President Trump has been hearing lately from two trusted confidants, each promising a quick path to ending the war in Iran. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has argued that Iran is on the brink of economic collapse and that a U.S. blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, combined with sanctions, will force Tehran to capitulate at the negotiation table. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a series of calls with Trump, has offered a different route: one more round of devastating U.S. and Israeli strikes to topple the regime. Now the Trump administration appears to be considering combining the two approaches, betting that Iran is already on the verge of economic ruin and that a few more major strikes will be enough to trigger regime change.

The president is considering reviving his military campaign against Iran with several days of strikes, likely just after the midterm elections, officials told us. The potential targets include Iran’s missile and drone arsenal as well as its energy infrastructure and nuclear facilities. One outside adviser told us that “the economic pressure is working, and we believe Iran is getting close to the edge.” The new strikes, the person added, “would push them over.”

Experience suggests that this may be wishful thinking. Economic pressure has badly weakened Iran, but the country’s negotiating position has hardly budged. Trump has thought before that Iran was on the verge of ruin—or already past it—only to discover that he’d miscalculated. And launching more strikes could spark a regional escalation without bringing the regime any closer to surrender. Speaking at Tehran’s Holy Defence Museum earlier this week, Brigadier General Hossein Mohebbi, a spokesperson for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, named seven major fiber-optic cables beneath the surface of the Strait of Hormuz as potential “new targets” and teased that future attacks would feature “new weapons.” If the proposed U.S. strike plan fails to bring Iran to its knees, Tehran could emerge even less willing to make concessions.

“Trump is desperate to find some options to take him out from this problematic situation,” Danny Citrinowicz, a former Israeli intelligence officer who specializes in Iran, told us. “But you cannot plan for a three-day war, because it is not a unilateral decision. You cannot control how Iran responds.” Nevertheless, the president appears intent on acting. “Something one way or another, it will happen fairly soon,” Trump told a reporter yesterday before boarding Air Force One.

Despite all of the reasons resuming strikes could be a mistake, the president is tempted because he’s grown impatient waiting for the strategy of economic strangulation to work. He had originally hoped that Iran would come crawling back to the negotiations before the midterm elections, an official and another person familiar with the conversations told us under the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive conversations. That has not happened, and energy prices have stayed high—creating an awful political landscape for Republicans. Trump has toned down some of his apocalyptic rhetoric toward Tehran, but his frustration occasionally seeps through, often in late-night social-media posts.

Trump has toyed with the idea of resuming hostilities before Election Day, a push championed by those in Washington who believe that a show of force could allow the president to claim some sort of October-surprise victory. Netanyahu has advocated for another round of strikes before his own election next week, a White House official confirmed to us. So far, Trump has held off on authorizing a pre-midterms strike; after we reported on the possibility earlier this month, the behind-the-scenes blowback from fellow Republicans was so intense that the president posted on Truth Social that he would not attack again before the election.

[Read: Trump is preparing for a long war]

U.S. officials stress that no decision has been made about whether to resume strikes post-election, although there have been very public signs of preparation. Some officials hope that uncertainty about what the United States will do—and when—will keep Tehran on edge. Earlier this week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth traveled to Israel and met with Netanyahu to discuss Iran. The State Department said yesterday that it was evacuating nonessential personnel and their family members from Saudi Arabia because of escalating attacks from Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Real questions remain about whether the Pentagon’s munitions supplies, which were growing dangerously low at the height of the conflict, would be adequate to defend U.S. interests in the Middle East. Meanwhile, even the hint of hostilities has spooked markets; the price of oil surged and the stock market fell today as word circulated about a possible return to war and Iran hit tankers in the strait. (The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment. U.S. Central Command, which leads the war in Iran, declined to comment.)

