“President Donald Trump’s declaration Thursday that he would not attack Iran again before next month’s midterm elections was an implicit admission of the damage being inflicted on Republican hopes by a war that has defied his promise of a quick victory,” CNN reports.“In that sense, Iran appears to have succeeded in its apparent effort to use the midterm elections to inflict political pain on Trump. It has failed, however, to turn that pressure into a retreat in which the president ends the war on its terms — one reason why an Iranian escalation in the next three weeks cannot be ruled out.”