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national defense authorization act
Trump Cannot Win the Iran War
The question, known before the war and abundantly clear now, is not whether the United States can inflict more damage on Iran. The question is how additional damage would produce a victory.
Sep 13, 2026
Six months into the second US-Israeli war on Iran, the Trump administration’s message is that Iran is weakening, the United States is winning, and the costs of war will be temporary. That narrative is hard to sustain as the war drags on, gas prices rise, US munitions stocks dwindle, and a majority of Americans oppose the war, opposition they will make known in the November midterm elections.
Despite overwhelming military and economic pressure, as well as the loss of a head of state, the Islamic Republic of Iran is still fighting, still capable of escalating, and still unwilling to surrender. The United States and Israel have caused enormous destruction, without compelling Tehran to accept Washington’s demands. The question, known before the war and abundantly clear now, is not whether the United States can inflict more damage on Iran. The question is how additional damage would produce a victory.
Last week President Donald Trump dismissed the conflict as “small potatoes,” minimizing a war that has lasted far longer and imposed greater costs than his administration initially suggested. The conflict has killed 18 American service members, wounded more than 750, and cost US taxpayers at least $37.5 billion.
The cost to Iran has been far greater. By June 10, at least 3,468 people had been killed and more than 26,500 injured in US and Israeli attacks, according to figures from Iran’s Ministry of Health. Civilian casualties have been recorded throughout the conflict, including in strikes on an elementary school in Minab in February and on a wedding gathering in southern Iran in September. The Iranian Red Crescent reported that more than 125,000 civilian units had been damaged by April, including approximately 100,000 homes. Iran also submitted a list of 134 damaged cultural sites to UNESCO, while Reuters documented damage to historic buildings and protected sites.
The United States can continue to destroy targets and degrade Iranian capabilities, but unless that pressure changes Iran’s political calculations, further escalation risks producing more destruction without producing a settlement.
Iran demonstrated that it can impose substantial costs on the United States. An analysis found that Iranian strikes damaged 15 US military sites across the region, including barracks, hangars, fuel depots, aircraft, radar systems, communications equipment, and air-defense systems.
US Central Command disputed descriptions of the damage. The strikes nevertheless exposed the vulnerability of fixed US facilities and the cost of defending them against sustained Iranian missile and drone attacks.
“The Trump administration—and likely the Pentagon itself—overestimated the ability of the United States and Israel to quickly subdue Iran’s military,” Harrison Mann, associate director for campaigns at Win Without War and a former US Army officer and intelligence official, told the International Policy Journal (IPJ). “They were never able to locate or destroy the majority of Iran’s drones and missiles, nor destroy enough of its air defenses that US aircraft could fly freely over the entire country.”
“Ultimately, Trump discovered it’s not possible to fight a prepared, 21st-century military—even one objectively weaker than America’s—and still conceal the costs from the public like previous US military interventions in the region,” Mann added.
This asymmetry is central to the war. Iran does not need to defeat the United States conventionally. To deny Washington a decisive political victory, it needs only to preserve its governing institutions, retain sufficient retaliatory capacity, and make continued warfare costly enough that the United States cannot impose its preferred outcome at an acceptable price.
The Trump administration says it has severely degraded Iran’s missile, naval, and nuclear capabilities. Tactical destruction is not itself a political end state. Iran continues to retaliate, to interfere with traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, and to reject Washington’s principal negotiating demands. Further escalation could reproduce the same stalemate at a higher price.
A growing resistance in the United States is skeptical of the war’s objectives, doubtful of its constitutional basis, and tired of the costs.
“Trump is facing unprecedented public and congressional resistance to his war on Iran. The possibility that he may not get an annual National Defense Authorization Act from Congress for the first time in the 65-year history of such legislation is a major governing failure reflecting his massive strategic failure in the Persian Gulf,” Dylan Williams, vice president of government affairs at Center for International Policy, told the IPJ.
While Trump started this war, Congress retains the power to stop funding it. Article I of the Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war and control federal appropriations. The House has passed its version of the fiscal year 2027 National Defense Authorization Act, which would authorize approximately $1.15 trillion, almost all of it for military and nuclear-defense activities. The measure has not completed the legislative process.
That legislation is distinct from the administration’s broader $1.5 trillion defense-budget proposal, comprising $1.15 trillion in discretionary defense funding and an additional $350 billion in proposed mandatory defense funding.
“Trump is clearly refusing to take the loss, but that doesn’t make it any less real or costly. Lawmakers opposed to this reckless military adventurism need to stand strong and continue to deny Trump’s record $1.5 trillion military budget request and other attempts to fund and deepen this disastrous war of choice,” Williams added.
