&imwidth=800&imheight=600&format=webp&quality=medium "Trump lost Congress, Tehran govt held on and the Pentagon wants $67 billion more for the Iran war")
The United States can still strike targets across Iran, but it has yet to turn that military advantage into a political settlement. That was retired US Army Colonel David B. Des Roches’ assessment on WION’s Defence Pulse after Democrats won both chambers of Congress. The Pentagon estimated the war had cost $47.1 billion as of October 16 and is seeking a separate $67 billion in war-related funding.
Asked how far the fallout from a war can reach, Des Roches called the conflict a major factor in the midterms. The Pentagon’s late-October tally stood at 23 U.S. military deaths, including nonhostile deaths, and 865 wounded. Congressional researchers compiled reports of 81 aircraft and drones lost or damaged. For voters, Des Roches pointed to a different cost. Higher diesel prices made it more expensive to run farms, while tariff disputes narrowed their export markets.
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Trump, he argued, alienated voters who wanted to avoid another Middle East war and frustrated those who expected a decisive outcome once it began. “The war is the main symptom of a bigger problem,” said Des Roches, a professor at the Thayer Marshall Institute and former deputy director for peacekeeping in the Office of the Secretary of Defence, pointing to Trump’s centralised decision-making. On election day, Trump also pledged to end roughly $4 billion in annual aid to Israel after 2026 while continuing arms sales.
The Iranian threats U.S. commanders still face
“Yeah, good question,” Des Roches said when asked what U.S. forces had achieved. He assessed that the strikes had broken Iran’s ability to mount a coordinated nationwide air-defence response. Yet Iran’s government remains in power and has reportedly resumed assembling ballistic missiles underground. Asked what Tehran could still do militarily, he pointed to the threat to U.S. bases, commercial shipping and Gulf energy infrastructure. “You can’t defend everything,” he said.
What would it take for Trump to declare the job done in Iran?
Asked whether the opening strike offered Trump an off-ramp and what “finishing the job” would mean now, Des Roches said an outcome Washington could live with would require Iran to give up its nuclear programme, stop imposing conditions on international shipping and end support for proxies in Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq. Economic pressure, he argued, could matter more than further strikes in securing those terms. “That’s a brilliant question,” he added.
