# ESSAY: War as Electoral Strategy — Trump, Iran, and the November 2026 Calculation

> A thesis circulating in American analytical circles holds that the war against Iran, tariffs, and DOGE were not designed primarily as public policies — but as instruments of an electoral strategy intended to navigate the November 2026 midterms. The data is real. The intentionality remains contested.

- Author: Maxime Marquette
- Publisher: MadMax (https://mad-max.co)
- Section: Essay
- Published: 2026-06-20
- Canonical URL: https://mad-max.co/en/article/essai-la-guerre-comme-strategie-electorale-trump-liran-et-le-calcul-de-novembre-2026

## Introduction: A Disturbing Thesis, But Impossible to Ignore

### When foreign policy becomes an electoral adjustment variable

A thesis has been circulating for several weeks in American analytical circles — a thesis many prefer to dismiss with a wave of the hand because it is too cynical, too cold, too mechanical to be true. Here it is: **the war against Iran, tariffs, and the dismantling of DOGE were not conceived primarily as public policies, but as instruments of an electoral strategy designed to navigate the November 2026 midterms**. This thesis belongs to **American Bazaar**, developed by Akhlaq Siddiqi in two analyses published on June 13 and 16, 2026. I am not presenting it as established fact — it is an analytical reading, and a contested one. But I take it seriously, because it rests on real numbers and an internal logic that is difficult to refute.

The central question is this: **do wartime presidents actually lose their midterms?** History answers in a nuanced way — and that is precisely where the supposed Trump team strategy would find its theoretical justification. In 2002, George W. Bush gained seats in the House instead of losing them, a historical exception directly attributed to the state of war and the **rally-around-the-flag effect** that followed September 11.

### The thesis in context: neither conspiracy nor coincidence

Since 1946, in **17 of 19 midterm elections**, the president's party has lost seats in the House. Only twice did the trend reverse: in 1998, and in 2002. Understanding why those exceptions occurred is understanding why certain strategists may have believed a war could save a term. This thesis is not a conspiracy theory — it is an analytical hypothesis grounded in public data, and as such it deserves to be examined rigorously and without prejudgment.

What I propose in this essay is to follow Siddiqi's reasoning step by step, confront it with available historical data on the wartime rally effect, measure it against the real approval numbers and electoral trends of 2026 — and draw from it not a verdict, but a lucid reflection on the way politics and geopolitics intertwine in major democracies, often uncomfortably.

*I must be honest: when I first read American Bazaar's analyses, my initial reaction was skepticism. Attributing so precise and integrated a strategy to any administration assumes a level of coordination that generally exceeds the actual capacities of government. But the more I confronted the numbers with events, the less I could afford the luxury of comfortable doubt.*

## The 2002 Exception: The Precedent Everyone Has in Mind

### How Bush reversed the historical logic of midterms

The 2002 precedent is fundamental for understanding the thesis. According to data compiled by **USPollingData**, the historical rule is relentless: since 1946, the president's party loses an average of **27 House seats** during midterms. In 2002, George W. Bush did exactly the opposite — his party **gained 8 seats** and retook control of the Senate. It was the first time since 1934 that a Republican president had accomplished such a feat at his first midterm elections. The identified cause is nearly unanimous among analysts: the September 11 attacks, the entry into war in Afghanistan, and a Bush approval rating that climbed to **90% in September 2001** before remaining at 63% in October 2002.

The **"rally around the flag"** effect — the phenomenon by which an international crisis pushes citizens to rally behind their president — has been documented by decades of political science. Political scientist **John Mueller** formalized it as early as 1970: a dramatic international event, directly involving the United States and its commander-in-chief, produces a surge in popular approval. This surge is temporary, but in the right context, it can last long enough to carry through an election.

### The only two exceptions to the rule since 1946

Bush Sr. saw his approval jump by **+29 net approval points** during the Gulf War in 1991. That is the largest rally effect ever recorded in historical data available since 1941, according to G. Elliott Morris's analysis compiling data from all American military conflicts since World War II. The correlation between a popular war and electoral success is real — but it is narrowly conditional. In 1998, Bill Clinton avoided midterm catastrophe not through war, but through a public backlash against the impeachment proceedings, perceived as politically motivated.

