Farage predicts ‘very, very sharp’ escalation in Iran after Trump’s midterm flub

Nigel Farage has said he believes his friend Donald Trump will launch a ‘very, very sharp increase in military action’ in Iran after the US president’s midterms disaster.

The Republicans faced catastrophic losses in the election last week, resulting in their Democrat opponents taking control of the Senate and House of Representatives.

Commentators have largely credited Trump’s war in Iran for the drubbing, with voters making clear their frustrations over rising energy and grocery prices.

But there has also been speculation that the president may ramp up aggression in the Middle East in response to the result.

With Democrats in control of Congress, foreign policy is now one of the few areas where he can largely operate without their interference.

Asked on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg what he thinks Trump will do next, Farage said: ‘I would expect a very, very sharp increase in military action in Iran. I really would.

He continued: ‘I haven’t spoken to him, I can just see it, I can feel it, I’m looking at the style changes that have taken place just in the last 48 hours.’

The Reform UK leader warned Trump – a political supporter and personal friend for more than 10 years – that Iran posed a different challenge to earlier US interventions in Libya and Iraq.

Farage said: ‘This is a theocracy, it’s a very different battle, and I would suspect a very hard one to win.’

Trump has been unapologetic about the conflict even after the election disaster (Picture: Pool via CNP/Shutterstock)

Speaking the day after the midterm elections, Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee Dame Emily Thornberry said she was ‘of course’ also concerned about the possibility of escalation.

She told Metro: ‘I think that probably what he’ll want to do is to bring some form of resolution in Iran before the new congressmen and senators are sworn in [on January 3], because presumably he’ll be advised that they will give him a hard time over the Iranian war.

‘So it’s best to get it sorted for that one way or the other. And whether he’s capable of doing that, of course, is another matter.’

Among the voices blaming Iran for the election disaster was Vice President JD Vance, who wrote in a lengthy social media: ‘The reason we lost is the war.’

Afterwards, Trump said Vance’s post was ‘largely true’ but that he did not regret the action.

He told reporters: ‘If I had it to do again, I’d have to do it again because long term, it’s the only answer.’

Stephen Miller, centre, has been elevated to one of the most influential roles in the White House (Picture: Reuters)

In his only major personnel switch since the midterms, Trump ditched his chief of staff Susie Wiles and brought his long-time advisor Stephen Miller into the influential role.

It is unclear what the promotion of Miller might mean for the conflict in Iran, with the New York Times reporting that he made a case for winding down the war in his pitch for the job.

But he is also one of Trump’s most ardent and unapologetic supporters, and has made impassioned arguments in favour of the war publicly since it began in February.

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