Congress could condition further funding on explicit authorization, require the Trump administration to disclose the war’s true costs and objectives, or establish a deadline after which military operations could not continue without renewed approval.
Iran cannot match the United States and Israel militarily. But it benefits from geography, a strategy tailored to a stronger adversary, and the advantages of fighting on its own territory, as well as a leadership that views the conflict as existential and has shown a willingness to absorb enormous costs rather than surrender. After six months, that military pressure has still not brought Washington closer to securing its demands. The United States can continue to destroy targets and degrade Iranian capabilities, but unless that pressure changes Iran’s political calculations, further escalation risks producing more destruction without producing a settlement.
That does not mean Tehran has abandoned diplomacy. Iranian officials have said Iran is prepared to return to the June memorandum of understanding if Washington recommits to it, leaving open a negotiated path out of the war. If the United States does not return to the agreement, however, Tehran appears prepared to escalate until Washington either tires of the conflict or concludes that diplomacy is less costly than continued war. In this calculation, escalation is not an alternative to negotiations but a means of forcing the United States back to them.
Six months into the war, Trump has yet to present a path to political victory. He retains the ability to escalate, but without an achievable end state, further escalation risks deepening the costs of a war Washington still cannot conclusively end.
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50+ Rights Groups 'Strongly Urge' Congress to Reject US-Israeli Military Integration in NDAA
"The American people do not want American military integration with a country responsible for war crimes, international law violations, and mass killings amounting to genocide."
Sep 04, 2026
A coalition of over 50 rights groups on Thursday wrote to leaders in Congress to "strongly urge" them to reject not only specific proposals in each chamber's version of the next Pentagon budget, but also "any legislation seeking to intertwine US and Israeli defense or intelligence capabilities."
The provision in the House-approved National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2027 (HR 8800) is Section 219—previously titled Section 224—and the related but slightly different proposal in the pending Senate bill (S. 4784) is Section 1217. Congressional leadership is expected to negotiate a version of the full NDAA that can pass both GOP-controlled chambers.
"The provisions would establish a new US Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative aimed at accelerating joint research, development, and integration of Israeli-origin and jointly developed defense technologies into US military systems and programs of record," says the new letter to the chairs and ranking members of both Armed Services committees: Sens. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Jack Reed (D-RI) and Reps. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) and Adam Smith (D-Wash.).
"This would expand US-Israeli military integration across some of the most sensitive domains of emerging technology, including quantum computing, AI and autonomous systems, cyber and electronic warfare, directed energy, and defense industrial base co-production, while expediting pathways from R&D into procurement," notes the letter, first reported by Reuters.
Congressional consideration of the provision comes nearly three years into US-armed Israeli forces' campaign in the Gaza Strip—decried as genocide by many activists, experts, and governments around the world—in response to the Hamas-led October 2023 attack on Israel. The violence has claimed over 73,000 Palestinian lives and continues, despite a nearly year-old ceasefire.
"Israel's grievous violations of US and international law and its other human rights violations include the use of US-supplied weapons in killing Palestinian civilians, extrajudicial killings by Israeli soldiers, the systemic use of torture and sexual abuse by Israeli security forces, and policies such as the withholding of humanitarian assistance, other forms of collective punishment, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and genocide," the coalition highlighted in its letter to lawmakers.
"These facts alone should prevent even the discussion of deepening military ties, especially given the complete inability of the United States to apply existing laws, such as the Foreign Assistance Act or the Arms Export Control Act, that would require the suspension of US military aid and arms transfers to Israel," the groups argued. "The American people do not want American military integration with a country responsible for war crimes, international law violations, and mass killings amounting to genocide."
Pointing to polling that has shown growing opposition to US military aid to Israel "across the political spectrum," the coalition wrote that "Section 219/1217 works to hide continuing US military support to Israel from public scrutiny and congressional oversight and involvement. Far from working to shift the US-Israel relationship in line with American public opinion, this section encourages the direct use of Israeli-manufactured technology into the US' systems, which may render the United States dependent on Israel’s provision of such technologies, and make disentangling the relationship in the future ever more difficult."
"At a time in which American interests are increasingly diverging from those of Israel, and American public opinion is turning increasingly against unconditional support to Israel, creating new points of influence for Israel in the U.S. defense-technology ecosystem is exceptionally dangerous," stresses the letter.
It also sounds the alarm about Section 622 of the 2027 Intelligence Authorization Act, which was introduced in May by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and "would limit the president's ability to restrict America's intelligence-sharing and military collaboration with Israel by requiring the president to identify and document a specific national security concern that necessitates any changes, and expand intelligence sharing and cooperation with countries that have normalized relations with Israel under the Abraham Accords."
