By Parisa Hafezi
Nov 4 (Reuters) - Iran's government savoured the stinging rebuke delivered to Donald Trump in the midterm elections, declaring voters had rejected the war launched by the US president even as Tehran remained on high alert for the possibility of renewed strikes.
"Conscience or the cost of living, Americans said NO TO WAR, and we endorse this message," Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, Iran's chief negotiator, posted on X, adding that Washington should not ignore public opinion
by attacking his country again.
Iran's Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei said in a written statement that US hostility would persist regardless of which party was in power, warning against "even the slightest inclination towards submission" to the US.
"The US sees the end of its hegemony as distant; we see it as near," he added.
Democrats captured majorities in both the Senate and House in Tuesday's election, with victories in Republican strongholds underscoring deep frustration with Trump's stewardship of the economy and his decision to launch a war that drove up gas prices.
Trump acknowledged in interviews with two media outlets that the US-Israeli war played a role in Republican defeats.
In Iran, a news outlet run by the judiciary shared a joke circulating on X that "Trump failed at regime change in Iran but he succeeded in Texas", a reference to the southern state where a Democrat won a Senate race for the first time in decades.
But two senior Iranian sources told Reuters that while Iranian leaders welcomed the Democrats’ victory, Tehran was concerned that Trump could seek to compensate for it with a military strike, and remained on high alert.
Mediators have intensified efforts to end the war amid fears it could reignite after the election, with Trump on Tuesday declining to rule out a resumption of combat operations after the vote and Iran planning wider retaliation if war resumes.
The US and Israel attacked Iran on February 28, and Iran responded with strikes on Israel and Gulf states that host US bases. Conflict also erupted in Lebanon between Iran-backed Hezbollah and Israel, and more recently spread to Yemen, from where the Iran-aligned Houthis have struck energy facilities, airports and other targets in Saudi Arabia.
Global oil and gas prices have shot up with shipping through the Strait of Hormuz severely disrupted after Tehran declared it closed, while the US has imposed a naval blockade on Iran, hitting Iran's economy hard.
'IRAN'S SHADOW OVER US ELECTIONS'
Ahead of the US election, senior Iranian officials told Reuters that Tehran was deliberately prolonging talks with the US to weaken Trump politically ahead of the vote.
The blow to Trump coincides with the anniversary of the 1979 seizure of the US embassy in Tehran, when radical students cemented Iran's Islamic Revolution by storming the embassy soon after the fall of the US-backed Shah, holding 52 Americans hostage there for 444 days.
Major Iranian newspaper Hamshahri linked the events with a front-page image showing Trump blindfolded with his head bowed.
With a headline declaring "Iran's shadow over US elections", it said Washington had been "47 years Iran's captive: from the capture of the spies' nest (US embassy) to the November 2026 US Congress elections".
The Iran war has been unpopular among Americans since it began, and blaming the war for driving up costs had been a focus of the Democrats' midterm election campaign.
"The consequences of (US) miscalculations and arrogant delusions have manifested as a heavy burden of costs, borne by the American people and the puppet regimes subservient to the US government," Khamenei said in his written statement on Wednesday.
Trump has offered shifting goals and timelines for the war that is now in its ninth month.
"I think a part of it was Iran, but at the same time people understood the importance of what I've done with Iran," Trump told Fox News in an interview, referring to the election result.
The conservative Iranian newspaper Jam-e Jam declared the election result "The twilight of Trumpism".
(Additional reporting by Dubai newsroom, Kanishka Singh and Jarrett Renshaw in Washington; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Aidan Lewis)
