00:00Oil prices fell more than 8% to settle at their lowest in more than two months on Wednesday,
00:07after President Donald Trump's Republican Party lost control of Congress in mid-term elections,
00:13as investors bet that the shift in power could hasten the end of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran.
00:19Brand features settled $8.98, or 8.7%, lower at $94.62 a barrel,
00:28while U.S.-West Texas Intermediate Crude Futures fell $7.97, or 8.3% to $88.12.
00:39Both benchmarks closed at their lowest since August 31st.
00:43Trump now faces a choice between a negotiated exit and a riskier escalation.
00:48A weakened Trump, facing a Democratic Congress able to constrain his military options,
00:53has greater incentive to seek a deal, said two sources close to Gulf government circle.
00:58A full-scale assault on Iran now looks less likely, they said.
01:03Yet an agreement that allows Iran to claim clear victory and leaves Trump looking defeated
01:07can provoke recklessness as readily as restrained, Gulf analysts said.
01:12Trump told the Financial Times on Tuesday that the United States had no immediate plans to strike Iran,
01:18and on Wednesday acknowledged that the Iran war had played a role in his party's sweeping defeat
01:23in the mid-term elections, as Democrats won control of the House of Representatives and the Senate.
01:29U.S. Vice President Jerry Vance distanced himself from the decision to go to war on Wednesday,
01:34questioning its worth and blaming it entirely for a stinging electoral rebuke by voters
01:38that delivered control of Congress to Democrats.
01:42Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Moshnaba Khamenei said in a written statement
01:46that U.S. hostility would persist, regardless of which party was in power.
01:50Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Moshnaba Khamenei said in a written statement
01:50of the House of Representatives.
01:50Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Moshnaba Khamenei said in a written statement
01:51of the House of Representatives.
01:51Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Moshnaba Khamenei said in a written statement
01:52Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Moshnaba Khamenei said in a written statement
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