The costly U.S. naval blockade, which has effectively stopped Iranian oil exports, coupled with sanctions and damage from U.S. strikes, has put Iran’s economy under severe strain. Inflation is soaring; goods are scarce. The record-low value of the rial has left Iranians struggling to pay for basic needs. Admiral Brad Cooper, the head of U.S. Central Command, said last week that the naval blockade had prevented Iran from exporting at least $25 billion worth of crude oil. The International Monetary Fund has projected that Iran’s economy will contract sharply in 2026. But while Tehran is trying to contain the damage through measures such as price controls and maintaining essential imports, there is little evidence that Iran is on the verge of imminent economic collapse. Over the summer, Bessent promised “financial violence” that would lead to Iran’s capitulation. Yesterday, the Treasury Department added sanctions targeting shipping networks and intermediaries “indirectly aiding Tehran’s ability to generate revenue to fund its military, weapons, and nuclear programs.”

“I think it could be within weeks or months—and the economy doesn’t have to collapse. We just have to have the regime come to their senses,” he told reporters at an August G20 finance ministers’ meeting. But the belief that that point will come soon ignores the patterns of history: The hard-liners in Tehran have become inured to the suffering of their people over decades and have yet to capitulate.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu has repeatedly urged Trump, who has endorsed the prime minister in his reelection bid, to launch strikes before Israel’s Tuesday election and the United States’ vote a week later, an Israeli television station reported last week. Netanyahu’s office has reportedly denied the claim. Regardless, the war is key to the political futures of Netanyahu and Trump. How and when it ends, however, is not entirely up to them.

Giovanna Perez loaded her four kids into the car on September 21 and drove from their home in Weslaco, Texas, to Naval Air Station Corpus Christi. She had a 9:30 a.m. appointment to pick up the ID cards that would allow them to access military medical insurance, facilities, and commissary stores. Her husband, Pedro Gutierrez, had recently enlisted in the Army and left a month earlier for basic training at Fort Benning, in Georgia.

Perez approached the military guards at the gates with some trepidation. Her parents illegally brought her across the U.S. border from Mexico when she was 6 years old. Now 35, she and Gutierrez have been together since they were 17 and have carefully kept her immigration status a secret. Gutierrez is a U.S. citizen, but marriage does not give legal status to someone who is in the country unlawfully. When the Obama administration started the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program to protect immigrants like Perez who had arrived as children, she did not apply, for fear that the government might someday use the information against her family.

Perez told us that her husband believed that joining the Army would allow him to serve his country, give his family access to health care—including the costly medications his son takes—and potentially protect his wife from deportation. He had already submitted her application for a benefit called Parole in Place, which offers a path to legal residency for the close relatives of service members. Officials at Fort Benning had assured him that she would have no trouble getting IDs for herself and the children, and that it didn’t matter that she didn’t have a Social Security number, Perez told us.

At the gates of the Navy base, guards told Perez they had no record of her appointment. She remained calm as they directed her to a nearby office to get a visitor’s pass. That’s when two military officials took the family into a room for questioning. “In my head, I thought it was just protocol for the safety of the base, but it started getting weird,” Perez said. As she answered, she told us, one of the military officers appeared to be relaying her responses to someone through text messages.

Two other men entered the room. They wore khaki pants, she said, not military fatigues. The patches on their shirts said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It appeared to Perez that they’d been waiting for her, at the base or somewhere nearby. The men told Perez to report to the ICE office in Harlingen, Texas, in three days. Her older children, ages 17, 15, and 11, were confused. “My kids were just, like, What’s going on?” Perez told us. “Are they gonna detain you? Why are they doing this to us? I thought you were supposed to be safe.”

Perez didn’t know what to tell them, and she had no way to call her husband. When she went to the ICE office three days later, she was booked and issued an order to appear in immigration court. She suspected the military shared her information with ICE. And now the government was trying to deport her.

Perez’s attorney, Alex Martinez, told us he’s trying to determine whether other families have been targeted in similar ways. He suspects that the government has been using Parole in Place to gather information for immigration-enforcement purposes—the opposite of what military recruits are led to believe.

