'Freed up or congressionally constrained': Is Trump more or less likely to resume war on Iran?

The Democrats secured a sweeping midterm election victory on Tuesday, but one critical question remains unresolved: is US President Donald Trump now more or less likely to resume the war on Iran with the election cycle over? Before the midterms, the US appeared to be on the verge of launching a new, wide-scale attack against Iran. The families of US diplomats were evacuated from the region, and additional US military assets flooded into the Middle East.

Arab leaders issued cryptic warnings about a devastating new conflict. But the attack many diplomats and analysts expected around election day never materialised. In fact, Republicans are now blaming the Iran war, and even Israel, for their blistering defeat at the hands of the Democrats. Trump said on Wednesday that "it's largely true" the Iran war and high fuel prices tied to the conflict led to his party’s historic defeat. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters "The reason we lost is the war.

The president himself said so last night," Vice President JD Vance said more bluntly on Wednesday, also blaming the Trump administration’s ties to Israel for his party’s thrashing. Notably, the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, posted his support for Vance’s analysis on X. People familiar with the White House have described him as an ardent anti-interventionist who has opposed the US war on Iran. 'We are going to end this war' A nine percent collapse in oil prices on Wednesday reflects a shift in expectations.

Merissa Khurma, founder and CEO of Amena Strategies, told Middle East Eye that an election outcome could see Trump’s inner circle and Congress constrain the president from resuming the war. “This all depends on how elected members in the House and Senate work together to ensure a change of course with Iran and what Trump is told by his advisors,” Khurma, who is also a non-resident fellow at the Baker Institute at Rice University, told MEE.

US midterm elections 2026: Abdul El-Sayed becomes first Muslim elected to Senate Read More » Several reasons could dismiss this reasoning when it comes to Trump. The president has boasted about his “veto power” over Congress. While Trump told Politico on Tuesday during election coverage that he didn't want to just "sit around there for two years vetoing everything", the 80-year-old billionaire who is prohibited from running for a third term may also feel unconstrained by lawmakers.

Under the Constitution, only Congress has the authority to declare war, but the last US president who sought out congressional approval for the use of military force was George W Bush in 2001 and 2002. Still, experts say the scale of the Democrats' victory could constrain Trump. With 54 seats in the US Senate and 237 in the House, the party has a comfortable cushion that will give it subpoena and investigative power. “It is hard to predict what Trump will do, but it matters how Democrats work with Republicans willing to cooperate on stopping further escalation,” Khurma said.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer put the Iran war at the heart of the Democratic Party’s agenda on Wednesday. “We are going to end the war,” Schumer said. "We have some Republicans already who have joined us in ending the war, and the Founding Fathers had the power of the purse as one of the ways of deterring a president who does war without the consent of the American people,” he added. Despite this rhetoric and downward move in oil prices, the deployment of military assets in the Middle East suggests escalation is likely. 'Trump is freed up' The US has two aircraft carrier groups and an amphibious assault ship in the Arabian Sea.

A third aircraft carrier group is arriving in the region. Houthis launched cross border raids on Saudi military posts, sources say Read More » Meanwhile, Iran’s leadership appeared to savour Trump’s political collapse. “The Iranian nation handed Trump a strategic defeat on the battlefield and in the Hormuz - and a POLITICAL DEFEAT in Washington,” Mohsen Rezaei, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said in a post on X. Even as Trump acknowledged the Iran war played a part in his party’s stunning defeat, he expressed no doubts about launching a war on Iran at the start of the year.

"I can tell you that as far as that war is concerned, I would have done nothing different,” he said. Some experts say that a bitter US president with no electoral constraints may decide to resume attacking Iran. “If anything, Trump is now freed up for another round of strikes,” Alan Eyre, a former senior State Department expert on Iran, now at the Middle East Institute, told MEE. “The new Congress won’t be seated until January, and even then it is questionable how much real ability they will have to constrain the president, so I don’t think it changes much,” he said.

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