In his latest campaign video, Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan’s Democratic Senate nominee, stands outside a gas station, points at the prices of gas and diesel, and blames "a stupid war we shouldn’t be fighting." His Republican opponent, former Representative Mike Rogers, stops short of that verdict. But Rogers, whom President Donald Trump has endorsed, says the war must "end quickly," two months after opposing moves to revoke the president’s war powers. In Iowa, Trump-backed Senate nominee Ashley Hinson also wants a "successful and immediate end." So Senate nominees in both parties now say they want the war over, a seemingly unifying voice on Iran.
But they disagree about the peace, which Democrats would help shape should they win the House in November, and perhaps even the Senate if the blue wave is more like a tsunami. A new Iran settlement that actually lasts must answer two questions. Tehran will ask whether Washington will honor it after the next election.
The most credible answer to that is an agreement backed by both parties in Congress. Washington will ask whether Tehran will even honor it. That answer has to be terms inspectors can verify.
The recent history is not particularly encouraging. The 2015 nuclear deal cleared Congress without a single Republican vote, and Trump withdrew the U.S. in May 2018. His own June memorandum with Tehran was declared dead within three weeks.
For Democrats, answering the first means embracing some of Trump’s objections to the last deal, to minimize the chances of a future Republican leader putting it in the trash again. Answering the second means turning their stated principles into specified terms. On goals, Democrats sit closer to Trump than their rhetoric implies.
Representative Gregory Meeks, the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s top Democrat, faulted the war for leaving Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs intact and its leverage over Hormuz undiminished, urging multilateral diplomacy to reopen the strait. "Despite all the costs, none of the administration's stated objectives with Iran have been achieved," Meeks said. Virginia’s Senator Tim Kaine called Trump’s June memorandum too generous, saying that if reports of its terms were accurate, Washington was "giving a lot more to get a lot less" than in 2015.
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