President Donald Trump said he has a “big decision” to make concerning Iran: “Do I want to go in and annihilate them or do I not?” (Charles McQuillan / Getty Images)
By Joe Saunders September 17, 2026 at 3:11pm
The on-again, off-again U.S. attacks on Iran could be on again soon, President Donald Trump told a Beltway news outlet Thursday.
With the conflict approaching the end of its seventh month — and U.S. midterm elections getting closer by the day — Trump told the news site Axios that a critical point is coming soon.
“I have a big decision coming up,” he said, according to the report. “Do I want to go in and annihilate them or do I not? It’s a big decision. Anything could happen with me.”
The U.S. and Israeli militaries launched devastating attacks on the Islamic Republic beginning Feb. 28, destroying much of the country’s military infrastructure and killing its then-reigning supreme leader.
Since the initial wave of military successes, however, the fighting has devolved into spurts of activity. The Islamist regime is clinging to power in Tehran, and its military and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are continuing to threaten international shipping in the Strait of Hormuz as well as maintain control over the country’s restive population while the U.S. maintains an economically crippling blockade of Iran.
However, as Axios noted, Trump’s comments come in the context of the United Nations preparing to open the year’s session next week in New York City. On Wednesday, Axios cited unnamed officials to report that Trump plans to meet with leaders of Persian Gulf nations during the U.N. gathering.
“The meeting could shape the next phase of the war, including whether to make another push for diplomacy or intensify military action,” Axios political reporter Barak Ravid wrote. “If Trump wants to resume major combat operations, he would need buy-in from his regional allies.”
“I have a big decision coming up. Do I want to go in and annihilate them [the Iranian regime] or do I not? It’s a big decision. Anything could happen with me”, Trump told me https://t.co/E8R871vTsT
— Barak Ravid (@BarakRavid) September 17, 2026
Whatever the decision is, it can’t be viewed outside the context of the November midterm elections.
Trump himself has said the Iranian leadership is holding out to see the results, which means the war could end soon, one way or the other.
“I think the war is going to end immediately after the election,” Trump said on Sept. 9, according to USA Today. “I think the war will end immediately after the election.”
And the Iranians are rooting for Democrats, he suggested.
“They’re desperate to try and affect the election, so that we can get a nice group of weak people in there, and leave them alone, and let them have their nuclear weapon,” Trump said, according to the report.
With Democrats harping on “affordability” issues, inflation — and the price of gasoline Americans are seeing at the pump — are likely to be major issues for voters. And the fighting in Iran, and its impact on gasoline prices, is going to play into that.
“Public polling consistently shows that while Americans care about foreign policy, they rarely vote primarily on foreign-policy issues. Instead, they tend to evaluate events abroad by their impact on America’s security and prosperity at home,” Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council, wrote in August for The Washington Stand.
Will the Iran war end before the midterms?
“The economy, inflation, immigration, and other domestic concerns remain the dominant drivers of voting behavior.
“In other words, foreign policy becomes domestic policy when Americans begin paying the price for it.”
And Republican candidates could end up paying a price at the polls if voters see no progress toward the end of fighting or improving the economy.
“President Trump now faces a choice,” Perkins wrote. “He can allow this cycle of confrontation, negotiation, and escalation to continue, or bring the conflict to a decisive conclusion.”
As a man who’s dominated American politics for more than a decade now, including two successful runs for president, two impeachment attempts against him in office, and years of lawfare waged by Democrats bent on using the justice system as an adjunct of the electoral process, Trump no doubt understands the stakes of the Iran campaign at this point.
In Iran itself, meanwhile, a hard-line group within the country’s military is bent on sabotaging any potential peace talks, The New York Times reported Sunday.
Trump’s decision — whether to “annihilate” Iran or open new efforts at some kind of peace talks with a regime he’s made his top geopolitical target — could be a key factor in the outcome of the midterm elections — and the remainder of Trump’s term in office.
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Joe has spent more than 30 years as a reporter, copy editor and metro desk editor in newsrooms in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Florida. He’s been with Liftable Media since 2015.
Joe has spent more than 30 years as a reporter, copy editor and metro editor in newsrooms in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Florida. He’s been with Liftable Media since 2015. Largely a product of Catholic schools, who discovered Ayn Rand in college, Joe is a lifelong newspaperman who learned enough about the trade to be skeptical of every word ever written. He was also lucky enough to have a job that didn’t need a printing press to do it.
Birthplace
Philadelphia
Nationality
American
