With US Congress flipped, Trump faces hard choices on the Iran war

LONDON – US President Donald Trump has never been freer to bomb Iran than he is at the moment.True, he suffered a severe drubbing from the US electorate. It’s also undoubtedly true that one of the chief reasons for this wholesale electoral defeat was the unpopular war which Trump launched against Iran.The new Democrat-controlled Congress does not convene until January. Trump has been fairly explicit that, the moment the Nov 3 midterm elections are over, shooting time in the Gulf may re-start.The next few days will be critical in this respect. Any decision Trump now takes is fraught with serious dangers.Defeated but unrestrictedLegally, Trump retains every US commander-in-chief authority he exercised when he ordered the start of Operation Epic Fury – as the latest war against Iran is called – on Feb 28, 2026. He keeps such powers until Jan 20, 2029, when his presidential term expires.If Trump wants one more supposedly decisive strike against Iran, the period between now and Jan 3, 2027 – when the new Congress starts work – is optimal. Meanwhile, the Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier group is in the South China Sea, sailing speedily towards the Gulf.Money is also not an immediate obstacle to a resumption of hostilities. Congress has never passed a dedicated appropriation for the war. The White House sent a US$87.6 billion (S$111.8 billion) supplemental financial request in June, but this was never debated.The war has therefore been paid for out of existing military appropriations, unspent balances from the 2025 allocations of funds, and the Pentagon’s own discretion – which is why Trump can continue to pursue this campaign for at least the next two months.Financial and political obstaclesThe snag for the US administration is that the essential interceptors, standoff weapons and the industrial base required to replace all the munitions needed for the war cannot be funded beyond the current financial authority, which expires on Dec 11.The current Republican-controlled Congress can still authorise new funds before Christmas, but that won’t be easy because the Republicans are now deeply split over the wisdom of the war.Vice-President J.D. Vance’s open admission that the Republicans lost the midterm elections because of the Iran war has exacerbated these divisions. No Republican lawmaker who dreams of returning to active politics in the near future would wish to be associated with the war. So, although the US Congress cannot order the US Navy home, it can decline to buy the bombs required.The deeper constraint on Trump is political. Vance has spent eight months as the administration’s least enthusiastic supporter of a war he privately resisted, and he has now converted that position into a public one, with an evident eye to the next US presidential election in 2028. This is an argument between a president with nothing left to lose and a vice-president with everything still to win, and it will run inside the executive branch for the next two years.Democratic lawmakers will hold hearings on the war and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth’s conduct of the campaign. There is talk of a Hegseth impeachment vote even before the newly-elected Congress convenes. Republican Representative Thomas Massie had filed articles of impeachment against Hegseth on Sept 15, accusing him of abusing his office by executing an order for hostilities against Iran without approval by Congress.None of this will end the conflict, but it does make the conduct of the war much more difficult for Trump, since every US official is now keen to distance himself or herself from this military adventure.The US military alliance with Israel is now a liability. On the eve of the midterm elections, Trump announced that the US would end roughly US$4 billion in annual military aid to Israel by the conclusion of this year, explicitly because Republicans are damaged by it.Military optionsThe military situation in the Gulf will not get any easier. Decision makers inside Iran appear to have drawn the conclusion that the White House is now hobbled by the outcome of the midterm elections, and are therefore hardening their stance.Iran is now demanding an immediate lifting of the US naval blockade, a waiving of sanctions, release of most Iranian frozen funds, and a ceasefire that extends to Hezbollah – the Iranian proxy in Lebanon, in return for agreeing to open the Strait of Hormuz.Trump is highly unlikely to accept such conditions, partly because they will signify a very public defeat for the US, and also because they won’t solve either the military challenge from Iran, or the problem of high oil prices. Indeed, an Iranian political victory would make oil exports riskier and more expensive, and only accelerate regional tensions.Tehran has also resumed making ballistic missiles using stockpiled components in underground facilities and has ramped up efforts to target US personnel in the Middle East.There is also considerable evidence that Iran has regenerated military capacity faster than every US intelligence timeline predicted. US and Israeli intelligence assessments put Iran’s restarted missile production at somewhere between 50 and 200-plus missiles a month. Just as significantly, Iran is busy fortifying its nuclear installations.The US military is already conducting low-key military strikes on Iran. On Nov 3, US aircraft struck Iranian missile sites after batteries fired at American aircraft over Hormuz.Sensors, software integration and air defence systems are the key US targets at the moment, partly because Iran finds it hardest to replace such military assets, but also because the destruction of Iran’s air defences is a necessary prelude for future action.Trump has repeatedly threatened to rain down bombs on Pickaxe Mountain, a heavily fortified site south of the Iranian capital, close to the country’s major Natanz nuclear enrichment facility. But in his usual “maybe I will, but maybe I won’t” tactic, the President has also periodically dismissed the idea.What remains clear, however, is that the logic that makes the next eight weeks the optimal window for a US military strike is the same logic that makes a negotiated settlement harder: both Iran and the US now have reasons to test whether the other has been weakened.