US House Votes 220-204 To End Trump’s Iran War, 7 Republicans Back War Powers Resolution

The US House of Representatives has voted for a third time to end the war in Iran, with seven Republicans joining Democrats in backing a war powers resolution that would halt President Donald Trump’s ability to continue military action without congressional approval.

The 220-204 vote late Tuesday comes as the conflict approaches seven months and as the war in Iran becomes an issue in political campaigns ahead of the midterm elections. According to Al Jazeera, three of the seven Republicans who supported the latest resolution were voting in favour for the first time.

The resolution has not reached Trump’s desk and would almost certainly face a veto from the president. Al Jazeera reported that lawmakers are heading home at the end of the week to campaign nearly full-time as Democrats seek to wrest control of Congress from Republicans.

Republicans join Democrats in House vote

Iowa Republican Congressman Zach Nunn explained his vote by saying that “with the negotiating window closed, sustained combat operations now require congressional authorization.”

“I will not support another open-ended war,” Nunn said.

Florida Republican Representative Brian Mast, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, questioned which military resources Democrats would want to remove from the region, where he said Iran remains a threat.

Mast said Trump is against “forever wars, and that is what he is ending” – the decades of hostilities from Iran.

“They are a continuous ongoing threat to the United States,” Mast said. “Enough is enough.”

The House vote comes less than 50 days before the midterm elections.

Iran war puts pressure on US economy and military

Trump launched the war against Iran on February 28. The conflict has dragged on for nearly seven months, with on-again, off-again deadly missile strikes being exchanged and causing disruption across the region.

A nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report released on Tuesday found that the six-month war had cost $38 billion. The cost is expected to increase by about $3 billion each month, while the conflict is projected to increase inflation by 0.5 percentage points during the first three months of 2027.

The CBO also found that the war is straining US munitions stockpiles.

Al Jazeera reported that the economic and military costs of the conflict are adding pressure on Republicans, who control both chambers of Congress. Trump had promised not to involve the United States in foreign wars when he won a second term in the White House.

Most Americans said the war in Iran had not been worth fighting, according to an AP-NORC poll conducted in July.

Congress has repeatedly challenged the war

Congress has tried repeatedly to alter the trajectory of the war against Iran, but efforts to limit the Trump administration’s military action remain a long shot as long as the president can veto the measures.

The House first approved a war powers resolution in June, followed by another in July. Both sought to halt US military action in Iran but did not reach the president’s desk.

The Senate also approved a war powers resolution to end the conflict on its 10th attempt. Republican senators, however, reversed course the following day after Trump berated them during a closed-door lunch.

The Constitution gives Congress the authority to declare war, while also giving the president, as commander-in-chief, authority to engage in some military actions. The War Powers Act, created after the Vietnam conflict, sought to impose a more specific time limit on presidential military authority, requiring congressional approval for sustained military actions after 60 or 90 days.