Can Congress Stop the Iran War?
Yes — Congress can stop the Iran war, and the way it can do it is the money. Under the Constitution, no money leaves the Treasury except by a law Congress passes, so a Congress that refuses to fund the war, or that writes a ban on spending for it into law, holds the one lever the president cannot work around. But it cannot do it with a simple vote that President Trump must obey, and it cannot do it on day one: a funding ban written into a bill can be vetoed, overriding a veto takes two-thirds of both chambers, which the Democrats do not have, and money Congress has already approved can still be spent until a new law says otherwise.
The plain reality behind the question is the gap between the record and the result. The record says Congress has already voted against this war more than once. The House rejected a war powers resolution from Rep. Ro Khanna of California and Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky in March, then passed one in September by 220 to 204, and on June 23 both chambers passed a resolution directing Trump to terminate American involvement in Iran — yet the war, which began with American and Israeli strikes on February 28, goes on, because a resolution that is never signed into law cuts off nothing. The Pentagon has told Congress the war will cost American taxpayers about 47.1 billion dollars, and every dollar of what comes next has to pass through Congress first. That is why people are asking: the votes to end the war have happened, and the war is still there.
What the actors claim cuts in two directions. Khanna, who has led the funding push, told Fox News the week before the election: "I would stop the funding. The House and the Senate should stop the funding for any further actions in the Iran war. That's what we did to stop the Vietnam War," and he argues the president cannot veto the appropriations power itself. Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, leading the effort with him since the election, says he is "not planning to vote for anything that provides any funding to fuel the war in Iran," and that if Trump is prepared to shut down the government to keep the war, that will be the president's choice. Trump, for his part, has already named his answer — "I guess I'll become Mr. Veto" — veto their bills first, then negotiate.
"I would stop the funding. The House and the Senate should stop the funding for any further actions in the Iran war. That's what we did to stop the Vietnam War." — Rep. Ro Khanna
The common-sense principle is plain. A war is not stopped by a statement; it is stopped when the money stops, because aircraft, ships, missiles and deployments all run on appropriations. By the same token, a ban that one man can veto is not yet a ban — it is an opening offer. The honest version of Congress's power is the refusal itself: if the House and Senate simply pass no new money for this war, there is nothing on the president's desk to veto, and the war is left living on whatever funding remains.
The consequence is where the fight now lands. The first test is not in January, when the new Democratic Congress is sworn in, but on December 11, when the stopgap law funding the government runs out and a new spending measure must pass the outgoing Congress — Khanna has already urged that that measure prohibit financing any American combat activities in Iran. If Democrats hold that line, the choice Van Hollen describes becomes real: sign a funding bill that fences off the war, veto it and own a shutdown, or negotiate. If they do not hold it, the resolutions will keep passing and the war will keep being funded, and the question people are asking will answer itself — so if the one lever that works is never pulled when pulling it costs something, what exactly did the voters' verdict on this war change?
The details that matter are these. The 1973 precedent Khanna cites is real, and it is also a warning about how this actually ends: Congress passed a spending bill barring funds for combat in Cambodia in June 1973, President Richard Nixon vetoed it, the House failed to override him, and the cutoff became law only in a negotiated bill signed on July 1 that barred combat funds across Southeast Asia after August 15 — the bombing stopped on that date, and Congress passed the War Powers Act over Nixon's veto later that year. The bills for this war already exist and none has been enacted: the No WAR Act in the House, the No Funds for Illegal Wars Act, and Senator Bernie Sanders's No War Against Iran Act in the Senate, each of which would bar federal money for military force against Iran without congressional authorization. Support for the funding strategy has been voiced by Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on House Appropriations, and Rep. Adam Smith, the top Democrat on House Armed Services. And the arithmetic has not moved: Democrats will hold working majorities in both chambers from January 3, not the two-thirds a veto override demands, which is why every road to stopping this war runs through a funding bill the president needs — and through December 11 first.