Senate rejects war powers bill to halt attacks against Iran

As the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran spirals, the U.S. Senate rejected a war powers measure demanding congressional approval before further attacks. A twin House bill faces the same long odds in the Republican-controlled Congress, and Trump would almost certainly veto it anyway.

The war has killed more than 1,000 people in Iran, more than 50 in Lebanon and around a dozen in Israel, according to officials in those countries. The United Nations says 100,000 people fled the Iranian capital in the war’s first two days alone.

Oil prices have soared following Iranian attacks on traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, and global stock markets have been hammered over worries that the spike in oil prices may grind down the world economy. U.S. stocks appeared steadier at Wednesday’s opening.

Shiite Muslims shout slogans during a candlelit protest against the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Wednesday, March 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)

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Senate Republicans reject war powers resolution

Senate Republicans voted down an effort Wednesday to halt the Trump administration’s war against Iran, demonstrating early support for a conflict that has rapidly spread across the Middle East with no clear U.S. exit strategy.

The legislation, known as a war powers resolution, failed on a 47-53 vote tally. The vote fell mostly along party lines, though Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky voted in favor and Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania voted against.

The war powers resolution gave lawmakers an opportunity to demand congressional approval before any further attacks are carried out. The vote forced them to take a stand on a war shaping the fate of U.S. military members, countless other lives and the future of the region.

Sen. Susan Collins explains her opposition war powers resolution

Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said Wednesday she opposed the war powers resolution. Collins said in a statement that it’s important for lawmakers to back the U.S. military because of the threat poses by a nuclear Iran.

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“We cannot tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran. The Iranian regime’s pursuit of nuclear capabilities, ballistic missile development, and support for terrorist proxies pose serious and longstanding threats to the national security of the United States and our allies,” Collins said.

Senate Republicans voted down an effort to halt Trump’s war against Iran, demonstrating early support for a conflict that has rapidly spread across the Middle East with no clear U.S. exit strategy.

The legislation, known as a war powers resolution, failed on a 47-53 vote tally.

Israeli strikes on a Beirut highway kill 3

Two near-simultaneous drone strikes hit vehicles traveling in opposite directions along Beirut’s coastal Airport Road on Wednesday, killing three people and wounding six, Lebanon’s health ministry said.

The Israeli military said it targeted a Hezbollah member. The cars burst into flames, with video from the scene showing one wounded man lying on the pavement as bystanders gathered nearby.

Lebanese officials say more than 70 people have been killed in Israeli strikes since the latest escalation with Hezbollah began three days ago. Those include at least one Hezbollah intelligence official and a senior Palestinian militant.

GOP’s Massie says Congress should be forced to vote on Iran war

“If Congress wants war, then the speaker should hold a vote to declare it,” said Rep. Thomas Massie, an outlier in the Republican Party.

He joined with Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna to push forward a war powers resolution in the House that would halt Trump’s ability to wage war on Iran without approval from Congress.

Khanna during a floor speech called it “a profoundly moral vote.”

GOP lawmakers maintain that Trump is well with his authority to send the U.S. military into combat.

Democrats fill the Senate chamber as they cast war powers resolution votes

Senate Democrats are trying to underscore the gravity of the moment as they cast votes on legislation that would halt President Donald Trump from carrying out further attacks on Iran.

They have filled the Senate chamber and are sitting at their desks as the vote gets underway. During typical votes, senators stop into the chamber to cast their vote, then leave.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., arrives to speak with reporters at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, March 3, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Senate Democrats stood when their names were called to say yay or nay, while the Republican side of the chamber was mostly empty.

Republicans have already signaled they will oppose the measure.

Israel to ease some public restrictions starting Thursday

Israel’s Home Front Command said workplaces may reopen and gatherings of up to 50 people will be allowed if there is nearby shelter starting Thursday at noon, although schools will remain closed.

The nationwide shutdown, imposed when the war began Saturday, is being loosened as the Israeli military says incoming missile fire has dropped in recent days.

However, Israelis are still “spending a lot of time in shelters,” acknowledged Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin, a military spokesperson.

At a Pentagon briefing Wednesday, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, Gen. Dan Caine, said that the number of ballistic missiles fired off by Iran is down by 86% from the first day of the war, and that there’s been a 23% drop in the last 24 hours.

