The Senate Just Failed — Again — to Rein In Trump's Iran War

Twice now, Congress has tried to put real limits on how the U.S.-Iran war is fought, and twice the effort has stalled in the same place: the Senate. This week's attempt — a resolution criticizing the administration's handling of the conflict — failed to advance, coming just hours after the House passed a separate bill aimed at limiting the president's war-making authority in the region.

Why war-powers votes keep failing

Under the War Powers Resolution of 1973, Congress has real, if rarely used, authority to force a president to withdraw U.S. forces from a conflict that hasn't been formally declared. In practice, that authority has almost never been successfully exercised against a sitting president of either party — Congress members from the president's own party typically decline to break ranks, and the votes needed to override an expected veto rarely materialize. This week's failure follows that pattern closely: the Senate measure, led by Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, fell 47–49, with only Sen. Susan Collins of Maine crossing party lines to support it and Sen. John Fetterman the lone Democrat voting against. The House measure that passed hours earlier, 214–208, drew four Republican votes but remains non-binding — a symbolic rebuke rather than a legal constraint on the war.

What's driving the growing unease in Congress

The dollar figure isn't the only number climbing. According to Pentagon disclosures reported by NPR, 18 U.S. troops have died since fighting broke out in February, with four of those deaths coming since July 17 alone, and nearly 500 troops injured overall, about a fifth of them in just the past two weeks. That acceleration helps explain why even senators who've generally stuck with the administration, including Rand Paul, have begun questioning the war's direction publicly. It's the pace of the losses, more than the war's existence, that appears to be moving opinion inside the Republican caucus — even if it hasn't yet moved enough votes.

What the split votes reveal

The gap between the House passing its own limiting measure and the Senate failing to advance a comparable one isn't unusual — the two chambers frequently move at different speeds and with different vote thresholds on war-powers questions, and a measure passing one chamber is often more symbolic than binding without companion action in the other. What it does reveal is a Congress that remains publicly divided on a war now well into its costliest phase, with lawmakers from both parties expressing discomfort with the war's direction in hearings even as formal legislative attempts to constrain it keep coming up short.

Congressional aides say further attempts are likely as the war's costs keep climbing and its endpoint remains undefined — but for now, the responsibility for how and when it ends remains almost entirely with the executive branch.

Other details here are informed by reporting from CNN, CNBC, and CBS News.