At the UN, President Trump framed a choice between a deal and whether to "annihilate the Islamic Republic," while the same day US and Iranian officials quietly met for three hours in New York.

VICO reads the threats as theater: the likeliest path is neither annihilation nor a breakthrough, but a holding pattern that pays off mostly for Democrats at home.

Major US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites this year look slightly unlikely but plausible, at 43%. With the war already deeply unpopular, the US has shifted to economic pressure for a reason, but recent buildup around suspected nuclear site Pickaxe Mountain could provoke a US response.

Real diplomacy looks even less likely in the near term, at 16%, held down by the sequencing standoff (Iran wants the blockade lifted first, Trump wants goodwill first) and by Trump's own signal that any deal waits until after the midterms.

With no strikes and no deal, the status quo holds, including the regime itself. The model sees little chance of the kind of collapse Trump gestures at.

The real movement is political, and it is at home. An unpopular, unresolved war is the single biggest reason the model now leans toward Democrats taking the Senate, a number that has climbed fast.