The House and Senate, in votes Thursday on ending the Iran war, came to different conclusions, but the majority of voting members of Congress said it is time to bring U.S. troops home.
The House, for the second time, formally called on President Donald Trump to end the war, approving 214-208 a nonbinding concurrent resolution (H Con Res 89) by Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash.
The Senate, in an 47-49 vote, fell just short of discharging from the Foreign Relations Committee a binding joint resolution (S J Res 180) by Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., that would halt U.S. involvement in the conflict.
Despite the conflicting results, the votes indicate that political pressure on Trump to find a way out of the war is at a minimum not decreasing, as the conflict itself has flared in recent weeks and may widen further.
In the Senate vote, Democrats and Republicans mostly stuck together as usual, with a few exceptions on either side.
Two GOP members who have at least once previously supported an Iran war powers resolution were absent on Thursday: Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. Also not voting were two Republican senators who have previously opposed similar resolutions: Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Katie Britt of Alabama.
Sen. Susan Collins of Maine once again split with the majority of Republicans and voted for Van Hollen’s resolution.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., who has voted both for and against war powers resolutions, voted no on Thursday, later telling reporters he thought the resolution would trigger an “immediate” withdrawal that would not be “reasonable.” And Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., continued his pattern of defecting from the Democrat position with another vote opposing an Iran war powers resolution.
“This is a strategic blunder on a massive scale,” Van Hollen said of the war in floor remarks ahead of the vote. “It’s a self-inflicted wound on our country. And for what?”
In the House, meanwhile, as with previous war powers votes, GOP Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Warren Davidson of Ohio and Tom Barrett of Michigan voted with Democrats to push the resolution into adoption.
Congress already adopted a similar resolution last month. But as a concurrent resolution, it did not go to the president for his signature and therefore had little power to actually force him to withdraw troops from the war.
Upping the pressure
Democrats maintain the repeated votes serve a purpose — to force Republicans to go on the record about a politically unpopular war amid mounting casualties and to send a message to Trump that Congress is fed up.
“We’re going to keep the pressure on our Republican colleagues,” said Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., in a floor speech before the vote. “It’s Congress that has the power to bring war and so it is perfectly appropriate and right and part of our obligation as the opposition party to force our Republican colleagues to vote again and again and again until they see the light.”
Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., told reporters after the vote that there are multiple goals in holding the votes.
“The main goal is we want to end this war, stop spending this money, stop putting our servicemembers’ lives at risk,” Crow said. “But we also have different goals, and that is to hold people accountable who have turned their back on their duty and on the Constitution and on their constituents, and not allowing them to hide.”
Later Thursday, Rep. Gregory W. Meeks, D-N.Y., the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, introduced a resolution that would, if adopted, allow him to file a lawsuit to enforce the war powers resolution Congress previously adopted. Specifically, it would require Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to serve as the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit, which a release from Meeks’ office said would address concerns about legal standing.
Previewing the new resolution Thursday morning, Meeks told reporters he plans to try to force a vote on it once the House returns from its summer recess.
“I’m going to force a vote on that so that we can now go to the courts and sue the administration for not following the will of Congress,” Meeks said.
Mideast escalation
The latest vote comes as the war heats up again after a lull in fighting while the Trump administration negotiated with Iran on a framework for further negotiations to end the war.
Last month, the Trump administration announced it had reached a memorandum of understanding with Iran. But less than a month later, Trump declared the MOU “over.” On July 10, he formally notified Congress fighting in the war had resumed.
Over the weekend, three U.S. troops were killed in an Iranian attack on a base in Jordan, while a fourth U.S. service member in Iraq died during what was supposed to be a controlled detonation of an unexploded Iranian drone.
Iran’s proxy group in Yemen, the Houthis, struck two Saudi tankers in the Red Sea on Wednesday. Such attacks could choke off another bottleneck in the global economy in addition to the ongoing throttling of trade in the Strait of Hormuz as a result of the war.
Apparently in response, the price of a barrel of Brent crude oil exceeded $100 on Thursday for the first time since May.
The national average price of a gallon of gas in the United States averaged just over $4 on Thursday, per AAA. And polls show the war is unpopular among Americans.
Trump has responded with escalating threats, posting on Truth Social on Thursday that “major military punishment will be inflicted upon Iran and, of course, the Houthis, themselves” should the Houthis continue attacking ships.
U.S. forces have also conducted 12 consecutive nights of strikes against Iran, with U.S. Central Command saying Wednesday that night’s strikes targeted “maritime capabilities, missile and drone storage facilities, coastal surveillance sites and air defense assets.”
Savannah Behrmann contributed to this report.