"Governments have an obligation to ensure the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms when advancing their national security interests, including countering threats to their populations' right to privacy or other freedoms," the letter declares. "Intertwining US and Israeli information-gathering and defense raises significant concerns given the recent evidence of Israeli espionage against people in the US, including government officials."
Signatories include A New Policy, Amnesty International USA, Demand Progress, IfNotNow Movement, Jewish Voice for Peace, Just Foreign Policy, National Lawyers Guild, National Nurses United, Peace Action, Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, RootsAction, Win Without War, and dozens of other organizations.
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'Flashing Red Warning Sign' for Lawmakers: Poll Shows Voters Reject US-Israel Military Integration
"It is the height of absurdity that Congress is even considering a proposal to become more entangled with the Israeli military and use our tax dollars to subsidize their weapons companies."
Aug 18, 2026
A new poll of US voters published on Tuesday offers a warning for congressional lawmakers backing a plan to deepen military ties between the United States and Israel, finding that a clear majority of voters oppose the proposal—which some critics have called "treasonous."
The Data for Progress survey of 1,217 likely US voters—conducted August 3–7 for Demand Progress and the Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU) Policy Project—revealed that 61% of respondents oppose legislation in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for 2027 that would integrate Israeli weapons companies into the Pentagon at a level exceeding that of any other country. That figure rose to 78% among Democrats and 73% among independents.
“This poll is a flashing red warning sign for any member of Congress who supports the defense authorization bill," Demand Progress senior policy adviser Cavan Kharrazian said in a statement. "A clear majority of voters do not support further integrating the Israeli military and Israeli military companies into the Pentagon, which the NDAA is set to do."
NEW POLL: 61% of Americans - including 78% of Democrats and 73% of Independents - oppose a measure moving through Congress to integrate Israeli weapons companies into the Pentagon. Read more of the results from our poll with @demandprogress.bsky.social andconducted by @dataforprogress.org.⬇️
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— IMEU Policy Project (@imeupolicy.bsky.social) August 18, 2026 at 8:14 AM
The Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted last month 216-212, mostly along party lines, in favor of a record $1.15 trillion NDAA. The military spending bill contains Section 219, a provision that would create a US–Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative, accelerating joint defense research, development, testing, and integration of technologies including artificial intelligence, missile defense, and counter-drone systems.
Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) submitted an amendment to strip Section 219 from the NDAA. The measure failed to pass.
Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who voted against the NDAA, described Section 219 as “an outrageous threat to our country’s security and autonomy."
The Senate version of the military spending authorization bill has a related provision—Section 1217, the United States-Israel FUTURES Act—and the two chambers will need to reconcile their NDAA legislation before the final language is decided. Reconciliation is not expected to occur before November at the earliest.
“It’s time for Congress to listen to the American people for once, and not the same voices who always want to cut Israel a blank check," Kharrazian said. That "blank check" has totaled more than $174 billion in non-inflation-adjusted aid since the modern state of Israel was founded in 1948.
The new poll found that 57% of respondents believe the Israeli military and Israeli weapons companies should not receive increased access to US military systems. Fifty-one percent said Israel benefits more from the US-Israel relationship, compared with just 12% who said the United States benefits more.
Although Republican voters support the Pentagon provision by a 16-point margin, when asked about it without additional context, they are considerably less enthusiastic about the idea of granting any foreign military special access, opposing it 62%-27%.
Forty percent of surveyed voters said they believe that the US-Israeli relationship is "too close," compared with 42% who say it is "about right." Among Democrats, 56% say relations are too close, versus just 23% who say about right. Twenty-two percent of Republicans and 43% of Independents said US-Israeli relations are too close.
Asked if they think President Donald Trump is too supportive of Israel's right-wing government, 49% said yes, compared with only 33% who said the president is giving Israel the right amount of backing and just 8% who believe he's not giving the key ally enough support.
Respondents' views of Israel itself have deteriorated markedly, with 44% saying they now view the country less favorably than they did three years ago—compared with just 17% who say their views have improved amid the war of annihilation in Gaza that United Nations experts, human rights groups, and a South Africa-led case currently before the International Court of Justice call a genocide, as well as the wider Israeli occupation, colonization, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid in Palestine.
Looking only at the past six months, 41% of respondents said their view of Israel has become less favorable, versus 16% who say it has become more favorable. Among Democrats, the split is 56%-13%; among Independents it's 42%-11%.
“Israel is a nation committing genocide that just dragged the American people into a disastrous war that is still hitting our pocketbooks," IMEU Policy Project executive director Margaret DeReus said, referring to the Iran War. “Senators take an oath to do what is best for the American people above all; to uphold that oath, they must scrap this ridiculous proposal.”
"It is the height of absurdity," DeReus added, "that Congress is even considering a proposal to become more entangled with the Israeli military and use our tax dollars to subsidize their weapons companies."
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