Iranian officials tell Reuters Tehran is stalling talks to deny Trump a midterm win

Reuters, in a Dubai-datelined piece published on 20 October, reported that Iran has deliberately prolonged negotiations with the United States in order to weaken Donald Trump before the 3 November midterms, and that fear of renewed Israeli and American strikes, combined with distrust of Washington, has hardened Tehran’s reluctance to close any deal. The account rests on three senior Iranian officials and one “Iranian insider,” all unnamed, plus one named analyst. “Iran is preparing for renewed Israeli and US attacks, not for a deal with America to end the war,” one of the officials said; another said “the clerical establishment is determined not to give Trump a political victory.” Saeed Leylaz, a Tehran-based analyst speaking on the record, framed it as cost-free: by prolonging the talks, “Iran is influencing the US election without taking any unlawful action.”

The same day the Jerusalem Post reported, citing “several sources familiar with the details,” that the administration came “very close” to approving a strike on Iran on at least one recent occasion — a single-outlet, anonymously sourced claim from inside one belligerent’s information space, and one that cannot be falsified in the near term. The Post paired it with Benjamin Netanyahu’s remark on Tuesday that the Iranian government is “so fanatical” it will pursue nuclear ambitions and try to rebuild its proxy network “as long as it lives,” and with Trump’s line to reporters in Atlanta last week, “wait till you see what we do to Iran.” Trump has separately said the US will not bomb Iran again before 3 November. Axios reported on 13 October that Pete Hegseth and CENTCOM leadership are the strongest internal advocates of resuming strikes, while most of Trump’s advisers prefer sanctions.

Reuters' supporting characterisation deserves scrutiny of its own. The agency describes Iranian attacks, threatened and real, as having reduced traffic through the strait to “a trickle,” while the American maritime blockade and sanctions have cut Iran’s oil export revenue and deepened domestic economic strain. That picture does not sit easily beside flow data showing Iranian exports near pre-war levels. Both cannot be fully true, and the gap between the narrative of strangulation and the measured barrels is the part of this story that has not yet been reported out.

Assessment: Note what the two reports do together: Tehran’s sources say they are waiting out 3 November, and Israeli-sourced reporting says a strike nearly happened anyway. Each account serves the side that leaked it — one signals patience and discipline, the other signals that American restraint is thinner than it looks and that stalling carries risk. Neither is verifiable. The usable element is Leylaz on the record, because he states the logic plainly: non-closure is free. That calculus expires on 4 November, when prolonging talks stops buying anything and Tehran has to decide what it was actually negotiating for.