LONDON: As it became clear that the Democrats had taken control of both branches of Congress in this week’s midterms, US President Donald Trump struck a conciliatory tone when he called into Fox News late on Tuesday night. The Democrats had done “a good job,” he said, adding, “I can work with them on many things.” However, during a call-in that same day to another TV station, Trump said: “I have the ultimate power. It’s called veto.” In the run-up to the elections, polls had shown that Trump’s popularity was at an all-time low, thanks in large part to the unpopular Iran war and the impact it has had on gas prices, factors which appear to have pushed many voters into the Democratic camp. “I think a part of it was Iran,” Trump said. “But at the same time, people understood the importance of what I’ve done with Iran.” What Trump had done with Iran, said Vice President JD Vance in a social media post on Wednesday, may have cost Republicans control of Congress for six years. “The reason we lost is the war,” he wrote. “If you’d like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so. Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree, that’s at least honest. But everyone knows why we lost.” Regardless, it remains to be seen whether the loss of both the Senate and the House of Representatives will have any impact on Trump’s Middle East policy during the remaining two years of his presidency. Brian Katulis, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, is not convinced that Trump will be much constrained between now and the end of his presidential term in 2028. “For the moment, it will be business as usual,” he told Arab News. “The executive branch has amassed so much power for itself over successive administrations, both Republican and Democratic, relative to Congress when it comes to national security and war-making powers. “Not much will change in the lame duck session between now and January, when a new Congress is sworn in.” Mohamed Chebaro, a British Lebanese journalist with more than 25 years’ experience covering war and diplomacy in the region, agreed that “the new balance of power in Congress will not impede Trump going forward.” However, he said that for the immediate future, “the situation will remain highly volatile and open to all possibilities.” “If he sees that striking Iran will be necessary, he will. Congress can shout as much as it likes but the presidential system of the US, despite its checks and balances, will not add up to much.” Indeed, “Trump without a compliant Congress could be even more dangerous. Reason is not part of Trump’s ‘art of the deal,’” Chebaro said. “If he believes he cannot extend his mandate or ensure his regime’s continuity through another strong Republican, then he will sink the US further in the Middle East and leave the mess to be cleaned up by his successor.” From January the Democrats will be able to block Republican legislation but will struggle to force through bills of their own. According to reports in US media, the Democrats are planning to spend their first 100 hours in control of Congress passing a flurry of bills aimed at undoing many of Trump’s policies. High up on the list is a proposed measure to force the president to either end the war in Iran or seek congressional authorization to continue it, which would amount to the same thing. But while it is possible that some populist bills might win enough opposition support, without Republican backing most will not pass into law. While the Democrats have won back control of the 100-seat Senate with 56 seats (including those of two independent allies) to the Republicans’ 44, it takes 60 votes to get a bill into law. There is an even higher hurdle to clear to disarm a president’s ability to veto a bill, which he can do unless it has two-thirds support in both the House and the Senate. Nevertheless, there are other ways a Congress in the hands of the Democrats could pull the plug on military action in Iran. “Democrats now have the power to stop the war through control of the purse,” said Trita Parsi, the Iranian Swedish executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. “They not only have a mandate to do so but they have an order from the American public to do so. “If they fail, or don’t even try, the very fury that crushed Trump at the polls will be turned against the Democrats, who will be seen as complicit in this illegal war. “It wasn’t the strength of the Democratic vision that delivered a crushing defeat of Trump but the American people’s fury over the cost-of-living crisis produced by the Iran war. “Proponents of war, however, will push very hard to get Trump to restart the war before January, since they realize that this is their last opportunity given the coming Democratic control of Congress.” Burcu Ozcelik, senior research fellow for Middle East, North Africa and Turkiye Security at the Royal United Services Institute, agrees this is a very real possibility. “From January Trump will be congressionally constrained given the Democratic landslide,” she told Arab News. But that, “leaves us with the possibility of renewed strikes against Iran within the next two months, even as early as within the next two weeks.” The wildcard now was “how Trump will choose to shape his legacy on the Iran file,” she said. “Will he become ever more fixated on a harder, more ambitious campaign to salvage the narrative that his Iran war was necessary to prevent Tehran from becoming a breakout nuclear state? “Or will he favor a diplomatic win that he can tout as his own success, even though Gulf states, Turkiye and Pakistan are doing the heavy lifting?” It might, Ozcelik said, “be somewhere in between, where Trump authorizes precision strikes targeting Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile facilities — enough of a campaign to downgrade Iran’s capabilities but below the threshold of what could unleash Iran’s wrath on the Gulf.” “The danger is that Tehran has made it clear that any strike will be met with a harsher and disproportionate response. Whether Trump listens or whether he instead takes another gamble and risks placing Gulf allies at risk again is the known unknown today.” Meanwhile, the Democrats have their sights trained on Trump’s Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader of the House, who is poised to become the first black speaker, has announced his party’s intention to “run Pete Hegseth out of town.” A proposal has already been made, by a Republican congressman, to impeach Hegseth. “By engaging in hostilities in Iran for more than 90 days without congressional authorization, Secretary Hegseth is breaking the law and must be held accountable,” Thomas Massie said after presenting his resolution to the House in September. The resolution did not pass, nor did an earlier one, submitted by Massie in March, seeking to force Trump to withdraw US forces “from unauthorized hostilities in the Islamic Republic of Iran.” But quite possibly some Republicans who survived the midterms might now be more amenable to cross-party action when it comes to the conduct of the Iran war. As Massie put it in a post on X on Wednesday: “I wonder how many of my colleagues would like a chance to go back and change their vote on my Iran War Powers Resolution?” James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, believes Trump and his inner circle are unlikely to be figuring out ways to collaborate with the Democrats. “I was comparing this to the defeat President Bill Clinton suffered in the 1994 midterms, (when Republicans took back control of both chambers of Congress),” he said. “He realistically assessed the situation and decided that if he was going to make anything of his presidency he had to figure out a way to govern with these guys. “They found a way to pass legislation and bend to the wishes of the Republicans on several issues. “But Trump is not Clinton. He has not shown any indication that he’s more interested in governing than conflict and I worry that he’ll see this as a challenge, not as an opportunity to govern but to continue to provoke. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Stephen Miller (Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy) is in the White House right now, plotting and planning what leeway they have to do things without Congress.” Before the midterms, Trump hinted several times that hostilities with Iran would be resumed after the elections. “He was restrained by the midterms but now he’s not,” Zogby said. “Now we’re in a legacy situation and does he assume (a return to conflict) will be to his advantage? “Iran isn’t done and the question is, can it be done by yet another attack or series of attacks on Iran, when that hasn’t worked before?” The alternative “is to do what the Saudis and the Omanis and the Pakistanis and Turks are doing, which is, ‘Let’s sit down and see what we can figure out here to make this a reasonable solution to create some security and stability in the Gulf.’” But “the one thing about Donald Trump that’s predictable is that he’s unpredictable.” Also unpredictable is how Iran will respond to the result of the midterms. “In Tehran, there is a palpable sense of vindication at the midterm results,” Ozcelik said. “Will Iranian negotiators now have greater leeway to reach a deal with Trump via regional interlocutors, recognizing that they have come out of this on top, or will they instead double down and demand more from the US upfront — sanctions relief, unfreezing of assets — ahead of any new memorandum of understanding 2.0? “That is also unclear. What is clear is that Trump cannot avoid Iran now, even if he may want to. The Strait of Hormuz crisis rumbles on unresolved as does the Houthi-Saudi confrontation.”