Aletho News

Midterm loss gives Congress power to rein in US war on Iran

Al Mayadeen| November 5, 2026

Tuesday’s midterm elections have left US President Donald Trump facing a Congress with the constitutional means to restrain the US war on Iran, while strengthening Tehran’s hand in negotiations over its memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Washington.

Retired US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski and Mohammad Marandi, professor of English literature and Orientalism at the University of Tehran, reached that assessment on Al Mayadeen’s The Grand Standoff on Wednesday.

They tied the Republican losses to Trump’s abandoned promises to end wars and prosecute the “Epstein class,” the economic toll of the war on Iran, and a growing American backlash against Israeli influence in Washington.

Marandi called the result “a major turning point,” though he stressed that the war is far from over.

Congress holds the power to act

The Congress to be seated in January 2027 “was elected to stop the Iran war,” Kwiatkowski argued, and it has several levers to do so. House appropriators can freeze funds not yet disbursed, she explained, while the Senate can pass binding resolutions and refuse a declaration of war, which the Constitution requires.

She noted that Trump has already exceeded the 60-day limit on military action and dismissed his move of halting at day 58 and restarting the clock as “a joke.” A non-binding Senate resolution criticizing the war passed this summer by only a vote or two, she recalled, but a Senate majority now opposed to it could bar him from acting and censure him.

Kwiatkowski cautioned that change will not come overnight, since AIPAC has lobbied lawmakers of both parties for decades. She pointed out that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer still avoids admitting the war was fought for “Israel,” even though Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and War Secretary Pete Hegseth have acknowledged that Netanyahu wanted it.

Marandi stressed that the vote also raises the political cost of escalation. A renewed attack would be seen as illegitimate because Americans voted against the war, he predicted, adding that “the price would be much heavier for him and his allies” than before the election.

‘Israel,’ AIPAC take the hit

Both guests named “Israel” as the election’s biggest loser.

Marandi pointed out that Vice President JD Vance himself conceded “Israel” was a key factor in the Republican defeat, since all four reasons Vance cited link directly or indirectly to it.

Kwiatkowski judged Vance’s reading correct but suggested he is trying to distance himself from a sinking Trump, and doubted he would act on it after helping Trump attack anti-war conservatives.

Winning Candidates refused AIPAC money and used the word genocide, Kwiatkowski observed, singling out incoming senators Talarico of Texas and El-Sayed of Michigan, who both voiced moral revulsion at US taxpayer money funding a genocide in Gaza. “That is a slap in Netanyahu’s face,” she said, adding that candidates who defy AIPAC and still win will encourage others to follow.

Marandi cited polls showing young Jewish Americans oppose genocide, apartheid and ethnic cleansing, and credited Americans with waking up “despite being the most propagandized people in the world.” He warned against naivety about the Democratic leadership, though, noting that Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries backed Biden’s policy on Gaza.

A president unlikely to change course

Kwiatkowski rejected Trump’s claim that election results would have been different had he been on the ballot, describing the vote as a referendum on his executive-centered rule.

She also doubted he would adjust, arguing that “the Trump who is 80 years old is irrational” and that only Congress and sustained public pressure can constrain him.

In her view, he is more likely to pick a fight with a Democratic Congress over Ukraine, where Democrats want to keep funding Kiev and maintain tariffs on Russia.

Iran prepares for war

Marandi warned that a US attack could come at any moment. Iranian forces are on full alert, three US aircraft carriers are in place, and “the nights will be very dark” as the weekend approaches, he said.

He added that the Axis of Resistance is active on all fronts, from Lebanon to Sanaa and from Iraq to Tehran, and extended congratulations to Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq and Palestine for helping shift opinion in the United States.

Iran, he continued, will keep tightening the noose in the Strait of Hormuz and demand full US compliance with the MOU. Tehran would shorten the implementation timeline and is ready to “sugarcoat the MOU,” but it will not withdraw its seven demands or allow the substance to change.

He contended that Iran is now in a much stronger position and Trump a much weaker one, noting that Jimmy Carter, whose comparison Trump has long feared, “looks far more successful” in hindsight.

Carter’s shadow over Trump

The discussion turned to the anniversary of the 1979 seizure of the US embassy in Tehran, which Marandi argued Americans are taught to see as the origin of the US’ conflict with Iran, as though the takeover were an irrational act with no cause. Iranians view it differently, he explained, because it followed decades of US interference.

Washington overthrew Iran’s government in 1953, installed the Shah and helped build the SAVAK secret police. During the revolution, the army killed protesters across the country, including on Black Friday in Tehran, and Carter phoned the Shah the next day to reaffirm his support.

After the revolution, Marandi continued, the embassy supported separatist groups and kept contact with officers who might carry out a coup. The decision to admit the Shah to the United States then revived fears of a repeat of 1953, and that was what pushed Iranians to take the embassy.

He hoped that Americans, now more politically aware because of the war, would come to understand that history better.

Kwiatkowski saw the same continuity in Washington’s present-day aims, arguing that US goals toward Iran have barely changed since Carter and still amount to making Iran “kneel before the hegemon.”

She called it a long war, but affirmed that “Iran is winning it.”

November 5, 2026 - Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | Iran, Israel, Middle East, Palestine, United States, Zionism