More on the war powers vote in the Senate

Republican senators, who hold a majority in the chamber, have almost all said they will vote against the war powers legislation, but the effort has forced a debate on the Iran conflict in the Senate.

It’s also putting senators on the record as they look ahead to midterm elections and the consequences of a conflict that has spread rapidly across the Middle East.

Rubio assures Turkey of US support after Iranian missile incident

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan that attacks on Turkey’s territory are unacceptable and pledged full U.S. support after an Iranian missile headed toward the country was shot down, the State Department said Wednesday.

Debate is underway in Congress over war powers resolutions

The Senate is preparing for an afternoon vote on the measure that would prevent Trump’s ability to continue engaging the U.S. military in hostilities against Iran without approval from Congress.

And in the House, which is set to vote Thursday, Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries delivered a lengthy speech calling out the Trump administration’s shifting rationale for the attack.

“Why is the president unwilling or unable to make his case directly to the American people?” the leader asked.
“The president has a responsibility to justify plunging America into another war,” Jeffries said.

Both resolutions are expected to fail in Congress, where Trump’s Republican Party holds a slim majority and largely backs the military operation in Iran.

Civilians in northern Iraq feel caught in the crossfire

Ibrahim Jawdat woke around 2:45 a.m. Wednesday when a drone exploded beside his family’s home in Irbil, shattering windows and spraying glass across his bed.

Neighbor Hawkar Hadi’s house was also damaged, with broken windows and shrapnel lodged in walls and furniture.

“It’s difficult to be a victim of a war that we’re not part of,” he said. “We’re paying the cost of things we didn’t do.”
Iran and allied Iraqi militias have fired missiles and drones at U.S. bases and the U.S. consulate in Irbil, the capital of the semiautonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq. Most have been intercepted, though some have fallen in residential areas.

There have been more than 100 attacks on Irbil since the war began, Gov. Omed Khoshnaw told reporters Wednesday, and he urged Baghdad to compensate residents for damage.

South Africa advises citizens to leave the Middle East as more ‘heavy attacks’ expected

More than 6,400 South Africans have registered on a system opened for citizens to advise the government of their location, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement Wednesday.

The ministry said it was urging its citizens to depart on the limited number of commercial flights that have resumed.

UN says Israel and Hezbollah are violating Lebanon’s ceasefire

United Nations peacekeepers said Wednesday they observed rockets fired from Lebanon into Israel and Israeli military activity and airstrikes near several villages.

Both sides are in violation of a 2006 U.N. Security Council ceasefire, according to the peacekeeping force, while Israel is also breaching Lebanon’s sovereignty. The 7,500-strong force said it remains on the ground in southern Lebanon.

Israeli air force hits missile launchers in Iran

Israel’s military said Wednesday that its air force had destroyed Iranian ballistic missile sites in the west and central parts of the country, hitting the infrastructure being used to launch projectiles toward Israeli territory.

Iran’s barrages of ballistic missiles toward Israel have slowed and been mostly intercepted, however some have gotten through Israel’s defenses, causing damage and killing around a dozen people. Some experts say Iran may be holding its weapons in reserve to prolong the conflict.

Trump says he gives the US a 15/10 grade for Iran war

The president opened his remarks at an unrelated White House event on artificial intelligence that the U.S. is “doing very well on the war front, to put it mildly.”

Trump said someone asked him to rate on a scale of 10 how well he thought the U.S. was doing and said, “about a 15.”

Arab League tells Iran to halt attacks on Gulf nations

The ongoing strikes deepen an “unprecedented state of hostility” with Iran’s neighbors in the Gulf, said Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit in a statement Wednesday.

He demanded Tehran stop the attacks, which he called a “strategic mistake,” saying “Iran must come to its senses.”

The Arab League, made up of 22 member states, promotes regional cooperation. However, it is widely seen as toothless and has long struggled to help solve conflicts.

Israel launches new wave of strikes on Tehran

The Israeli military says the strikes on the Iranian capital are targeting “military infrastructure.”
U.S.-Israeli strikes have killed more than 1,000 people in Iran so far.

