Trump and Netanyahu may reopen Iran war after Nov. 3 vote, analysts say

Danny Citrinowicz, an Israeli analyst at the Institute for National Security Studies who spent more than two decades as a military intelligence official, said the United States and Israel may resume strikes on Iran once U.S. midterm ballots are counted on Nov. 3. "A renewed war seems almost inevitable," he said.

The conflict has already run two rounds in 18 months. The first began in June 2025 with strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, ran 12 days and stopped under a fragile ceasefire. Fighting restarted in February after a large U.S. military buildup, opening with Israeli strikes on Iranian senior leadership including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Citrinowicz said U.S. President Donald Trump has "only bad and worse options" in the Persian Gulf.

Citrinowicz expects any third round to strike Gulf energy facilities, civilian infrastructure and communications links, including internet cables beneath the Strait of Hormuz. He said Iran could also send parts of its land army into limited attacks on Gulf states that host U.S. bases, such as Kuwait and Bahrain, to strain the American economy.

Both sides have largely paused strikes on each other's bases and territory since the summer truce collapsed. The U.S. has blockaded Iranian ports, and Iran has kept hitting commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz, lifting global energy costs. On Thursday, Trump accused Iran on Truth Social of trying to inflate oil prices before the midterms, saying it was "making up fake hits, mines and everything else." A report from the Critical Threats Project and the Institute for the Study of War read the vessel attacks the same way, as pressure on Washington to meet Iranian demands.

Those demands include sanctions relief, reparations for earlier strike damage, release of billions in frozen assets and the right to keep enriched uranium. Mediators from Pakistan and Qatar have spent weeks trying to restart talks without success.

Suzanne Maloney of the Brookings Institution said Iran's leadership has probably doubled down on the ideology behind the regime. She said retaliation could come through proxies such as the Houthis in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon and could hit economic sites like airports. Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said Trump lacks a clear goal and that no military "knockout punch" would force Iran to capitulate.

The death count already runs high. Western NGOs report more than 7,000 dead in Iran, Lebanese media report over 4,000 dead in Lebanon, and 21 U.S. service members have died, mostly in Iranian strikes on Gulf bases, along with more than 70 Israelis. Deaths have also been recorded in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Yemen. The New York Times and other U.S. outlets report the Pentagon is drafting a new battle plan, though it is not known whether Trump would approve it.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has spoken of "finishing the job" and toppling the Iranian regime as he faces voters in coming days in a race that could be close. Citrinowicz said a widening crisis could help him stay in power through an emergency unity government with opposition members, while the danger is that political calculation merges with an Iranian development Netanyahu may inflate into an unnecessary attack.

Sadjadpour said diplomacy is narrowed by Trump's maximalist aims and that Iran's government would compromise only under existential economic pressure paired with a clear, limited diplomatic exit. "If you're asking them to change their identity, that's not going to succeed," he said.