These two exceptions define the only two exit doors from the midterm rule. In 2026, neither scenario applies simply. There is no Democratic impeachment to turn against the Democrats. And the Iran war did not produce the national emotional shock that might have triggered a genuine rally. **Trump enters the 2026 midterms with roughly 39% approval** — a territory that historically produces waves like 2006 (-30 for Republicans) and 2018 (-41 for Republicans).

*What I find fascinating in the 2002 precedent is that it constitutes an exception so rare that one should normally be suspicious of anyone claiming to reproduce it at will. And yet, if you are a Republican strategist staring at the November 2026 horizon with a president at 39% approval, you are desperately searching the "exception" box in the historical table.*

## The American Bazaar Thesis: The Plan Before the Oath

### A political architecture, not an improvisation

This is where Akhlaq Siddiqi's central thesis in **American Bazaar** of June 13, 2026 enters. According to his analysis, the Trump team knew before the January 20, 2025 inauguration that the economy would not recover in time for November 2026. **Inflation had four structural causes** that neither tariffs, nor federal layoffs, nor a war could solve: global supply chains still fragile from COVID, **$5 trillion** in monetary stimulus printed between 2020 and 2021, corporate margins inflated during the inflationary period, and a housing crisis representing **40% of the inflation basket** — worsened by high interest rates preventing homeowners from selling.

What these policies could do, however, was provide an **explanation** for economic failure — and put someone else's name on that failure. According to Siddiqi, the strategy was not to fix the economy, but to "ensure that when it failed, it failed with someone else's name." The logic is cold but coherent: if voters need a culprit for rising prices, better to give them Iran, useless federal employees, or disloyal trade partners rather than the White House.

### DOGE, tariffs, war: three instruments of the same score

The logic described by Siddiqi is as follows: **DOGE** and 200,000 federal layoffs provided an explanation for rising unemployment. **Tariffs** created a cycle of panic, negotiations, exceptions, and pauses allowing Trump to claim credit when markets rose — while blaming foreign partners when prices increased. And the **war against Iran**, launched February 28, 2026, created a wartime environment potentially capable of activating the rally effect — and above all, of explaining rising fuel prices through an external, foreign, enemy cause.

According to American Bazaar's analysis, "the oath was only the public launch of a strategy that had been working privately for months." The thesis identifies an integrated system in which each piece serves a single purpose: "ensuring that when the economic pain arrives, it has a pre-built explanation that protects Republican candidates in the midterms." This is not a proven thesis. It is a thesis worth weighing.

*Attributing such a precise intent to an administration as chaotic as Trump's presumes a coherence it has not always demonstrated. That is the limit of any structuralist analysis of politics: it presupposes a level of strategic rationality that the actors themselves may not have possessed. But the incentive structures are real — even if nobody ever wrote the plan on paper.*

## Iran, Oil, and the Mechanics of Capital Flows

### When war drives Gulf capital toward Wall Street

One of the most concrete dimensions of American Bazaar's thesis concerns the **capital flows from Gulf sovereign wealth funds**. According to Siddiqi, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz — a consequence of the war against Iran — pushed oil prices to **$115 per barrel**. Gulf state revenues increased, but regional investment opportunities became less attractive due to instability. Result: the five largest Gulf sovereign funds — PIF (Saudi Arabia), ADIA, Mubadala, QIA, and their counterparts — reportedly deployed **nearly $26 billion** in just three months, from March to May 2026.

This capital would have flowed primarily toward American assets: technology, artificial intelligence, private equity. The comparison with 2024 is striking: Middle Eastern sovereign investments in venture capital jumped from **$13.3 billion in 2024 to $42.5 billion** over the 2025–2026 period. The UAE ambassador to Washington publicly confirmed "a firm commitment of $1.4 trillion to the United States" in the Wall Street Journal. These numbers are real — it is their interpretation that is contested.

