Trump says Iran war ‘will end immediately’ after US midterm elections

United States President Donald Trump has offered his latest prediction for concluding the war in Iran, indicating that an end date could come after the upcoming US midterm elections.

“This war will end immediately after our election,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday before boarding Air Force One for a trip to Dallas, Texas.

Trump claimed the Iranian government was stalling an end to the war in order to secure a more favourable political environment in the US.

The Democratic Party is angling to take control of one or both chambers of Congress in the November 3 midterms. Currently, Trump’s Republican Party maintains slim majorities in both.

“They’re desperate to try and affect the election so that we can get a nice, weak group of people in there,” Trump said of Iran’s strategy for the legislative elections.

He suggested that Iran is counting on Democrats to “leave them alone and let them have their nuclear weapon”.

“All they want is a nuclear weapon, and if they had a nuclear weapon, the whole world is in deep trouble,” Trump said of Iran.

When the war against Iran began on February 28, the country’s nuclear programme was a key justification that the US and Israel cited for launching hostilities. Trump and his officials claimed that Iran posed an “imminent” threat to the US and its allies.