Trump says the US-Iran war will end right after midterms

NEW: President Trump says the US war on Iran will end 'immediately' after November's midterm elections, seven months after launching a conflict he initially called a 'short-term excursion.'

Trump says the war on Iran will end immediately after November's midterms.

That's the President's own timeline, seven months into a conflict he sold as a short-term excursion, over in four to five weeks. Four to five weeks came and went a long time ago. We're now in month seven.

So the war has an end date, and it sits right on the other side of election day. Read that however you like. Either the strategy genuinely comes good in November, or the fighting calendar is being written by the campaign calendar, and neither reading is comfortable.

And the war itself isn't waiting politely. Iran was just referred to the Security Council for the first time in twenty years, and Tehran says it's attacking ships in the Strait of Hormuz. Immediately after the midterms is still two months away, and wars are notoriously bad at keeping appointments.

This is Kateryna Kovalenko, reporting for HIT.