### The causal chain: from war to the stock market

The causal chain proposed by the analysis is as follows: **war creates the crisis → crisis generates Gulf capital flight → capital funds the American AI boom → the boom sustains markets → markets help Republicans in November**. In this scenario, SpaceX's IPO at a valuation of **$1.75 trillion**, the Dow Jones's 930-point surge, S&P 500 historic highs — all of this would be partly fueled not only by AI gains, but by this sovereign capital seeking a safe haven while the region burns.

The financial interests of Trump's inner circle align precisely with these flows: Steve Witkoff allegedly received **$31 million** from an Emirati royal fund, Jared Kushner reportedly raised **$6 billion**, 99% from foreigners, and Elon Musk via SpaceX depends directly on a bull market. Siddiqi explicitly states he is not claiming these facts constitute proven illegalities — but he emphasizes that these financial relationships coincide with the foreign policy decisions that were made. That is a convergence worthy of attention.

*This part of the thesis is the one that raises the most ethical questions for me, independent of its truth. Even if none of these figures implies proven illegality, the convergence between foreign policy decisions and personal enrichment of those close to power is the kind of structural conflict of interest that should alarm any democrat — in the philosophical sense, not the partisan one.*

## The Rally Effect That Did Not Happen

### Two flat lines where a wave was expected

But here is the first major problem for the supposed strategy: **the rally effect did not materialize**. G. Elliott Morris's analysis, published March 13, 2026, is unambiguous. Two weeks after the start of strikes against Iran, Trump's approval went from -20 to -19 net approval — less than one point of variation, within the margin of error. In absolute terms, **Trump stood between 38% and 39% approval**, with disapproval between 57% and 58%. Morris calls this "two flat lines" — a terse characterization of a political non-event.

Morris identifies five conditions necessary for a genuine rally effect, and Trump fails nearly all of them: **no sudden shock** (the United States initiated the action), **no bipartisan consensus** (Democrats called it a "war of choice" from day one), **no unified media coverage**, **no perceived legitimacy** (59% of Americans thought Trump should have obtained congressional authorization, per Quinnipiac), and **a base too fractured** for the number of independents and soft Republicans capable of "rallying" to be sufficient.

### A president too unpopular to benefit from a patriotic surge

Morris expresses it clearly: Trump entered this conflict with a net approval of **-19 points**, making him historically the most unpopular president at the start of a military conflict since polling existed. By comparison, George W. Bush at the start of the Gulf War had +34, and Franklin Roosevelt at Pearl Harbor had +51. The truly great rallies — Gulf War (+29), World War II (+19), Iraq (+17) — all required broad mobilization of independents and opposition partisans.

But between 85% and 90% of Democrats opposed the Iran strikes according to March 2026 polls, and roughly **60% of independents** as well. The space available for a surge is inversely proportional to initial popularity — but below a certain threshold, when disapproval is so strongly partisan, the rally does not occur because there is no one available to rally. The president may move up 1 or 2 points — but that is statistical noise, not electoral dynamics. A 2023 study cited by Morris goes further: on average, militarized conflicts make support for national leaders **fall** rather than rise.

*What this analysis reveals is the fundamental flaw in any "war as electoral shield" strategy in a context of extreme polarization. In 2001, Americans were attacked on their own soil. In 2026, the United States attacked a foreign country. The collective psychology is fundamentally different — and no Gulf capital mechanics can compensate for the absence of the primal emotion that makes a nation rally.*

## Republicans Grow Impatient: The Countdown to Labor Day

### Mounting internal pressure within the Republican Party

While White House strategists juggle their October scenarios, Republicans in competitive districts are growing increasingly anxious. A **Politico** article from June 12, 2026 is telling: on-the-ground Republican officials are setting **Labor Day** (early September) as their deadline for a war exit. Dan Naylor, who leads the Lackawanna County Republican Party in Pennsylvania — a pivot constituency — is explicit: "By the first of September... this has to be resolved. We're entering election season at that point, and we have to be able to show declining prices." He says he believes Trump did "what needed to be done" in Iran, but acknowledges the president cannot afford to "draw a line in the sand" on an end date.

