The US midterm elections are approaching. In November 2026, all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and roughly one-third of Senate seats will be contested. The vote will shape both the composition of Congress and the balance of power between the White House and the legislature during the remaining two years of Donald Trump’s presidency.
By Amir Ahmad Shishegar
English translation for The Levant Files
This year’s election, however, has a variable that cannot be treated simply as a matter of US foreign policy: the war with Iran. The war, which began on February 28, has now entered its seventh month. On September 16, Trump said he hoped it was approaching its final stages. At the same time, reports emerged of consultations between his administration and the leaders of Gulf Cooperation Council countries over postwar arrangements.
Yet those same reports suggest that a considerable gap remains between talking about ending the war and establishing a lasting political framework. The approaching election alone is therefore insufficient grounds for concluding that the war will end.
The central question is not whether Trump will end the war before the election. A more precise question is: what combination of political, economic, institutional, military and regional factors could change Washington’s assessment of the costs and benefits of continuing the war in the weeks and months ahead? Reframing the question in this way brings the study of American politics and governance informed by strategic foresight into the discussion.
America Is More Than the White House
One common mistake in analysing US foreign policy is to imagine “America” as a unified actor and then try to infer its future policies from the president’s statements. The American political system, however, was designed precisely to distribute power.
The president is commander-in-chief of the armed forces, but Congress also has the authority to declare war, approve funding, legislate on military matters and oversee the use of military force. The respective powers of the president and Congress to initiate and sustain military hostilities have long been among the most contested areas of US constitutional law. The War Powers Resolution of 1973 was itself a response to this problem, seeking to establish a mechanism for congressional participation and oversight when the United States enters military hostilities.
This is no longer merely a theoretical debate in constitutional law textbooks. On September 15, the House of Representatives approved a resolution by 220 votes to 204 calling on the president to withdraw American forces from hostilities with Iran under the War Powers Resolution. Seven Republican representatives also voted in favour.
Nor was this the first development of its kind. Recorded House votes show that Congress has voted several times in recent months on restricting US military involvement in the Iran war. For anyone studying American politics, this is a significant development: the war is increasingly becoming a struggle within America’s power structure, rather than a matter resting solely on the president’s decisions.
When War Reaches the Gas Pump
Another crucial link is the economy. American voters do not generally experience foreign policy in the same way that geopolitical analysts do. For many people, war becomes a domestic issue when its effects appear in fuel prices, inflation, interest rates, transport costs or employment prospects. A chain of consequences takes shape:
War → disruption to energy supplies and trade → higher fuel costs → inflationary pressure → reduced purchasing power → heightened voter concern → pressure on politicians.
This chain is no longer simply a theoretical possibility. Reuters has reported that the Iran war and disruptions to energy supplies have turned fuel prices into a political problem for the Trump administration ahead of the midterms. The administration is even considering using the Defense Production Act to expand US oil-refining capacity, an indication that energy has moved from the realm of markets into electoral politics.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll published on September 14 also put Trump’s approval rating at approximately 35 per cent. In the same poll, a generic question about party preference in congressional elections found that 44 per cent of respondents favoured the Democrats and 37 per cent favoured the Republicans.
These figures are, of course, not a prediction of the election result. A national poll cannot directly determine the future composition of either the House or the Senate. It can, however, provide an indication that the political environment surrounding White House decision-making is changing.
This distinction matters. Instead of asking who will win the election, we should ask how changes in public opinion might alter the behaviour of those making the decisions.
From Prediction to Scenarios
Here, the difference between day-to-day political analysis and governance informed by foresight becomes clear. Conventional analysis usually asks: what will happen? Strategic foresight asks: what could happen, and how well prepared are we for each possibility?
This is a difference in method as well as language. Formal foresight frameworks, including the UK Government Office for Science’s Futures Toolkit and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Strategic Foresight Toolkit, recommend tools such as horizon scanning, identifying drivers of change, scenario development and policy stress-testing to support decisions under uncertainty. Their purpose is to design policies that can withstand several different futures, rather than to predict the future precisely.
Applying this approach to Iran and the United States requires us first to identify the principal drivers. On the American side, these may include public opinion, energy prices, the financial cost of the war, the positions of congressional Republicans, the future composition of the House and Senate, and Trump’s own calculations.
