Iran and the Elections: National Security Should Not Be Measured in Congressional Seats
Before becoming a debate about votes or an outlet for frustration directed at one of the administration’s most effective secretaries, Iran was a debate about a bomb—about the nuclear advances of a regime that could put the entire West at risk.
A State Department file photo
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National security cannot be dictated by an election. Following the Republican defeat in the midterms, many insist that the war with Iran was a mistake, and some already want Secretary of War Pete Hegseth out of the administration. But it is important to emphasize that, regardless of what drove the November 3 results, the obligation to protect the United States could not be subordinated to the Republican Party’s potential electoral risks. The decision to go to war requires a rigorous examination of the threat, the alternatives, and the results; an electoral defeat, by itself, does not prove that President Trump’s decision was wrong.
Before becoming a debate about votes or an outlet for frustration directed at one of the administration’s most effective secretaries, Iran was a debate about a bomb—about the nuclear advances of a regime that could endanger the entire West. President Trump’s red line was always clear: the regime could not acquire a nuclear weapon. That was the justification for Operation Midnight Hammer, carried out in the early hours of June 22, 2025, in Iran, against Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan.
Seven B-2 bombers and a submarine armed with Tomahawk missiles participated in the attack on those nuclear facilities. Hegseth presented the mission as having a specific objective: preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. Trump defended it as a limited action to protect vital American interests. It was about using force to counter a threat, even if the political bill might come due later. The president explicitly said that he would not rush things with Iran simply because the midterm elections were approaching. And many applauded him at the time; the last thing they wanted was to jeopardize the progress made in Iran simply to satisfy political impatience.
In June 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio raised a fundamental question: Why did Iran need to stockpile uranium enriched to 60%, a level that makes it easier to reach the roughly 90% used in nuclear weapons? The United States and its European allies had already warned the IAEA that Iran was the only country without nuclear weapons producing and stockpiling material enriched to 60%. The danger identified by Washington was that capability in the hands of a regime that supports terrorist organizations, threatens Israel, and chants “Death to America.” That is why Hegseth presented the operation as a precision strike to neutralize the nuclear threat and protect the United States and its allies.
Secretary Hegseth defended the operation as an application of peace through strength: he explained that Trump had given Iran opportunities to negotiate and abandon enrichment but had encountered obstruction and concluded that he needed to act to prevent the regime from acquiring a nuclear weapon. The objective was to destroy or severely degrade its nuclear program. Hegseth emphasized that the mission was limited in scope and sought to neutralize a threat to the United States and its allies without pursuing regime change.
The Iran problem did not begin with Trump. Even Obama and Biden recognized that the regime must not acquire a nuclear weapon; the problem is that their responses fell far short of meeting the danger. Obama opted for an agreement that eased sanctions without requiring Tehran to abandon its support for terrorism and imposed questionable nuclear restrictions. Biden tried to revive the diplomatic formula. Preventing the regime from continuing to build its capacity to challenge the United States and its allies required a real response, and the problem had been on the table for years.
It is one thing to ask how much the war with Iran influenced the midterm election results and quite another to determine whether confronting that threat was necessary. The first requires analyzing voter behavior; the second, examining the available intelligence, the alternatives, and the risks of acting or allowing the regime to advance. Confusing the two amounts to making the ballot box the sole criterion for national security. A decision can be electorally costly and strategically necessary, just as a popular policy can endanger the country.
Even if the administration could have anticipated the war’s electoral cost, we should agree on something fundamental: a serious threat to national security cannot be addressed by calculating how many congressional seats are at stake. A government’s duty is to protect the country, even if doing so ultimately deals its party a political blow. Moreover, reducing the Republican defeat to Iran offers an all-too-convenient explanation. The weight of each factor deserves to be debated using evidence. If the goal is to correct mistakes rather than simply find someone to blame, the examination must extend well beyond Iran.
Even those who disagree with the administration’s decisions should acknowledge the ability to execute demonstrated by Secretary Hegseth and the Pentagon against a threat Washington had spent decades trying to contain. Now, amid the discontent and recriminations over lost votes, we cannot forget what the Iranian regime represents. Across several administrations, fear of escalation—with its economic and political consequences—set the limits of the American response. President Trump broke with that approach. The Republican Party will have to reflect on the midterm election results, but the lesson cannot be that retaining power in Congress matters more than confronting a threat.
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