A Republican strategist in Nevada working on competitive House races adds without ambiguity: "If we're looking at Labor Day coming and we still have **$5 gas**, we're going to have big problems." This internal pressure illustrates the fundamental paradox of the strategy: the war was supposed to **protect** Republicans by providing an external explanation for inflation, but the longer it lasts, the more it becomes itself a cause of that inflation — and therefore an electoral burden.

### Trump says he doesn't care about the midterms — his allies do

The White House claims a preliminary deal with Iran is "close but not final," with an 80-85% success probability according to a senior official cited by Politico. But this is not the first time the deal seemed imminent before the war continued. **Trump himself**, in a May 27, 2026 Cabinet meeting, declared Iran "negotiating on fumes" — before stating in a phrase destined for posterity: **"I don't care about the midterms."** A declaration serving the wartime commander posture, but one his electoral lieutenants on the ground likely receive with growing anxiety.

The tension between a president playing the commander above political contingencies and strategists counting the days to September is one of the most revealing fractures of current American politics. June 2026 CNN surveys show that **the main threat to Republicans** is not an influx of new Democratic voters, but disaffection within Trump's own base — voters staying home because they are disappointed by gas prices or the interminable Iranian conflict.

*This tension between a president who says he doesn't care about the midterms and Republican lieutenants counting the days until September is one of the most revealing fractures in current American politics. Trump plays the posture of the wartime commander above contingencies. His electoral soldiers look at the gas prices every morning.*

## Venezuela: The Missing Piece of the Geopolitical Puzzle

### Phase 1 of a three-act oil strategy

The June 16, 2026 analysis from **American Bazaar** considerably complicates the initial thesis — and paradoxically makes it more coherent. Siddiqi argues that the sequence **Venezuela → war against Iran → deal with Iran** forms a three-phase oil control strategy. Nine days after Trump's January 2025 inauguration, American operations allegedly led to the arrest of Nicolás Maduro, placing Venezuela under effective American control. The argument is that Venezuela — which possesses **the world's largest proven oil reserves** — was to become the American replacement lever on global markets.

Venezuelan production had collapsed from **3.5 million barrels per day in 1999** to less than 400,000 in 2020. American investments could theoretically bring it back up to 2-3 million barrels per day — but this requires 24 to 36 months. According to Siddiqi, "this was not a coincidence. It was Phase 1." The war against Iran was Phase 2. And the deal with Iran — when it comes — is Phase 3 of a unified oil control strategy. "Venezuela first. Then Iran. The sequence was never accidental."

### Why the Venezuelan lever is not yet ready

But here is the operational problem: investments in Venezuelan oil fields only began to flow in March 2026, after sanctions were eased. Significant production changes require **12 to 18 months of sustained investment**. That means the Venezuelan lever will probably not be operational before **mid-2027** — after the November 2026 midterms. If peace with Iran brings Iranian oil back to the markets and prices drop, America will not yet have the capacity to offset this decline via Venezuela to manage prices advantageously.

Siddiqi's analysis draws a decisive conclusion for the supposed electoral strategy: **"Soon is not a strategy. Soon is a hope."** Without the Venezuelan tap operational, America may open oil markets via Iran but cannot manage them as envisioned in the three-phase scenario. This timing mismatch transforms what was supposed to be a precise mechanism into a geopolitical gamble whose outcome depends on variables no one fully controls.

*The Venezuelan dimension of this thesis is the one that seems most speculative to me — not because American oil interests in Venezuela are dubious, but because reducing the Maduro operation to a variable in an electoral strategy two years in advance requires a level of predictability few governments can sustain. That said, the alignment of interests is troubling.*

## The Peace Paradox: When the Solution Becomes the Problem

### Peace in October could cost Republicans November

This is where American Bazaar's thesis turns on itself in an almost tragic logic. According to Siddiqi, **peace itself could cost Republicans the midterms** if its timing is wrong. The described scenario is: when the Strait of Hormuz reopens and Iranian oil returns to markets, crude prices will fall from around $115 per barrel toward **$80-75**. This would normally be good economic news. But this drop also means Gulf sovereign fund revenues decline, and investment opportunities in other regions become attractive again.

