Now that an initial diplomatic agreement between the US and Iran has been signed and intense negotiations are underway to end the war completely, Congress must do everything possible to ensure that this agreement is fully implemented.
While the deal is likely to have imperfections — in large part thanks to the President Donald Trump undermining US leverage and interests with a catastrophic war – it would be a grave mistake to attack the deal simply because it comes from this president.
The key question to consider is what steps Congress can take to ensure that it becomes a lasting peace—rather than just a pause before the next round of war.
For all the human loss, destruction and global stakes, we must stop this war, but also ensure that the terms of peace do not set the stage for a return to conflict – or inspire its recurrence elsewhere. The political and financial cost of ending this war must fall on those who aided and abetted it. The question is whether we build in the safeguards to make it sustainable.
In June 2025, it was already clear that accepting President Trump’s false narrative of absolute victory (claiming to have completely eliminated Iran’s nuclear sites) would not end US-Iran tensions.
Any peace will remain fragile if the conditions that gave rise to the war continue: the can-do-it-right mindset that has come up empty against Iran’s strategic viability; preference for militarism on diplomacy, from Trump’s withdrawal of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action to Biden’s failure to pursue a serious alternative to “maximum pressure” sanctions; unconditional support for Israel even when it conflicts with US interests.
It is very possible that during the initial 60 days of negotiations provided for in the MoU, Israel will continue military actions against Iran or in Lebanon to provoke a reaction and restart the cycle. The US cannot fully control what Israel would do. But it could stop aid and incitement to war, which would make it much more difficult for Israel to support a campaign to disrupt diplomacy.
Military action against Iran failed to achieve any of its intended objectives, while incurring costs that are in some cases irreversible and in others generative. Lives lost will never come back. Destruction of civilians infrastructure will shape Iranian society for decades.
And the war has given a perverse legitimacy to a brutal regime, recasting the Islamic Republic’s government not as the oppressor it is, but as David against Goliath, the weak resister against foreign aggression. Diplomacy produced better results at much lower cost by every measure that matters.
This war confirmed what few wanted to admit: that the US military bases across the Gulf, sold as a projection of strength, are also a deep vulnerability. Every base became a potential target, every host government a hostage to escalation.
For many Gulf governments, US military support is a useful substitute for domestic political legitimacy. However, the war exposed the limits of this bargain: the same shield that promised security turned them into targets.
The transformation of the Strait of Hormuz into a battlefield made this dynamic undeniable. Its shutdown hit energy markets and created rare pressure for de-escalation from Gulf elites, who felt the costs directly. But while some elites were squeezed, others made billions.
The system is designed so that the beneficiaries are never the ones who pay the final price. This is precisely why temporary market pressure is no substitute for structural accountability to prevent future conflicts.
Those who profit from war have learned over many years that neither The Republicans or the Democrats will hold him accountable. A new congressional post in November has a real chance to change that—to serve the interests of the US, that is, the American people, not an elected elite.
With $72 billion spent on Iran’s war, a $1.5 trillion military bUDGETand war contractors more powerful and irresponsible than ever, Congress needs it to investigate all war profiteers, from arms contractors to companies like Drone firm backed by Trump’s sons that sought to sell interceptors to the very Gulf states being attacked, a direct conflict of interest.
In a relatively new dystopian innovation at war capitalism during the war, prediction markets like Polymarket saw millions of bets on everything from the timing of strikes to casualty estimates.
Suspected insider accounts won $2.4 million on Iran War bets with a 98% win rate. This kind of betting on war outcomes by those close to power blurs the line between prediction and profit. It should also be addressed.
We don’t even have to wait for the elections in November to start this process. Growing support for War Powers resolutions with the support of the majority this month alone, and the 40 senators supporting the Joint Resolution of Disapproval to ban certain weapons from Israel show what can be possible when Congress does its job. Congress should condition support, block escalation, and hold hearings on the legality of what has been done.
Such measures would serve a deeper purpose: signaling that a new Congress, and eventually a new administration, can offer something more than a return to the previous status quo: a set of concrete actions that change how war is authorized, how money is spent, and who benefits.
The problem is not a single president or party. It is the power structures that ensure that those who profit from war never pay its cost, no matter who holds office.
CORRUPTION and the benefits of war are not simply matters of governance. They are stealing from the American people, through irresponsible war spending, the unaffordable prices it produces, and an elite class that never pays for the policies it pushes.
A Congress that treats corruption and war profiteering as harm to the public and responds accordingly would show what functioning democracy it actually looks like.
Nancy Okail is the president and CEO of the Center for International Policy.
