Tehran Thinks the Midterms Saved It. The Mullahs Are Misreading America Again.

Iran's regime is celebrating last week's election results as a victory over President Trump. But Trump is still commander in chief, the blockade is still in place, and he said Monday the U.S. is "ready to go anytime we want." Tehran is betting on the wrong thing.

By Clara Hughes

The Islamic Republic has decided that America's midterm elections were a win for Tehran. "You lost the war and the election," Mohsen Rezaei, the regime's security chief, declared on X, Iran International reported. Regime newspapers joined in. One, Hamshahri, ran the headline "The Shadow of Iran Over America's Elections." Another depicted President Trump as a hostage — a taunt invoking the 1979 seizure of the U.S. embassy. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi went further, telling Americans on X that they "are evidently sick and tired of Israel bamboozling US administrations into Forever Wars." It is a familiar mistake. The mullahs have