The Briefing Vol. XIV, Issue 11
March 16, 2026
This week:
- Trump is still risking it all on victory in Iran
- Daines slips out of his re-election bid in Montana
- Dems may yet lose Va. gerrymandering referendum
Outlook
“No matter whom we elect, we always get John McCain.”
We were not able to track down who said it originally, but this is a valid libertarian critique of Republican politics. No matter what the Republican candidate says about foreign policy, he eventually wins an election and starts dropping bombs on someone.
There was some irony when George W. Bush, who had campaigned in 2000 on a “humble foreign policy,” was the one to invade Iraq, starting a decade-long occupation that pretty much everyone now agrees was a mistake.
There is probably even more irony that President Trump, the first Republican nominee in the modern era to campaign explicitly against foreign adventurism and the starting of new wars abroad, should be the one aspiring to effect regime change Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran within the space of three or four calendar months — and possibly also to cause the implosion of the much more powerful regimes in Russia and China. But he may yet accomplish several of these goals before his second presidential term is up.
So far, signs of a genuine rift within Trump’s coalition are still scarce. Most of MAGA-world supports the conflict, and anti-MAGA Republicans have been supporting it since long before Trump. Vocal opposition at this stage is largely limited to fringe figures. But cracks will start to appear if an appropriate off-ramp cannot be found from the hostilities — it is only a matter of time.
Cuba: The domino in Venezuela already fell in January. And having been deprived of its Venezuelan oil, Cuba’s communist regime is now begging for talks with the U.S., despite having no leverage to bring to the table. The regime’s insistence that political reforms are not on the cards rings hollow, as Cuban demonstrators become increasingly violent and open about their opposition to communist tyranny.
When your communist dictator tries to quell the mob by admitting their “complaints and claims are legitimate,” you know things have really gotten out of his control.
Iran: Of course, the much larger endeavor here is Iran, whose regime will not fall over through anything short of a sustained campaign of external violence. This is still obviously the conflict that poses the greatest political threat to Trump and to his party in this year’s midterm elections.
Although much has been made of the inconsistency of his Iran policy, Trump chose to begin bombing on essentially this argument: If nothing is done about this regime now, it will quickly become too militarily powerful to stop, thanks to a buildup of either conventional weapons (missiles and rockets, as Secretary of State Marco Rubio put it) or a nuclear weapon, or both. Once Iran reaches a certain point, the reasoning goes, it will be able to keep destabilizing the entire region forever with impunity, using the dozen or so terrorist paramilitary proxy groups that it either created or started to fund (Hezbollah, Hamas, Ansar Allah in Yemen, various militias in Iraq, et cetera).
But most Americans want to see this war brought to a successful completion before it becomes another fiasco. They may display a great measure of patience in the short run, as long as U.S. casualties are minimal and there is no long-term commitment to occupy. But the pressure is on Trump now to find a nearby off-ramp where the conflict can stop but the regime has also been defanged as a practical matter. The longer this drags out, the greater the political danger he faces.
The possibility that Iran is so close to a nuclear breakout already suggests that last summer’s bombings of nuclear facilities were less successful than Trump advertised at the time (key facts here remain ambiguous). But the sharp drop-off of missile and drone attacks since the current conflict began is a sign that at least some of the concerns about Iran have already been dealt with. Its missiles, launchers and drones have been largely depleted in early attacks, and the factories that replenish them have been largely or completely destroyed as of this writing. The local population does not support the regime and is not mobilizing to defend it. Meanwhile, the regime’s internal security apparatus is, in some places, being targeted with precision strikes — and this offers the greatest hope of an internal regime-change, but the Iranian public has been largely deterred so far by ubiquitous threats that all protesters will be shot on sight.
The problem Trump faces, as we noted previously, is that the goals of the two sides are asymmetric in the extreme. Iran’s regime only needs to survive. It cannot compete militarily with the U.S., but it doesn’t have to win a single battle or even shoot down a single plane in order to achieve a strategic victory.
Senate 2026
Illinois: If you believe the polling, then Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D) is favored to win the Democratic nomination tomorrow to replace longtime Sen. Dick Durbin (D). Also in the race are Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton (D) and Rep. Robin Kelly (D), who was criticized for making fun of the two men awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor at Trump’s State of the Union address.
Louisiana: It’s not a good sign for incumbent Sen. Bill Cassidy (R) that his own internal poll shows him beating Rep. Julie Letlow (R) in a runoff by only a 45 percent to 43 percent vote. With Trump backing Letlow, this may be Cassidy’s last stand. Cassidy incurred Trump’s wrath by voting for the second impeachment against him.
Montana: At the last minute before the filing deadline earlier this month, Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) bowed out and made room for his hand-picked successor, Kurt Alme (R), the former U.S. attorney for Montana. This sneaky tactic sidesteps any sort of expensive primary contest and heads off any aspiring Democrats who might have wanted a shot at the open seat.
It will also probably work, despite being quite underhanded.
Democrats have a primary with five declared candidates, the most prominent of whom is one of the state’s 100 state representatives. But it is a sign of the times that Montana Democrats now view their own brand as unelectably toxic. They appear set to follow the Nebraska playbook — that is to say, to ignore their own nominee and fall in behind a Democrat pretending to be an independent in the form of former University of Montana president and military veteran Seth Bodnar (I).
House 2026
Virginia: With the state supreme court punting on making its decision until after the vote, Democrats’ attempt to gerrymander their state with a 10-1 Democratic congressional map (in place of the current 6-5 split) is hanging in the balance.
Due to the highly unusual nature of the referendum they have put on Virginians’ ballots, it is hard to predict an outcome based only on turnout. But it is significant that early turnout is disproportionately high in areas that will be disenfranchised by the Democrats’ proposed map.
Which is to say, there is still a chance of beating this at the ballot box before a court gets involved to decide its constitutionality.
Republicans are cleverly using newly elected Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s (D) image and quotation in mailers promoting a “no” vote, even though she has come out in favor of the gerrymander.
Early voting is already underway, and the official election day is April 21.
