Marc Thiessen Promised a Hero’s Welcome in Tehran but Delivered a Wipeout Instead

Marc Thiessen promised there was no downside to striking Iran.

Nine months later voters just handed Republicans their worst midterm wipeout since 2006.

Democrats got the House, the Senate, and states Republicans hadn't lost in decades.

Thiessen, Stephens, and Carafano Promised a Quick Win in Iran

Marc Thiessen, a former Bush White House speechwriter and American Enterprise Institute fellow, wrote in the Washington Post in January that there was "no U.S. downside" to striking the Iranian regime.

He called Iran "strategically naked."

He predicted Trump would get a "hero's welcome" in Tehran by the end of the year.

Bret Stephens made the identical case in the New York Times a month later, arguing that failing to strike Iran was the greater risk.

Heritage Foundation analyst James Carafano went further in March.

He declared the war "already won" after a single Pentagon briefing.

None of them had to answer for that prediction at the ballot box.

Voters did instead, on November 3, 2026.

Voters Blamed Trump for a War That Would Not End

By October, Pew found 65 percent of Americans disapproved of how Trump was handling the war in Iran.

Only 33 percent approved.

Confidence in Trump's foreign policy judgment fell from 53 percent to 35 percent in two years.

Confidence in his handling of the economy fell from 59 percent to 35 percent over the same stretch.

Forty four percent of voters told Pew their congressional vote was simply a vote against Trump.

That beats the 36 percent who said the same thing about George W Bush in 2006, the year Iraq cost Republicans the House.

Exit polls found 74 percent of voters called the Iran war a major or crucial factor in their vote for Congress.

Kansas, South Carolina, and Texas elected Democrats to the Senate for the first time in decades.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott lost his re-election bid.

Ohio, North Carolina, Georgia, and Iowa all flipped from red to blue.

Raymond James Research tracked something simple through the whole campaign: every time gas prices climbed, Trump's approval fell.

Joe Kent Saw This Coming and Quit

National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent resigned on March 17, 2026, specifically to protest the war.

He wasn't a Democrat plant.

He was a Trump appointee and an Army veteran who warned the war was a mistake before a single voter got the chance to.

Trump's instincts on foreign entanglements are what built his movement in the first place.

The neoconservatives who got his ear on Iran are the same crowd that talked George W Bush into Iraq two decades ago.

Thiessen, Stephens, and Carafano sold Trump a short war and a grateful Tehran.

They delivered neither.

Trump trusted the wrong room, and the bill came due in Senate seats Republicans hadn't lost in decades.

Republicans Need the War Gone Before They Can Win Again

The war hasn't stopped.

The United States struck Iranian targets on Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz on November 3, 2026, the same day Republicans lost the House.

Vice President JD Vance said he still hopes for a negotiated settlement with Tehran.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is pushing Trump for more strikes, not fewer.

Every additional month of war is another month Democrats get to run the same commercial.

Congress stays in Republican hands until the newly elected members are sworn in this January.

That gives Trump one last lame duck session to end the war before Democrats get the gavel and the credit for finishing it instead.

The economy Trump built before the war started was strong enough to win on its own.

Record-low poverty, a manufacturing boom, and wages outpacing inflation should have been the entire campaign.

Instead, voters walked into the booth on November 3 with gas prices and an endless war on their minds, and Republicans paid for it in Wichita, Charleston, and Columbus.

Sources:

• Marc A. Thiessen, "There Is No U.S. Downside to Striking the Iranian Regime," The Washington Post, January 2026.
• Brianna Lyman, "Republicans Learned Nothing From 2006 About Midterms and Foreign Wars," The Federalist, November 4, 2026.
• Kylee Griswold, "Iran Nuked Us After All," The Federalist, November 4, 2026.
• The White House, Readout of U.S. Strikes on Iranian Targets in the Strait of Hormuz, The White House, November 3, 2026.
• Tom Del Beccaro, "GOP Is Running 2026 Like It's 2006, Repeating George W. Bush's Iraq War Election Failure," Fox News, September 27, 2026.