Probable result: a **slowdown in capital flows to American markets**, from $26 billion per quarter to perhaps $15-18 billion. The projected consequence is severe: an S&P 500 correction of **15 to 20%** from its peak, and a Nasdaq correction of **20 to 25%**. If this scenario plays out in October 2026, the 401(k) statements millions of Americans receive before the election will show losses — precisely the opposite of what the strategy was supposed to produce.

### The optimal timing: July-August to avoid an October catastrophe

According to the thesis's logic, the deal with Iran should be signed in **July or August** for the market correction to occur during August's quiet period — low volume, reduced media attention — giving markets time to recover before November. A market that drops and recovers is politically better for Trump than a fragile, overvalued market that collapses after Labor Day. With a deal signed in July-August, the oil price decline would feed into September and October inflation data, **Kevin Warsh** (Powell's presumed successor) could cut rates in September-October, and third-quarter account statements would show gains.

But if the deal is delayed — which Politico documents with Republicans growing impatient in June 2026 — this optimal scenario disappears. **"November arrives with a market down. Republicans lose the House. The investigations begin,"** writes Siddiqi. The peace the administration built as a political instrument could become the knife turned against it — the "fatal paradox" in the analysis's terms.

*There is something almost Shakespearean in this analysis: the stratagem that turns on its author. The war to save November that could lose November. I don't know whether Siddiqi is right on the precise numbers — market corrections are inherently unpredictable. But the structural logic of the risk strikes me as solid.*

## The Electoral Arithmetic of 2026: What the Polls Show

### Trump base disaffection, a graver threat than Democratic mobilization

Whatever the merit of the electoral strategy thesis, the on-the-ground data in June 2026 is alarming for Republicans. According to **CNN** (Ronald Brownstein, June 14, 2026), the main threat to the Republican Party is not an influx of new Democratic voters, but **disaffection within Trump's own base**. The validated Pew study from February 2026 still showed over 90% approval among 2024 Trump voters across all demographics. But the April 2026 Pew study saw this rating **drop below 80%**. Among Hispanics who voted Trump, approval fell to **66%**.

Among young 2024 Trump voters, only **half** said they were certain to vote in the midterms, versus **70% of former Kamala Harris supporters**. The NYT/Siena poll of 2024 non-voters is even more alarming: only 21% approved of the Trump presidency, 71% expressed disapproval — and among the latter, only one-fifth said they were "almost certain" to vote in 2026. Texas Republican strategist Matt Mackowiak summarizes the dilemma: "If their base is enthusiastic while ours is not, that could translate into a major defeat."

### Four seats: the chasm between Republican majority and congressional investigations

The House arithmetic is brutal. According to **USPollingData**, Democrats only need **4 seats** to reach the 218 required for a majority. With a Republican margin of roughly 7 seats entering this electoral cycle, the slightest headwind is enough. The midterm historical record makes this context even more fragile: **Trump is running at ~39% approval in April 2026**, a level comparable to Bush in 2006 at 38% (30 Republican seat losses) and Trump himself in 2018 at 42% (41 Democratic seat gains).

In competitive primaries in **Texas, Georgia, and North Carolina**, more people voted in Democratic primaries than Republican primaries — a trend opposite to 2022 and 2018. Since Trump's return to the White House, the Democratic vote share has "increased consistently in special elections," according to Catalist analyst Yair Ghitza cited by CNN: "All the indicators are pointing in the same direction."

*These numbers are the raw reality that any strategy, however sophisticated, must face. You can design the most elaborate plan in the world — Venezuela, Iran, Warsh, Gulf flows, an October deal — but if Republican voters stay home because they're disappointed by gas prices or the war, no market mechanics will compensate for the absence of votes in ballot boxes.*

## The American War Instinct: Mythology and Reality

### The conditions Trump cannot reproduce

The war-as-electoral-shield thesis rests on a deep intuition about American political psychology: **the instinct to support the commander-in-chief in wartime**. American Bazaar formulates it thus: "The American instinct to support the commander-in-chief during conflict overrides economic anxiety among a significant proportion of undecided voters." True — in theory, and under certain conditions. But the conditions of 2026 differ fundamentally from the historical precedents that produced genuine rallies.

