Can Iran war deadlock be broken at the US ballot box? - Middle East Eye

As it stands, neither side in the Iran war is preparing to retreat. Each is waiting for the other to blink.

For US President Donald Trump, backing down would shatter the narrative he has relentlessly constructed: that his country is winning and Iran has been defeated. A Daily Beast analysis last month counted at least 66 declarations of victory by Trump. Having invested so heavily in that claim, a climbdown would carry serious political and personal costs.

Tehran is trapped by a different logic. The Islamic Republic regards the conflict as existential. Its leadership appears to believe that ending the war - without convincing Washington that attacking Iran carries prohibitively high costs - would invite another US or Israeli assault. For Tehran, survival requires restoring deterrence, not merely securing a pause.

That is the core of the deadlock. Neither side sees retreat as safer than continuing. Yet the stalemate may ultimately be broken not on the battlefield, but in Washington.

Iran increasingly appears to be betting on endurance. Pressure on the Strait of Hormuz, combined with the Houthis’ recent gains around Bab el-Mandeb Strait, gives Tehran leverage over two critical energy arteries. 

The political logic is blunt: sustained disruption keeps oil expensive, feeding into gasoline, diesel, freight, and grocery prices. A recent University of Massachusetts Amherst poll found that 80 percent of Americans believe the Iran war has increased the cost of gas and groceries.

In addition, a Reuters/Ipsos poll this month put Democrats ahead 44 to 37 percent on the generic congressional ballot, as oil disruption and fuel prices have hurt Republican support.

Race to the White House, a US political forecasting website, on Monday gave Democrats an 84 percent chance of taking the House, while its Senate model put their chances of taking the Senate at more than 68 percent. At the start of the war, Republicans had a 77 percent chance of retaining the Senate; the new data thus represents a remarkable swing in the probability margin, from a 54-point Republican advantage to a 37-point Democratic advantage.

What evidence is there that Democrats will try to stop the war if they defeat Republicans? They have already been trying for months, despite being the minority in both chambers. 

Senate Democrats have forced more than a dozen Iran War Powers Resolution votes. In the House, the evidence of Republican dissent has also grown: last week, seven Republicans joined Democrats in a 220-204 vote directing Trump to remove US forces from hostilities with Iran unless authorised by Congress, the third time the House has passed such a measure. 

But even if the Democrats win Congress, Trump could veto a joint resolution to end hostilities, and overriding that veto would require two-thirds of both chambers - a threshold highly unlikely to be reached.

Their more formidable weapon is Congress’s power of the purse. In July, the House approved a $95bn budget blueprint paving the way for roughly $73bn in additional defence and intelligence spending tied to the Iran war. Republicans hope to move it through reconciliation, a fast-track budget process requiring only a simple majority in the Senate.

Their greater vulnerability is the House, where the budget resolution opening the way for the $73bn Iran war package passed 216-214, with two Republicans voting against it. One more Republican switching from yes to no would have produced a 215-215 tie and defeated the measure.

Nor would another Republican defection over the Iran war be surprising. In early June, four House Republicans joined Democrats to pass a War Powers Resolution by a vote of 215-208, directing Trump to remove US forces from hostilities with Iran unless explicitly authorised by Congress. Later that month, four Republican senators joined Democrats as the Republican-controlled Senate approved the same resolution 50-48. 

These were direct breaks with Trump over whether the war should continue without congressional authorisation. 

While the Republican defections were politically significant, they were cast on a concurrent War Powers Resolution, not on a joint resolution or bill that would go to the president and potentially become binding law.

The political incentive to break ranks could grow after the election. House Republicans elected in November will begin looking towards 2028. Trump is barred by the 22nd Amendment from being elected to a third term, while those House members will face voters again in 2028. 

If voters punish Republicans in 2026 for the war’s economic consequences, newly elected or re-elected members - especially those from competitive districts - will have a powerful incentive to distance themselves from an open-ended conflict, rather than spend another two years being held responsible for high energy prices and inflation. In a coalition balanced on a single vote, that matters enormously.

Against this backdrop, if Republicans lose the House - or both chambers - on 3 November, they will not immediately surrender power. They retain control during the lame-duck session until 3 January 2027, when the new Congress takes office; unfinished legislation then dies and must be introduced again.

That leaves Republicans only the lame-duck window to lock in the $73bn, and this timetable could work against them. 

Jules Hurst, the Pentagon’s chief financial officer, has said that congressional plans for funding the Iran war and weapons are not expected before December. He has also said that final budget decisions for fiscal year 2027 could slip into the new calendar year.

The significance is straightforward. Hurst’s timetable suggests that the decisive funding battle may not begin until December, and could run beyond 3 January. Republicans may therefore have barely four weeks to secure this contentious funding before power changes hands.

With many incumbents likely to be re-elected and thinking about their political futures, and the House margin effectively a single vote, securing another major funding package for an economically disastrous war could prove a daunting task.

Even if Republicans enact the $73bn before January, a later Congress could still bar the use of previously appropriated but unspent funds for the war.

The Vietnam War precedent is particularly instructive. In 1973, former President Richard Nixon initially vetoed a supplemental funding bill carrying an immediate cutoff of US bombing. 

Congress responded by placing the restriction on essential spending legislation. Congressional records later noted that Nixon risked leaving large parts of the federal government without spending authority if he vetoed essential funding legislation that also barred money for further US combat operations in Indochina. He ultimately accepted a compromise, setting a 15 August 1973 cutoff.

A Democratic Congress could attempt the same approach on Iran. If Democrats control both chambers, they could bar both new funds and previously appropriated, unspent money from financing offensive operations against Iran.

Trump could veto such a bill, but that is where Congress's leverage becomes formidable: he would have to veto funding for his own Pentagon, or potentially the wider government, because Congress refused to finance the Iran war. That would be far more perilous than vetoing a standalone antiwar measure, mirroring the pressure that forced Nixon to accept the Vietnam War cutoff.

If Democrats win only the House, their leverage would be narrower, but still substantial, as no fresh Iran war funding could become law without their consent.

The battlefield may not break this deadlock. The US ballot box could.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.