Midterm Rebuke Leaves Trump Cornered And Dangerous On Iran

“I don't think there's much that Democrats can do in Congress to stop Trump if he wants to further escalate the war,” said Michael Cohen, a nonresident senior fellow at the Stimson Center think tank, recalling how Democratic victories in the 2006 midterm wave election failed to prevent George W. Bush's subsequent troop surge in Iraq.

That precedent lends weight to warnings Democratic Senator Chris Murphy had issued before Tuesday's vote, saying the administration had briefed lawmakers on possible renewed operations against Iran. Though officials presented it as short-term, Murphy called the plan“insane,” warning it risked spiraling into a much wider war.

He warned that carrying it out would cause“devastating escalation and the likely destruction of our commitment to the rule of law.” Murphy also cited reports of potential strikes against civilian infrastructure, raising concerns that an expanded bombing campaign would violate international law and worsen the conflict.

Pressure for to intensify the war may also come from Israel. Joe Kent, who resigned as director of the US National Counterterrorism Center over the war, claims that Israeli military actions could provoke Iranian retaliation against US forces in the region, putting pressure on Trump to deepen rather than end the conflict.

“Our troops right now are being used by the Israelis as bait to drag us back into this war,” Kent said in a recent interview. He claimed that Israel seeks US participation in a regime change campaign against Tehran, with further American casualties potentially making a withdrawal politically humiliating for Trump.

Cohen of the Stimson Center argued that Washington should abandon the quest for a decisive military outcome.“The goal of the war should be to end the war,” he said, adding that prolonged hostilities offered the US no strategic benefit, destabilized the region and imposed mounting costs on the global economy.

“There is no way to win this. There is no winning play. The only winning play is to get out,” Cohen said. Yet he warned that Trump's reluctance to disengage without declaring victory could encourage another offensive, potentially provoking Iranian retaliation against pipelines and other energy infrastructure across the Gulf.

Kole Campbell, a risk analyst and former US military intelligence officer, questioned whether another bombing campaign could achieve regime change in Tehran.“There are no known cases in world history in which conventional air power alone has overthrown a government,” he told Asia Times.

Campbell warned that further strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities could have the opposite of their intended effect. Additional attacks would“very likely drive Iran to begin or restart a nuclear weapons program,” he assessed, if US and Israeli strikes had not already supplied that incentive.

For all Washington's destructive power, Campbell argued, another sustained bombing campaign could at most further degrade or delay Iran's nuclear capabilities, not eliminate them. Achieving that military objective, he said, would require a ground invasion of the Iranian mainland, exposing US forces to potentially devastating casualties.

Kelly Grieco, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center, said Washington's operational successes obscured a deeper strategic miscalculation.“The military won, if you will, the war that they decided to fight, which was a war of destruction,” she said at a Washington forum on Thursday.

But Iran fought on different terms, using missiles and drones to threaten shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, strike regional energy infrastructure and damage US bases. Grieco argued that Iran had blunted America's air superiority by imposing economic and military costs that Washington has struggled to absorb.

Tehran's underlying calculation, Grieco suggested, was that Iran could withstand devastation longer than Americans would tolerate economic disruption. Washington was fighting a“war of choice,” she said, while Tehran regarded the conflict as existential, betting that American resolve would eventually falter.

Prolonging the war would also further strain Washington's dwindling weapons inventories. US strikes on Iran expended large numbers of Tomahawk cruise missiles and JASSMs, long-range weapons Grieco described as“the very things that are most needed, particularly in the Indo-Pacific,” where US forces face competing strategic demands vis-a-vis China.

That strategic strain extends to missile defenses. A September Congressional Budget Office assessment estimated that the US had expended between half and two-thirds of its combined inventory of certain interceptors, including Patriot and THAAD missiles, since June 2025. Replenishing those stocks could take at least five years, it said.

Those shortages could give the incoming Democratic Congress another avenue to challenge the war.“I do think the power of the purse still matters,” Grieco said, pointing to Democrat-led investigations and spending restrictions that could constrain a prolonged campaign, even if lawmakers cannot immediately prevent fresh strikes.

She also raised the possibility of legislation requiring congressional authorization before the White House draws further on scarce interceptors and long-range missiles. Such restrictions could force a more explicit debate over whether additional attacks justify sacrificing military readiness elsewhere.

Beyond congressional pressure, the central question is whether Washington can negotiate an end to the hostilities. Grieco suggested that the most realistic outcome would resemble the failed June memorandum of understanding, which envisaged reopening the Strait of Hormuz as Washington lifted its blockade, while leaving the nuclear dispute unresolved.

Such an agreement would fall short of the clear-cut victory Trump has repeatedly sought. Grieco warned that criticism of any concessions to Tehran, even from known opponents of the war, make it politically easier for Trump to escalate the conflict than to negotiate a face-saving exit.