The **three great documented rallies** since 1941 — Gulf War (+29), World War II (+19), Iraq in 2003 (+17) — share a common trait: they all benefited from a dramatic shock moment (Pearl Harbor, the Kuwait crisis, the September 11 that preceded Iraq), at least temporary bipartisan consensus, and dominant media coverage concentrated on the commander-in-chief as a national symbol. None of these conditions are present in 2026.

### Polarization as the glass ceiling of the rally

The deep reason why the rally effect no longer works in 2026 America is that partisan polarization has created a **psychological glass ceiling**. As Matthew Baum's work on the subject — cited by Morris — demonstrates, genuine rallies are produced by independents and opposing partisans temporarily converging toward the president. In a country where 98% of Harris voters disapprove of Trump and 85-90% of Democrats oppose the Iran strikes, there is no longer a "movable middle" available to rally. The president may climb 1 or 2 points — but that is statistical noise, not electoral dynamics.

A 2023 study cited by Morris goes further: on average, militarized conflicts make support for national leaders **fall** rather than rise. The 2002 exception remains an exception tied to irreproducible circumstances: a terrorist attack on American soil, a traumatized nation, a moderate president perceived as a unifier. Trump in 2026 is none of these things. And Iran bears no resemblance to September 11.

*I think this is the central flaw of any strategy that tries to "manufacture" a rally effect. Genuine rallies are emotional, uncalculated, spontaneous. When citizens sense they are being manipulated through an armed conflict, the effect reverses. Patriotic instinct needs to perceive an authentic threat to activate — not a political scenario.*

## The Fed as an Adjustment Variable: Warsh and the Promise of an October Rate Cut

### Instrumentalizing the Federal Reserve for an electoral victory

The third major piece of the supposed strategy concerns the **Federal Reserve**. American Bazaar describes the replacement of Jerome Powell by Kevin Warsh not as a monetary policy choice, but as an "electoral timing strategy." The logic: Powell refuses to cut rates because the economic data doesn't yet justify it. Warsh, by contrast, would cut rates when politically useful. The forecast attributed to this scenario is a **50 basis point cut** in September or October 2026, coinciding with falling oil prices following an Iran deal.

If peace in Iran drives oil prices down, if inflation retreats in September and October data, and if Warsh cuts rates by 50 basis points, the scenario becomes: markets rebounding, inflation falling, Americans feeling wealthier just before voting. That is the optimal scenario — and it is also, according to American Bazaar, the scenario that requires the Iran deal to be signed by **July-August** at the latest. Every additional week of war after August shrinks the space needed for markets to digest peace before November.

### The Bush Sr. precedent: how a market can betray a president

History offers a cruel warning about this market dependency: George H.W. Bush benefited from the largest rally effect in modern history with the Gulf War in 1991, reaching **89% approval**. But when the 1991-1992 recession battered the economy and markets, all that political capital melted. He lost the 1992 presidential election to Bill Clinton on the slogan "It's the economy, stupid." History cruelly illustrates that wartime rallies are temporary, while economic pain is persistent.

If Trump in 2026 was counting on a **"peace dividend"** — falling oil, retreating inflation, rising markets, Warsh cuts — he was betting that the positive effects would arrive in the right few-week window before the election. That kind of temporal precision generally exceeds the control capacity of any administration. And if the market correction arrives before the recovery, the mechanics reverse entirely.