“There’s no bigger betrayal to our soldiers than to use their trust in a program, set out by our government to protect their families, and ultimately use it to destroy their families while they’re serving our country and putting their lives on the line,” Martinez told us. “You’re stabbing your own soldiers in the back.”

The Associated Press in August identified at least 50 cases in which close family of active-duty service members were arrested by ICE. What’s different about Perez’s case is that U.S. military personnel appeared to be working with ICE to identify a potential target and use a long-standing military-recruitment tool—the promise of legal status for loved ones—to facilitate an arrest.

ICE confirmed to us in a statement that Navy personnel had reported Perez to immigration officers when the family arrived at the base. The Department of Homeland Security and ICE “value the contributions of all those who serve in the U.S. military,” the statement said. “Having a family member in the military is not a free pass to violate our nation’s laws. Military service by an immediate relative does not automatically grant parole, lawful status, or immunity from immigration enforcement."

Perez told us the ICE officers seemed to be expecting her, told her they knew that Gutierrez had applied for Parole in Place, and asked questions about a trip her son had taken with his grandmother to Mexico years earlier.

Neither the Army nor the Office of the Secretary of Defense responded to requests for comment, but one defense official told us that there have been “varying degrees of cooperation between military installations and the Department of Homeland Security” for more than a year. The official declined to be named because he, like others we spoke with, was not authorized to talk publicly about this issue. Another official told us that DHS often made such requests to installations at a local level, but there were inconsistent degrees of cooperation. The Navy declined to comment.

[Read: Trump loves ICE. Its workforce has never been so miserable.]

Within months of President Trump’s second inauguration, military mental-health specialists began telling us that service members within their units were fearful about how the administration’s crackdown on immigrants could affect their families. They described spouses afraid to go on base while their partner was deployed, family members too scared to leave their home, and uniformed service members accompanying loved ones to immigration appointments or hearings with the hope that their presence would make immigration officials or judges pause. Such worries, the specialists said, were becoming a distraction for those serving, particularly during deployments. It was an early sign of a break in a long-standing bargain: A government that asks Americans to take extraordinary risks would not add stress that could distract service members from their missions.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth frequently touts the military’s surging recruitment numbers. Less often mentioned is the military’s success in recruiting from some of the country’s most heavily Hispanic communities, including the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, where Perez and Gutierrez live. Hispanic recruits accounted for nearly 27 percent of new Army soldiers last year, up from just less than 20 percent in 2020, according to Army statistics. This population remains key to the Army meeting its recruiting standards even as service members from these communities have reported that their families have been targeted by ICE.

Military law enforcement cannot provide direct support to civilian law enforcement, under the Posse Comitatus Act, a 19th-century law that was intended to keep the military from meddling in the affairs of southern states. But to secure an installation, military police can inspect those who enter. “Anytime somebody makes an appointment on a military base, that information could get shared throughout the federal government,” Margaret D. Stock, an immigration lawyer and former Army Reserve officer who helped develop the Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest (MAVNI) program, told us. Under the Trump administration, those who serve, along with their families, are no more protected from immigration enforcement than those submitting their data to any other government agency. “The military is no longer immune from this,” Stock said. Some troops are asking for overseas assignments where they can live with their family members, far from ICE agents.

In April, ICE officers arrested the 22-year-old wife of a U.S. soldier when the couple moved to an Army base in Louisiana. The woman, Annie Ramos, was born in Honduras and had a previous deportation order issued in absentia when she was a toddler. Ramos was released after Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, a Democrat, spoke with Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin on her behalf.

Bobby Pulido, a Democratic candidate in the Rio Grande Valley who is running for Congress, has cited her case as an example of ICE overreach by the Trump administration. “The scary part is they’re doubling down on it. They don’t care,” Pulido said in a video clip with Perez that his campaign posted on social media on Wednesday.

