WASHINGTON — Republicans are careening towards a “disastrous” midterm election cycle if the military campaign in Iran rages on, Sen. Rand Paul, a longtime skeptic of foreign interventionism, warned.
Paul (R-Ky.) highlighted the plethora of political risks the war poses, from the potential for oil prices to rise to the price tag of the military campaign that is already polling underwater in early polling.
“We are behind the eight ball as far as the electoral process,” Paul bluntly assessed to Fox Business Network’s “Mornings with Maria.”
That’s a reference to polling showing Republicans down against Democrats in surveys of voters’ generic congressional ballot preferences.
Republicans have widely been seen as the underdog in House elections due to the historical trend of the party in control of the White House losing seats in all but two midterm cycles since 1938.
“If you add in high gas prices, high oil prices, and if we are still bombing Iran with kinetic action — people don’t want to call it war — if there’s still kinetic action that causes oil to be over $100, I think you’re going to see a disastrous election,” Paul predicted.
Prices at the gas pump are now averaging $3.54 nationally, despite being below $3 before the Operation Epic Fury attacks against Iran began on Feb. 28, according to data from the American Automobile Association.
That sharp uptick in prices has seemingly been caused by traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, located off the southern coast of Iran, largely grinding to a halt amid the conflict.
Over a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil flows through that critical chokepoint annually. President Trump’s team has been exploring the possibility of having naval escorts accompany oil vessels through the turbulent Strait.
Crude oil jolted past $100 a barrel Monday, but has since dropped back down to $85.
“If Iran does anything that stops the flow of Oil within the Strait of Hormuz, they will be hit by the United States of America TWENTY TIMES HARDER than they have been hit thus far,” Trump warned on Truth Social Monday.
“We will take out easily destroyable targets that will make it virtually impossible for Iran to ever be built back, as a Nation, again – Death, Fire, and Fury will reign upon them – But I hope, and pray, that it does not happen!”
Top Trump administration officials have attempted to reassure the public and markets that oil and gasoline prices will stabilize soon.
“The Trump administration has been all in on lowering energy prices, and I would say quite successfully,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “We have seen a dramatic decline in gasoline prices, in diesel prices. Soon, you will see it in electricity prices as well.”
“We want it [gas prices] back below $3 a gallon. And it will be again before too long.”
Paul has been an outspoken critic of Operation Epic Fury, contending that Congress should have decided whether or not the military campaign was necessary beforehand.
“Look, I’m sympathetic to the Iranian people,” Paul told SiriusXM’s “Cuomo Mornings” on Tuesday. “I hope they do rise up. But the other argument is this: can you give people liberty, or do they have to fight for their own liberty?”
“I don’t think we can give or grant the people of Iran liberty.”
