The Democrats believe the unpopular war can at last halt Trump’s momentum and are already declaring it all but lost.

The Iranian theocracy agrees. - Victor Davis Hanson

It will do its best to ratchet up tensions with a series of October surprises in hopes that Trump loses control of Congress...
But it is often forgotten that two other groups may also be gaming the midterms with October surprises of their own—and in quite different ways.

• If Iranian dissidents—35,000 of whom were killed by their own government in January—believe that a Democratic takeover of Congress would benefit the murderous regime they hate, then they may face very different deadlines and renewed incentives to resist. The embattled opposition, suffering existential food and energy shortages, might conclude that if the regime is tottering in October, this may be its last chance to overthrow it before Democrats restrain Trump and spare the hated mullahs.
• The same mindset might be embraced by some 10–15 million restive Iranian Kurds, who periodically resist the theocracy in Tehran. If they, too, believe that ascendant post-midterm Democrats might defund the current American strikes against the theocracy, or that Trump will eventually be pressured into ending American involvement, then they may see overthrowing the hated regime as a now-or-never proposition.

The point is not what might actually happen if the Democratic opposition controls Congress or otherwise pressures Trump this fall to end the conflict.
The key, instead, is the perception that it would...