It used to be that the military was seen as a potential pathway to U.S. citizenship. Military service can qualify noncitizens for expedited naturalization, and the Pentagon has at times recruited people who were not permanent residents. More than 180,000 members of the U.S. military have become naturalized citizens since 2002, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. In 2008, at the height of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon launched the MAVNI program, which allowed some immigrants who were living legally in the U.S. but were not citizens to enlist based on specialized skills considered vital, including medical expertise and foreign-language proficiency. The program expired in 2017 and was not renewed. The government established the Parole in Place benefit in 2010, allowing family members to remain in the United States and apply for legal status. Approval is discretionary and does not guarantee a green card. But the promise remains a powerful recruiting tool for the armed services in immigrant communities.

[Read: The northern passage]

Perez said she has no criminal record and no previous deportation orders. She met her husband at a quinceañera party when they were teenagers in Laredo. Gutierrez drove commercial trucks but decided to enlist in the Army to secure health-insurance coverage for the family and college-tuition aid for their older children. Fixing Perez’s immigration status was another incentive for him, she told us.

It was in a 20-minute weekend phone call that Gutierrez learned the country he was serving had been trying to deport his wife and separate his family. Had Perez been sent to a detention center, as many immigrants are, Gutierrez would have been forced to leave basic training to care for his children—a governmental loss of not just a new service member but also roughly $50,000 in sunk training costs, according to Army estimates. Perez stays home to take care of their 2-year-old, and she told us she has no idea what would happen to her children if ICE sent her to Mexico. “I have no one,” she said. “I’m by myself.”

Her husband will graduate from basic training on November 5, and Perez and her children plan to drive to Georgia for the ceremony at Fort Benning. They were issued their military IDs, so they should be allowed onto the base. Perez told us that she’s in a discussion group with other military families who are asking a lot of questions about who will be allowed to attend the graduation. Five days after the ceremony, Perez will be due back in court in Texas.

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After months of on-again, off-again fighting, the United States hasn’t struck Iran in several weeks. The stretch of relative tranquility is coinciding with the final phase of the midterm-election campaign, and the assumption has been that President Trump will want to keep it going through November 3 so as not to remind voters of an unpopular war that is dragging Republican candidates down nationwide.

But that may not be what happens. The White House has asked the Pentagon to develop strike options against Iranian targets that could be exercised ahead of the midterms, according to two administration officials. The planning underscores just how much the president wants to reduce gas prices and demonstrate progress in the conflict before the vote, administration officials told us.

The size and targets of the potential strikes—and whether the administration will ultimately proceed—are still being debated. The plans are being developed by U.S. Central Command, which is coordinating the war effort, a U.S. official told us. Even the plans’ advocates acknowledge that limited strikes would not, by themselves, bring Iran to the negotiating table, restore safe travel through the Strait of Hormuz, or lower gas prices before Election Day. But those in favor believe that further action after months of uneasy peace could allow Trump to demonstrate strength and potentially declare some sort of victory, giving Republicans much-needed momentum heading into the election. “It would make the president look like he got a win and that gas prices would start going down,” a Republican familiar with the deliberations told us after being granted anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. A limited operation could be followed up by more substantial military action after the midterms, when Trump has suggested that the conflict, which is now in its eighth month, could resume.

Any strike campaign would put the roughly 50,000 U.S. troops in the region, as well as Gulf allies, at risk of Iranian retaliation, and further deplete America’s munitions stockpiles. Even some of the president’s most ardent supporters want the U.S. to exit the war in order to halt the rise in inflation. An inconclusive limited strike is likely to have the opposite effect. Crude-oil prices have typically risen when the U.S. has resumed strikes after a pause, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

“Military action has done nothing to drive down oil prices; in fact, it has done the opposite,” Will Walldorf, an international-affairs professor at Wake Forest University and a senior fellow at the think tank Defense Priorities, told us. “And if this is an attempt to rally the Republican vote, how does that make any sense given how unpopular this war is?”

