For those hoping to see the U.S. war with Iran move closer to some kind of peaceful resolution, last week’s violence represented a demoralizing setback.

As The Associated Press reported, “Iran fired at Kuwait Thursday, continuing its retaliation for U.S. bombardments earlier in the week. … [This] came after U.S. allies Bahrain and Jordan said their air defense systems intercepted several Iranian air attacks Wednesday. Fighting between the U.S. and Iran has increased this week after the U.S. hit Iranian rocket launchers on an island in the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday, saying Iran was planning to use them to shoot mines into the waterway.”

These developments were soon followed by additional U.S. strikes on Iranian oil tankers, amid fresh reports that Arab leaders throughout the Middle East are increasingly concerned about a widening regional conflict.

When a reporter asked JD Vance last week whether the war was likely to end before the midterm elections, the vice president replied, “I wouldn’t call it a war.”

“Right now there is no active shooting,” Vance added, despite all the evidence of active shooting.

But the Ohio Republican hadn’t just contradicted reality, he had also contradicted Donald Trump, who just hours earlier explicitly referred to the conflict as a “war.”

Late last week, the president was offered an opportunity to reconcile the conflict. It did not go well.

If the war isn’t a “war,” a reporter asked Trump, then what is it? “I call it a military conflict because it’s small potatoes for us,” the Republican replied. “It’s not a big thing.”

The bizarre comments came roughly a week after The Atlantic reported that, as Election Day 2026 nears, the White House hopes to “try to push Iran to the background, while hoping that gas prices come down even a little and that Republicans can shift the nation’s focus to more politically palatable topics ahead of the midterms.”

The trouble, of course, is that the underlying idea is indefensible. Trump launched an unnecessary war without clear objectives and destabilized an already volatile region. It’s a conflict that’s already claimed the lives of 18 American service members, and the financial costs on the public and its government have been overwhelming.

The Republican president looks at these details and sees “small potatoes,” which speaks volumes about his increasingly twisted priorities.

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