*The idea that a country's central bank can — and should — be instrumentalized for electoral calculations is one of the most important lines not to cross in a liberal democracy. That is not an American Bazaar thesis — it is my view. Regardless of who is on the right political side, a Fed cutting rates because it is useful before an election rather than because data justifies it is an institution in the process of corruption.*

## Trump, Necessary Evil: A Lucid Reading of a Western Phenomenon

### The geopolitical firmness the West was missing

Acknowledging Trump as a "necessary evil" for the West means acknowledging a disturbing truth: the **firmness toward Iran, China, and authoritarian revisionists** that Biden never truly embodied with credibility. Maximum economic pressure on Iran, the reassertion of American power in the Middle East, tariffs as a negotiating lever against Beijing — on these points, Trump represents a hard line that Europe and its Indo-Pacific allies cannot afford to see disappear without a credible alternative. **China** is the generational strategic threat for the West. **Iran** has funded transnational terrorism for decades. **Russia** invaded a sovereign European country. Faced with these realities, calculated weakness has a historical cost.

In this context, the attack on Iranian nuclear infrastructure — whatever its supposed electoral justification — responds to a real strategic interest: preventing nuclear proliferation in an already explosive region. The West, whose collective security rests on credible deterrence, has an objective interest in no rogue state crossing the nuclear threshold. Trump acted where his predecessors hesitated. That is the "necessary evil" dimension: potentially beneficial geopolitical results for the West, obtained through methods that violate institutional norms.

### Attacks on institutions: the line the necessary evil should not cross

But — and this "but" is fundamental — the attacks on **American democratic institutions** that this same administration perpetrates cannot be defended in the name of geopolitical results. Attempting to restrict mail-in voting in blue states, deploying immigration agents in urban polling places, instrumentalizing the Fed, depriving Congress of its war authorization role: these actions attack the substrate of the liberal democracy the West claims to defend. Stanford political scientist Adam Bonica, cited by CNN, notes that one "can observe the counter-strategy being developed by Trump and his Republican allies, which essentially aims to dismantle the institutions that guarantee free and fair elections."

**A man who fights the enemies of the West while weakening the institutions of the West is a living contradiction** — perhaps necessary in the short term, but dangerous in the long term for everything he claims to protect. That is the exact definition of a necessary evil: you tolerate it, you monitor it, you measure its price in real time — and you never admire it.

*I write this without ambiguity: this tension between geopolitical effectiveness and institutional toxicity is the central question of American politics in our era. And I have no clean answer. Sometimes History demands imperfect actors to face imperfect moments. What I refuse is to pretend the imperfection doesn't exist.*

## What the Thesis Reveals About Democracy Itself

### The impossible boundary between national interest and electoral calculation

American Bazaar's thesis, true or false in its details, raises a more fundamental question about how American democracy functions: **can one distinguish, from the outside, foreign policy motivated by national interest from that motivated by the electoral calendar?** In reality, all major democracies live with this problem. French presidents trigger military operations in Africa. British prime ministers sent troops to war weeks before elections. The difference may be one of scale: a war against a nation of 90 million people with a vital strait closed is an entirely different matter from bombing a Sahel militia.

What distinguishes this analysis from simple conspiracy theory is that it rests on verifiable data: the **$26 billion in sovereign funds**, the **200,000 federal layoffs**, the **39% approval rating**, Congress's silence on war authorization. These facts are real. What remains interpretation is the intentionality — the presupposition that all of this was coordinated before January 20, 2025. Siddiqi himself provides no documentary evidence of this coordination.

### Convergence of interests as a substitute for proof of intent

In a world where incentive structures produce the same results as a deliberate plan, the distinction between intentionality and convergence of interests becomes philosophically thin. Whether there was an explicitly coordinated "plan before the oath" or simply a convergence of actors whose personal, political, and financial interests all aligned toward the same decisions — the observable result is identical. And that is precisely what makes American Bazaar's thesis uncomfortable: it is difficult to refute even without direct evidence of intent, because the incentive structure was sufficient to produce the result.

For the West whose values I defend, it matters that this question be asked — and that sufficiently independent institutions survive to answer it. **Free elections, a free press, a functioning Congress, an independent Fed**: these are the tools that allow democracies to correct their leaders. If these tools are eroded in the name of geopolitical effectiveness, what is being saved externally is being destroyed internally.

