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President Donald Trump was considering a total end to the Iran war for the sake of bailing out Republicans in the midterm elections, The Atlantic reported on Tuesday.
This comes as none of the typical day-to-day things a president or Congress does to oversee a war have happened since the president's ceasefire memorandum was thrown out, the report said.
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"In the 10 days since the United States resumed its air strikes against Iran, neither President Trump nor any other senior administration official has publicly addressed the campaign," said the report. "U.S. forces began by striking Iranian military facilities but later expanded to attacking civilian infrastructure that the administration says is being used for military purposes."
Congress has "yet to receive classified briefings on the latest phase of the war."
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Meanwhile, Trump, who initially bragged about how well the war was going when the fighting first erupted, has tried to shift the conversation back to his election conspiracy theories.
The president "expected a quick victory, and so the military didn’t prepare for a prolonged conflict," according to the report.
And as the administration failed to adequately build up forces, it set off further problems for the U.S. military.
"Although the military surged additional forces into the region, many assets — particularly Navy ships — were diverted from other war theaters rather than trained for this conflict," The Atlantic reported. "The Pentagon has since extended the deployments of nearly half of those ships, further taxing an already-strapped force."
According to two sources who spoke to The Atlantic, "Trump may at some point consider," a clean break from the war to cut losses, stop gas prices from rising further, and try to prevent more damage to the GOP in the polls. "But for now, despite the growing costs, he is continuing the fight."
"While sitting next to the leader of Lebanon in the Oval Office today, the president seemed to commit himself to the type of forever war he once derided: 'We’re not finished at all,' Trump told reporters. 'We’re not leaving right now,'" said the report — and Trump further vowed "to bomb Pickaxe Mountain on the suspicion that it houses part of Iran’s nuclear program."
