Trump's loss limits powers at home, but it will likely be different abroad

Trump’s defeat curbs his power at home, but abroad the picture is likely to be different

Donald Trump speaks in superlatives, so there is a certain political irony in the scale of the defeat delivered to him by a large majority of America’s voters.

But do not expect him to drift quietly into the political dusk of his career. Losing both houses of the US Congress restricts his ability to dictate, manoeuvre and disrupt domestically.

Overseas, however, it is likely to be another matter.

As president of the United States and commander-in-chief of its armed forces, he still holds wide powers to deploy America’s military strength.

Donald Trump is not easy to forecast. As president, he has turned policy U-turns into a tool. Yet some things remain constant.

One is his disdain for those he sees as losers, and his resolve never to be viewed as one.

The president may be tempted to erase the midterm electoral rout by taking action abroad. He may seek to make moves he can present as decisive and victorious acts by a strong president, untouched by an election he insists, despite all the evidence, was lost only because he was not on the ballot paper.

In the weeks before the midterms, the deployment of US forces and Trump’s own often combative remarks fuelled talk that the US was preparing to go back to war with Iran.

On the eve of the elections, the US carried out a limited bombing raid on an Iranian island in the Gulf.

Before he was hospitalised with a stroke, the US Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat, attended a classified briefing on possible military options for renewed war with Iran.

Without giving details, he denounced the plans as "insane", warning that they would provoke a "devastating escalation".

There has been speculation that the Americans have plans to bomb civilian infrastructure.

That would not only likely amount to a war crime, it could also be met with devastating Iranian strikes on similar targets belonging to US allies in the Gulf. The list of possible targets could begin with the United Arab Emirates, which is as close to Israel as it is to the US.

The regime in Tehran is closely following political developments in the US. It has made no secret of its satisfaction that the effects of its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz have become a domestic political issue in the US.

Tehran knows the damage done to Trump and the Republicans by the sustained rise in prices across the board, from petrol and diesel to agricultural fertilisers, caused by the war and its attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the Speaker of Iran’s parliament, posted a warning on social media.

He said: "Conscience or the cost of living, Americans said NO TO WAR, and we endorse this message. If the US govt betrays their public will to serve international paymasters and blackmailers, it will learn our NO comes with a Nightmare."

Benjamin Netanyahu, now acting prime minister of Israel after last week’s election and working hard to assemble a new government, has repeated that he wants to bring down the Islamic regime in Tehran.

Reports in Israel and the US say he is pressing Trump to return to war.

Netanyahu does not have enough seats to form a new government with his outgoing coalition.

But if a major war were restarted and sustained, and if Israelis came under direct fire, he could have new options for forming a unity government that he would use his considerable political skills to dominate.

The other major conflict Trump may turn his attention to is the war between Ukraine and Russia, which has now lasted longer than the First World War.

Before the elections he lifted sanctions against Moscow to buy Russian diesel.

He may choose to extend and deepen sanctions relief in the hope of somehow easing the economic pressure on American consumers.

He has shown no notable concern for the deadly pressure on Ukrainian civilians, who have been hit by Russian ballistic missiles now getting through in greater numbers because Ukraine’s appeals for more US-made interceptors, funded by European allies, have not been answered in the way Ukraine needs and wants.

The Kremlin spokesman said Russia hoped the election results would not affect what it called Trump’s "peace-making efforts".

Donald Trump has consistently tried to force Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky into making territorial concessions to Russia in order to produce an agreement that would amount to capitulation for Kyiv.

Trump would add it to his improbable list of wars solved and stopped.

Stung by electoral defeat, Trump may try to intensify pressure on Zelensky to accept the concessions he has repeatedly refused.

It is safe to say Donald Trump will keep building monuments to himself in Washington DC.

Beyond that, it is worth repeating that predictions about his next moves at home and abroad risk being wrong. But one thing is certain: he is not going to sit in a presidential rocking-chair and wait out his time in the White House.

Throughout his presidency, Donald Trump has relished his power and been determined to use it. That will not change, and there is every chance he wants to show that if he can no longer shake America, he can shake the world.