Hezbollah leader vows to keep fighting Israel

In his first public address since joining the war, Hezbollah leader Naim Kassem said the Lebanese militant group rejects the government’s plan to disarm its fighters.

“As long as the (Israeli) occupation is present, then the resistance and its weapons are a legitimate right,” Kassem said.

Lebanon’s leaders say Hezbollah’s rocket fire into Israel is illegal and urged the Lebanese army to crack down on groups possessing weapons outside state control.

Lebanon’s cash-strapped military, backed by the U.S. and other governments, has been deploying in recent months across southern Lebanon where Hezbollah has a strong military presence. However, it’s unclear if the army is able or willing to disarm Hezbollah by directly confronting them.

UN says 100,000 people fled Tehran in the war’s first 2 days

The U.N. refugee agency, basing its estimates on Iranian officials, also said around 1,000 to 2,000 vehicles per day were reported leaving the capital, mostly toward the north.

Geneva-based UNHCR spokesman Babar Baloch said the latest reports on Wednesday indicated no increase in cross-border movements linked to the recent conflict “but the situation remains fluid.”

Spain’s government denies cooperating with US operations in Mideast, contradicting the White House
Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares on Wednesday denied that the government had changed its position on supporting the U.S. military operations against Iran, contradicting a White House spokesperson.

“I can refute (the White House spokesperson),” Albares told Spanish radio station Cadena Ser. “The position of the Spanish government regarding the war in the Middle East, the bombing of Iran and the use of our bases has not changed one iota.”

Albares spoke in Madrid shortly after White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt had said that Spain had changed its position and “they’ve agreed to cooperate with the U.S. military.”

First Israeli combat casualties of the war are reported as 2 soldiers wounded in Lebanon

The Israeli military said the two were wounded Wednesday by anti-tank fire while operating in southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah says its fighters attacked Israeli troops advancing toward the village of Khiyam and released video showing a missile striking a tank.

Israel said Tuesday its forces were moving deeper into Lebanon to establish “forward defensive positions” to protect northern Israel.

White House defends evacuation plans for Americans

The president’s top spokeswoman pushed back against criticisms that the administration didn’t do enough to ensure Americans could leave the Middle East following the U.S. war in Iran.

Leavitt insisted that “there have been plans in place” and that the State Department has been clear to those in the region to leave immediately.

“We will help every single American who wants to come home if they’re making that request of the State Department,” she said.

Leavitt also said a State Department hotline that told callers not to rely on help from the U.S. government to leave the region has been corrected.

White House says Trump thinks the US public supports war with Iran

Asked if Trump thinks that Americans support the Israel-U.S. war in Iran — even though Trump hasn’t given a national address to personally make the case — Leavitt said, “I think he does.”

“This was a rogue terrorist regime that has been threatening the United States, our allies and our people for 47 years,” she said. “And the American people are smart enough to know that, and they’re smart enough to listen to the president himself — not just over the past year, in the second term, but during his first term as president.”

Recent polling shows that, prior to the U.S.-Israel strikes that started last weekend, 61% of Americans said Iran was an “enemy” of the U.S., but only about 3 in 10 Americans said they had “a great deal” or “quite a bit” of trust in Trump.

White House claims that Spain has agreed to cooperate with US operations in Mideast

The White House on Wednesday said Spain has agreed to cooperate with U.S. operations in the Mideast after Trump had threatened to cut off trade with Madrid.

“With respect to Spain, I think they heard the president’s message yesterday loud and clear,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said. “And it’s my understanding over the past several hours, they’ve agreed to cooperate with the US military. And so I know that the US military is coordinating with their counterparts in Spain.”

Trump on Tuesday said he was going to “cut off all trade with Spain,” the day after Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares said his country would not allow the U.S. to use jointly operated bases in southern Spain in any strikes not covered by the United Nations’ charter.

White House says US ground troops in Iran ‘not part of the plan for this operation at this time’

Leavitt said she would not take away military options on behalf of the president by ruling it out, saying that leaders in the past take options off the table “without having a full understanding of how things could develop.”

“It’s not part of the current plan, but I’m not going to remove an option for the president that is on the table,” Leavitt said.