At the regional level, the condition of the Strait of Hormuz, both sides’ capacity and willingness to continue operations, the behaviour of the Arab Gulf states and energy security become important. Diplomatically, the key questions concern whether a credible negotiating channel exists and whether an agreement is possible that both sides can explain to their domestic audiences.
Among these variables, two “critical uncertainties” can be selected: first, whether the domestic costs of continuing the war rise or fall for the US administration; and second, whether diplomacy succeeds or fails. Together, these uncertainties give rise to four possible futures.
If the domestic costs of the war rise while an effective diplomatic channel takes shape, the prospects for a managed exit from the war improve.
If domestic pressure increases but diplomacy fails to produce results, Washington may reduce the intensity of its direct military operations while maintaining economic and security pressure. This could produce a tense suspension of hostilities: neither full-scale war nor peace.
If negotiations fail and the US administration continues to regard the political costs of war as manageable, continued or intensified hostilities remain a possible outcome.
Finally, negotiations may begin, but both sides could postpone their main decisions until the political balance after the election becomes clearer: negotiations conducted in the shadow of the election.
The essential point is that a foresight practitioner should not select one of these four scenarios as a prophecy. The scenarios should help us identify the signs to monitor as events move towards one outcome or another.
From News to Signs of Change
This is where the concept of a “signpost”, or early-warning indicator, becomes important. In governance informed by foresight, some news events serve as signs that the system is moving from one scenario towards another.
The House vote of September 15 is one such sign. An increase in the number of Republicans supporting restrictions on the war would be another. Sustained rises or falls in oil prices, the attention independent voters give to the war, changes in the intensity of military operations, the movement of energy shipments through the Gulf, the opening of direct or mediated negotiations, shifts in Arab states’ positions and even changes in the American president’s vocabulary can all serve as signposts.
Here lies the distinction between an approach guided by foresight and one driven by the news cycle. A news-driven approach declares that “peace is near” after each speech, then concludes that “a major war is coming” after the next attack. A foresight approach brings several indicators together to establish whether the underlying structure is changing or whether another event has simply occurred.
Trump Is Also a Narrative
A deeper understanding of the issue can be gained through Causal Layered Analysis (CLA), developed by Sohail Inayatullah. CLA distinguishes four levels: everyday events, structural causes, discourse and worldview, and, finally, deep myths or metaphors. This method seeks to reveal the layers from which different visions of the future emerge, rather than to predict one specific future.
At the first level, we encounter the daily news: attacks, negotiations, polls, oil prices and Trump’s statements. At the structural level lie the struggle for power between the president and Congress, the economics of energy, the Gulf’s security architecture and military constraints.
At the level of discourse, the issue goes deeper still. On one side is a narrative of using power to impose the desired outcome. On the other is a longstanding tradition within parts of American society of opposition to endless wars.
If we consider only the first level, the direction of our analysis changes with every news item. The study of American politics helps us see the institutional and social levels. Foresight helps us examine the relationship between those levels and the futures that might emerge.
An Election Is No Expiry Date for War
From this perspective, November 3 should not be treated as the date on which the war will end. The election can increase pressure on the administration, change the composition of Congress, strengthen or weaken oversight of the executive branch, and affect military funding and war powers. None of these factors, however, automatically produces either peace or continued war.
This may be the most important lesson that the study of American politics offers here: the United States has no single decision-maker. Its foreign policy emerges from the interaction of the president, Congress, public opinion, the economy, the national security apparatus, allies and conditions on the battlefield.
Under conditions of deep uncertainty, policy should not rest on a single prediction. For Iran, then, the central issue should not be whether to hope that the American election will end the war or fear that it will intensify it. The more strategic question is: which signs can give us the earliest indication that Washington’s calculations are changing?
The answer must be sought in several places at once: congressional votes and fuel prices; American opinion polls and the Strait of Hormuz; the behaviour of Arab states and the intensity of military operations; and, above all, the gap between leaders’ political language and actual changes in the structure of decision-making.
The election may change the course of the war. The war may change the course of the election. Both may be affected by an event that is not yet visible in any opinion poll or speech.
This is precisely where the task of governance informed by foresight begins: recognising change early, developing alternative futures and preparing to make decisions before a crisis forces those decisions upon us.
The article was first published in Persian by Shargh on September 30, 2026. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of The Levant Files.