan there was plenty of work in the lead up to make the case that military action was necessary. This time, there was very little. In fact, most of what Trump had been saying for the last ten years was in the opposite directon.

Trump in 2020 campaigned on a promise that he “will end the forever wars”. He said “We’re not the policeman of the world” and “America should not be involved in regime change wars.”

He had opposed involvement in Iraq, when the search was for weapons of mass destruction.

Trump’s MAGA coalition was deeply bought into this promise, and it’s easy to imagine Republicans are not looking forward to campaigning for reelection on the need for the Iranian action, should it persist for much longer.

Often, not always, American Presidents sought a military coalition or at least expressions of support from Allies. This time, Trump continues to insult and bully allies, and amazingly still seems to expect their cooperation in his adventure.

The longer a war goes on, and in particular the greater the number of American casualties that happen, the more public support erodes.

With his approval levels in the low 40’s, and with no rally burst, his party faces the prospect of crushing setbacks in the mid terms. Polymarkets now put the chances of the Democrats controlling the House of Representatives at 85%, and of taking the Senate at about 50%.

In other words, what Trump truly doesn’t need is a public, especially Independent voters, thinking he has lost his focus on the US economy, has made a strategic error that has driven up consumer prices, caused damage to supply chains that American businesses count on to thrive, further alienated people around the world, and underestimated how difficult it would be to accomplish the vague and shifting goals he has described.

His alliance with Israel involves still more political risk, because there will likely come a point - perhaps very soon - where de-escalation is something Americans want, but Netanyahu probably won’t.

Trump has had a year to prove his competence and the success of his economic and foreign policy agenda. It’s not going well. DOGE collapsed, ICE killed innocent civilians and called them domestic terrorists, Americans paid billions for tariffs they don’t believe in, gasoline prices are rising, and now America has been spending money and sacrificing soldiers to (so far) replace one Ayatollah Khamenei with another.

Trump’s Cabinet is filled with people who, to put it mildly, subtract from, rather than add to, the sense that his Administration is focused and strategic. The Secretary of War routinely sounds like he thinks his job is a game, a TV performance, not a matter of grave consequence for those he puts in harm’s way.

In the end, Trump may prove yet again, that enough Americans will go along with him, no matter the cost or consequences. But it’s entirely possible that the next 230 days will provide a bigger stress test of that theory than anything that has come before.