US-Iran war risk eases after Republican midterm loss, source says

The odds of another US-Iran shooting war just slipped, according to a source who talked to CNN on Thursday. That source credits Republicans' midterm defeat for cooling things down — but also warns an escalation is still, in their words, 'probable.' So cooler, not cold.

Tehran isn't softening its language to match. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei said Washington's 'hostile stance' toward Iran probably won't budge now that Democrats have won the election. Different election result, same suspicion.

Iran's National Security Council Secretary Mohsen Rezaei piled on, saying Thursday that Tehran won't open the Strait of Hormuz until seven conditions are met — and won't negotiate about it at all, per Al-Mayadeen, which cited an Iranian source. He reportedly said it in Moscow, sitting across from Russian President Vladimir Putin, where the two discussed ways to end the conflict in Iran.

Rezaei was carrying a message from Khamenei to Putin, though nobody's saying what's in it. Meanwhile, Ukrainian private intelligence firm Dallas Analytics handed documents to The Guardian describing Russia's plan to supply Iran with 90 launchers for advanced guided missiles.

Markets are already feeling the mood swings. Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey said Thursday the central bank would have hiked interest rates anyway, even if policymakers had known about the latest Middle East developments, pointing to inflation already building. He flagged oil's drop over the past 48 hours as proof of how jumpy markets are — and how badly they want the Iran conflict resolved. He stayed quiet on today's rebound and refused to map out any rate path without a clear resolution.

Not everyone's buying the calm either. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei called EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas's claim that Iran is meddling in the Saudi-Yemen conflict 'baseless,' accused the EU of being 'complicit in gross human rights violations in Yemen' through sanctions and an economic blockade, and denied any Iranian military experts are on the ground there.