*I close this essay with one certainty and one question. The certainty: whatever the intentions, the mechanisms described by American Bazaar — capital flows, externalization of inflation causes, wartime environment — are real and documentable. The question: is that sufficient to conclude to a deliberate strategy, or are we giving narrative coherence to what may be nothing more than a tangle of opportunisms? I do not rule. That is for the reader to decide at what level of cynicism they wish to read their era.*

## Conclusion: History Will Judge the Timing

### November 2026, the deadline for all theses

The November 2026 midterm elections will constitute, whatever their outcome, an empirical test for American Bazaar's thesis. If Republicans hold the House despite a president at ~39% approval and persistent inflation, the supposed strategy will have worked — at least partially. If Democrats gain those 4 seats that give them the majority, the war will have failed to produce its protective effect. And if the stock market corrects 15-20% in October, Siddiqi's analysis on "the peace that costs November" will have been prophetic. In all three scenarios, what remains is the moral question: did we witness foreign policy or electoral engineering disguised as geopolitics?

What is certain today is that the "war as electoral strategy" thesis has already missed its first objective: triggering a genuine rally around the flag. **Two flat lines**, as Morris put it. No wave of patriotic enthusiasm, no bipartisan consensus, no suspension of dissent in national communion against a common enemy. The Iran war divided, it did not unite. This first failure does not necessarily doom the overall scenario — but it considerably reduces the margin of maneuver for November.

### The columnist facing uncertainty: an honest conclusion

What I can state with certainty, as I write these lines in June 2026: **the "war as electoral strategy" thesis is a coherent reading of the available facts, clearly attributed to its American Bazaar authors, and grounded in verifiable data**. It is not proven. It is not refuted. It is what a good essay should be: an intellectually honest hypothesis, formulated with analytical tools, submitted to the verdict of events. November 2026 will be, for this thesis, its final judgment.

For the West I defend and whose values deserve to be preserved against **China, Iran, Russia, North Korea**, and all the revisionist states that hope to see it retreat, the stakes of this election go beyond everyone's calculations. It is a question of whether liberal democracies can navigate these troubled waters without losing what makes them precious — their capacity to correct themselves.

### Primary Sources

American Bazaar — Akhlaq Siddiqi: "The plan that was made before the oath" — June 13, 2026

American Bazaar — Akhlaq Siddiqi: "The peace that could cost November — And why Venezuela was always the key" — June 16, 2026

CNN — Ronald Brownstein: "Who stays home may threaten Republicans this year as much as who votes" — June 14, 2026

### Secondary Sources

Politico: "Trump keeps extending the Iran war. Republicans are losing patience." — June 12, 2026

AP via Marshall Independent: "Trump says Iran 'negotiating on fumes,' insists that midterm elections won't impact his war strategy" — May 27, 2026

G. Elliott Morris: "I graphed every president's approval rating during rally events" — March 13, 2026

USPollingData: "Midterm Election Patterns: Why the President's Party Usually Loses" — April 6, 2026

Wikipedia: "Rally 'round the flag effect" — accessed June 2026

**By Maxime Marquette, columnist**

## Columnist's transparency note

### Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a **columnist and analyst**. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. **I claim analytical clarity**, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

### Method and sources

This text keeps the basic distinction between **verified facts and interpretive analysis**. The rule never changes: a factual claim is published only when a verifiable source supports it, and the sources this article actually used are listed under **Sources**, never here.

**Primary source families** used by the publication, when the story has them: official statements from governments and international institutions, public statements by political leaders, reports from intergovernmental organisations, dispatches from recognised international news agencies.

**Secondary source families**: specialised publications, internationally recognised news media, analyses from established research institutions, reports from industry organisations.

When an article cites statistical, economic or geopolitical data, it comes from the institutions that produce it (intergovernmental organisations, central banks, national statistics offices), and the exact institution is named under **Sources**.

### Nature of the analysis

The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a **critical, contextual synthesis** based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text.

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Source: Maxime Marquette, MadMax. When citing, name the author and link https://mad-max.co/en/article/essai-la-guerre-comme-strategie-electorale-trump-liran-et-le-calcul-de-novembre-2026