Trump administration scrambles for congressional support

After launching a surprise attack against Iran on Saturday, Trump has scrambled to win support for a conflict that Americans of all political persuasions were already wary of entering. Trump administration officials have been a frequent presence on Capitol Hill this week as they try to reassure lawmakers that they have the situation under control.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Wednesday that the war could extend eight weeks, a longer time frame than has previously been floated by the Trump administration. He also acknowledged that Iran is still able to carry out missile attacks even as the U.S. tries to control the country’s airspace.

U.S. service members “remain in harm’s way, and we must be clear-eyed that the risk is still high,” Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at the same press conference.

Six U.S. military members were killed over the weekend in a drone strike in Kuwait.

Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa acknowledged the human costs of the war in her floor speech. One of the soldiers killed Sunday was from Iowa and a National Guard unit from her state was also attacked in Syria in December, resulting in the deaths of two other soldiers.

“But now is our opportunity to bring an end to the decades of chaos,” said Ernst, who herself served as an officer in the Iowa National Guard for two decades.

“The sooner the better,” she added.

Trump has also not ruled out deploying U.S. ground troops. He has said he is hoping to end the bombing campaign within a few weeks, but his goals for the war have shifted from regime change to stopping Iran from developing nuclear capabilities to crippling its navy and missile programs.

Almost all Republican senators were readying to vote Wednesday against the war powers resolution to halt military action, but a number still expressed hesitation at the idea of troop deployments.

“I don’t think the American people want to see troops on the ground,” said Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., as he exited a classified briefing Tuesday. He added that Trump administration officials “left open that possibility,” but it wasn’t an option they were emphasizing.

Lawmakers go on record

The votes in Congress this week represented potentially consequential markers of just where lawmakers stand on the war as they look ahead to midterm elections and the consequences of the conflict.

“Nobody gets to hide and give the president an easy pass or an end-run around the Constitution,” said Sen. Tim Kaine, the Virginia Democrat leading the war powers resolution. “Everybody’s got to declare whether they’re for this war or against it.”

Republican leaders have successfully, though narrowly, defeated a series of war powers resolutions pertaining to several other conflicts that Trump has entered or threatened to enter. This one, however, is different.

Unlike Trump’s military campaigns against alleged drug boats or even Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, the attack on Iran represents an open-ended conflict that is already ricocheting across the region. For Republicans who are used to operating in a political party dominated by Trump and his promises of keeping the U.S. out of foreign entanglements, the moment represented a bit of whiplash.

“War is ugly, it always has been ugly, but we’re taking out a regime that has been trying to attack us for quite some time,” said Sen. Markwayne Mullin, an Oklahoma Republican.

Meanwhile, Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who has long pushed Trump to engage overseas, argued that the widening conflict represented an opportunity for Arab and European countries to join in the fight against Iran and the militant groups it supports.

“I don’t mind people being on record as to whether or not they think this is a good idea,” he told reporters, but also argued that too much power over the military was ceded to Congress in the War Powers Act, which mandates that presidents must withdraw troops from a conflict within 90 days if there is no congressional authorization.

House vote looms

On the other side of the Capitol, an intense debate over the war unfolded before a vote Thursday. The House first debated a resolution presented by GOP leadership affirming that Iran is the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism.

Rep. Brian Mast, the GOP chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, publicly thanked Trump for taking action against Iran, saying the president is using his own constitutional authority to defend the U.S. against the “imminent threat” of Iran.

Mast, an Army veteran who worked as a bomb disposal expert in Afghanistan, said the Democratic resolution was effectively asking “that the president do nothing.”

Rep. Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the Foreign Affairs panel, said before the debate that the hardest votes he has taken in Congress have been to decide whether to send U.S. troops to war. “Our young men and women’s lives are on the line,” he said, his voice showing emotion as he emerged from a closed-door briefing late Tuesday with Trump officials.

At a news conference Wednesday, several Democratic members who are also veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars spoke about the heavy costs of those conflicts.

One of them was Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo. “I learned when I was fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, that when elites in Washington bang the war drums, pound their chest, talk about the costs of war and act tough, they’re not talking about them doing it, they’re not talking about their kids,” Crow said. “They’re talking about working class kids like us.”

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