How Iran messaging highlights cost of war ahead of US midterm elections

What the report says

Al Jazeera reports that Iranian officials are using English-language messages to stress the economic cost of the war with the United States and Israel as the US midterm elections approach. According to the article, Tehran is focusing public attention on higher fuel prices, inflation, and strain on the US economy, in an apparent effort to raise the political price of the conflict for Washington.

The piece says Parliament Speaker and chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf has been especially active on social media, posting references to US inflation, consumer prices and energy costs, alongside mocking imagery aimed at US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps also published a letter to Americans accusing President Donald Trump of misrepresenting the war’s economic impact and arguing that the US economy is vulnerable.

Al Jazeera links this messaging to broader wartime conditions, including Iranian disruption of shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and the resulting pressure on energy markets. The article says those developments have helped push up gasoline and diesel prices in the US and contributed to wider inflation, though the exact scale of the effect remains part of the political debate.

The story notes that the election could matter for Trump’s room to continue the war, because a Democratic gain in Congress could make it harder to fund the campaign. It also quotes analysts who say Iran’s immediate goal appears to be amplifying the cost of the conflict rather than backing a specific party.