Iran war rumbles on, fuelling Republican infighting after election losses in US

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THE Iran war illegally started by the United States and Israel in February is still on the boil in the Persian Gulf, even as it overshadowed Republican recriminations for mid-term losses in the United States.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said three oil tankers and a tugboat were aflame in the Strait of Hormuz after trying to pass through an “unauthorised route.”

The British military reported that a tanker had been struck by unidentified projectiles off Qatar. The Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen reported intercepting a missile aimed at Medina. The bloody but unsuccessful 11-year Saudi war to remove the Ansar Allah or Houthi government from Yemen has also reignited this year amid the fallout from the war on Iran.

In the United States, talk of the possible impeachment of War Secretary Pete Hegseth as soon as next week swirled the Capitol, as Republicans admitted the war on Iran, of which he is seen as one of the most aggressive advocates, was a key factor in their decisive defeat to the Democrats at the mid-terms.

Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie, a Republican hostile to Mr Trump’s presidency, told CNN he would seek to trigger a vote on eight impeachment accusations he has already filed against Mr Hegseth next week.

Though the new Democrat majority in the House of Representatives would not yet be in place, such is the anger in the Republican camp that some in the party believe enough defectors might vote in favour to see the impeachment pass, presuming Democrats back it. Mr Hegseth’s vetoing of promotions for many black and female military officers, and purges of top generals, are also controversial.

Mr Hegseth was “abusing the power of his office to ignore congressional war powers resolutions, to kidnap foreign leaders and to intimidate critics of the Trump administration,” Mr Massie said, referring to outrages like the US kidnap of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro as well as the war against Iran.

On Wednesday US Vice-President JD Vance also sharply distanced himself from the war, which he blamed for Republican losses. However, while admitting it hurt the Republicans, Mr Trump told reporters he would do it again and that Mr Hegseth was doing “a good job.”