As the war in Iran approaches the three-week mark with no end in sight, lawmakers on Capitol Hill are at odds over one key matter: How will this end?
“That’s a loaded question,” Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told MS NOW.
“That’s a question that doesn’t lend itself to a quick answer in the hallway,” Wicker said. “So I defer on that … I think it’s going to end well.”
For many lawmakers — supporters and skeptics alike — the answer remains elusive. Much of the uncertainty stems from Iran’s ability to dictate the pace and scope of the conflict, as well as the administration’s failure to articulate a clear endgame.
“The problem is, they have no endgame at all,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “So we now have an open-ended conflict where Iran’s goal is to drag this out and make it as painful as possible for America and our partners.”
Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., another Foreign Relations member, said he’s sat in several classified briefings on the war and has not received a clear answer on how this conflict concludes. But he still had an answer to how it ends: “badly.”
“I have not gotten a clearer or more concise answer to that question out of the public eye than I’ve gotten in the public eye,” he said.
Pressed on how the conflict ends, Rep. Pat Ryan, D-N.Y., an Army combat veteran, said he’s been asking that question for weeks.
“These were questions I was asking even in the runup to this, when we knew we were moving carrier strike groups: ‘What’s the strategy? What’s the aim?’ They still can’t answer it in classified briefings, the administration can’t answer,” Ryan said. “It’s clear they really got themselves into an escalatory situation with no plan for success, and now less and less ability to deescalate and get out of it.”
It’s not just Democrats who have raised these concerns. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., told MS NOW “it’s hard to say” how the war with Iran will end because there are so many outstanding questions the administration needs to answer.
“In order to determine, to kind of score how we will win — I’m assuming that, will it end well or not, versus the details of it — that can only be measured by being clear on the strategic and tactical objectives,” Tillis said. “I think that’s what we need to hear now that we’ve gotten beyond the phase of neutralizing a lot of Iran’s capabilities to export terror and to build nuclear weapons.”
“What does the next phase look like?” he asked.
The uncertainty on Capitol Hill mirrors the shifting signals from the White House.
On March 1, the day after the initial U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran, Trump told The New York Times the conflict could last “four to five weeks.” The next day, he said, “Whatever the time is, it’s OK; whatever it takes,” noting that the U.S. has the ability “to go far longer than that.”
On March 6, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “The achievable objectives of Operation Epic Fury we expect to last about four to six weeks.”
On March 7, Trump called the conflict “a short excursion.” And on March 9, he said, “The war is very complete, pretty much.”
But on Thursday, more than a week after those comments, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced “the largest strike package yet,” alongside administration plans to push for a $200 billion war supplemental — a price tag that suggests a prolonged conflict.
Asked how close the U.S. is to achieving the president’s objectives in the region, Hegseth told reporters he didn’t want to “set a definitive timeframe on that.”
“But as we’ve said, we’re on plan,” he continued.
Hegseth later said when the conflict ends would ultimately be up to the president.
“So no time set on that, but we’re very much on track. Absolutely,” he said.
Most Republicans are fine with that.
When MS NOW asked Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, when the Iran conflict might end, he said that was a question for the commander in chief.
Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., a close Trump ally, also deferred to the president.
“The war ends when the president feels comfortable that he’s destroyed their ability to produce nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles that hurt our troops,” Scott said.
And when asked if a diplomatic solution would be needed, he said, “You’d hope there would be, but it’s up to the president.”
For Democrats, leaving all these questions up to the president is a recipe for disaster.
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., predicted that the war’s end would hinge more on a personality-based decision than intelligence.
“I think the war probably ends when Trump has a conversation with one of his weirdo Mar-a-Lago friends on a Friday night and calls Rubio in the middle of the night and says ‘the war is over,’” Murphy told MS NOW. “It will have nothing to do with strategic endgame priorities. It will have nothing to do with our national security. The war will end when Donald Trump wakes up and thinks that he is tired of talking about the war.” Murphy added that he had just come from another closed-door briefing and that it was clear to him that the administration has “no concept of how this ends.” “I mean, it’s criminal,” Murphy said. That critique comes after Trump said recently that the war would be over “when I feel it — feel it in my bones.” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., defended that approach, saying Trump’s “bones are informed by the intelligence.” And other Republicans supported that sentiment, expressing confidence that military leaders, including Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Dan Caine, would provide the president with the guidance needed to make the right call. But the decision on when this war ends is not entirely up to Trump. Iran maintains a significant say over the conflict, particularly after closing the Strait of Hormuz — a critical choke point through which 20% of the world’s oil flows every year. The move complicates a potential U.S. exit, making it harder to completely withdraw or claim victory when global markets are at risk. “You’ve heard many times in similar settings — the enemy gets a vote,” Coons said. “He can say it’s over, but it’s not gonna be over until Iran stops striking international shipping in the Straits of Hormuz, carrying out terrorist attacks against our bases and embassies in the region, and threatening our core interests.” That reality underscores the importance of diplomacy. But at the moment, with no real negotiations happening and most of the communication coming from Trump’s Truth Social account, there’s little hope for a sudden agreement. Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said the war in Iran would end “with America having destroyed Iran’s missile production capability, drone production capability, Navy, Air Force — whatever new facilities they’ve begun to produce a nuclear weapon.” But when asked if a diplomatic solution would be needed to close the book on the conflict, Kennedy recognized the difficulty that path presents. “Everybody would prefer a diplomatic solution, but Iran has to agree to it,” Kennedy said. “And if anything it should be clear to the American people, it is that the new supreme leader, like the old supreme leader of Iran, is crazy as a bed bug, and they are determined to get a nuclear weapon, and if they get a nuclear weapon, they’ll use it.” Which is why some Republicans have acknowledged this conflict could drag on. Sen. Jim Justice, R-W.Va., said, “However long I think it’ll go on, it’ll go on longer.” “It’ll be really difficult to wrap this thing up,” he said. Still, most Republicans in Congress seem to think Trump can claim victory anytime he wants, given that he has already hampered Iran’s nuclear program. As Rep. John Rutherford, R-Fla., said, the “off ramp” is not based on regime change, “but simply removing the ability of Iran to wreak havoc in that region.” “And that’s pretty much ‘mission accomplished,’” Rutherford said. Kevin Frey contributed to this report.
Mychael Schnell is a reporter for MS NOW. Recommended