The president has repeatedly discussed the possibility of resuming strikes after the election, threatening in a speech to the United Nations last month to “annihilate the Islamic Republic” if Iran did not reach a deal. In an interview with Time magazine released earlier this month, the president reiterated that post-election strikes were possible, saying “we’ve been stocking up for the last six months.” Last week, Trump said he believed the U.S. would win the war “right after the election,” though he added, “Maybe before the election.”

Republican candidates see the conflict, and the high gas prices it has caused, as a severe drag on their prospects for keeping a majority in the House and Senate. Ken Paxton, the Republican Senate candidate from Texas, has privately complained that the war has hurt his campaign, telling donors last month that rising gas and diesel prices caused by the conflict were “by far our biggest problem,” according to Axios.

[Read: The real reason Trump wants economic sanctions in Iran]

In recent weeks, the Pentagon has presented Trump with a series of options that would restart hostilities after the midterms, and now Centcom is compiling options for pre-midterm strikes. The post-election menu ranges from small strikes to massive attacks, including further blows to Iran’s energy industry. Even though the Trump administration remains bullish on the effectiveness of its economic pressure campaign, officials caution that Iran may wait several more months before entering serious negotiations. Trump has been publicly furious about the war’s persistence and is believed by those close to him to feel privately humiliated by his inability to bring the conflict to a successful conclusion. He has signaled to aides that he would be willing to strike Iran again, though his advisers believe that the right moment would be after the midterms rather than before. The war is deeply unpopular, and Republicans would not welcome the conflict’s return to the headlines, according to GOP strategists, particularly if more American lives are lost. A White House official stressed to us that Trump “has all options available at any time,” adding that “things will go one of two ways; the easy way or the hard way.” The official did not address our questions about the timing of possible strikes.

Oil prices surged after the Iran war began, climbing as high as nearly $118 a barrel in the spring. And although they briefly topped $100 a barrel last month, they have been hovering around $100 a barrel. Gas prices dipped slightly earlier this week amid reports of more tanker traffic transiting the Strait of Hormuz, the vital waterway that carried one-fifth of the world’s oil supply before Iran closed it early in the war. The White House and Republicans facing reelection harbor the hope that further incremental drops will signal lower prices ahead, giving the party some relief before the vote.

[Read: Trump is preparing for a long war]

But Iran has been persistent in its attacks. Earlier this week, it targeted a series of ships attempting to transit the strait, prompting some shipowners to reconsider use of the route. White House officials view those recent attacks as a deliberate swipe at the president, according to people familiar with the West Wing’s thinking. The administration has also said it would release oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in an effort to increase supplies and keep gasoline prices from rising further. Americans are now paying an average of $4.37 a gallon for gas, according to AAA, compared with just below $3 before the U.S. and Israeli strike campaign began February 28.

The latest military deliberations come as the administration pursues two tracks at once: ongoing military and economic pressure, and indirect negotiations. Washington and Tehran continue to communicate through mediators, but significant differences remain over the terms and sequencing of a cease-fire, an end to the U.S. blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, and the strait’s reopening. Iran may already be anticipating renewed U.S. strikes. Earlier this week, the U.S. removed B-1 bombers from RAF Fairford in Britain because U.S. intelligence indicated a possible Iranian-linked attack on the base. Iran has denied any involvement. “Iran is watching the calendar and knows the election is coming,” said one adviser who spoke with us. “And they want to stick it to the president.”

At the same time, the White House believes that Tehran is at its weakest point since the conflict began, two administration officials told us. The nation’s economy is teetering. Inflation is soaring. And Iran’s leadership seems in disarray. One close Trump adviser told us that the pattern has been that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps appears to be in charge one day, and then somewhat more moderate political officials the next. Overall, the hard-liners seem to have the upper hand, the officials told us, and they have shown little openness to a deal or even to softening their position. Yet some in Trump’s orbit believe that the moment is rapidly approaching when even the hard-liners may be forced to concede. A strike before the midterms could be seen as a not-so-gentle nudge in that direction—but it could also achieve the opposite, and put the war and its consequences front and center just as Americans cast their votes.