Congress Backs Trump’s War as Gulf Energy Teeters on the Edge
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title: "Congress Backs Trump's War as Gulf Energy Teeters on the Edge"
slug: congress-iran-war-energy-crisis
date: 2026-03-06
author: Tongzhi AI
tags: [Iran, US Congress, War Powers, Gulf Energy, Qatar, LNG, Russia, Operation Epic Fury]
status: ready
ghost_section: "Geopolitical Analysis"
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With both the Senate and House voting to reject war powers resolutions that would have constrained President Trump, the United States has crossed a threshold: a war launched without congressional authorisation now carries something close to congressional consent. Meanwhile, Qatar has warned that Gulf energy exports could halt within days, Russia is feeding Tehran real-time intelligence on US warships, and Iranians gathered in vast numbers for Friday prayers — not to surrender, but to mourn and resist.
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On the seventh day of Operation Epic Fury, the war in Iran acquired a new character. It is no longer merely presidential overreach; it is — in the view of the war's critics — politically ratified aggression, though the White House insists its actions fall within existing Article II authority and the law of self-defence. The US House of Representatives voted 219–212 on Thursday to reject a bipartisan war powers resolution that would have required Donald Trump to seek congressional authorisation for continued military operations. The Senate had defeated an equivalent measure a day earlier. Together, the twin votes amount to a green light — narrow, partisan, but binding.
The constitutional arithmetic is stark. Two Republicans voted with Democrats to restrain the president; four Democrats crossed over to support him. Congress had the chance to exercise its oldest and most sacred power — the power to declare war — and declined. Republican Representative Rick Crawford of Arkansas dismissed the resolution as partisan theatre: "We all know that we wouldn't be here today if the president's name wasn't Donald Trump." He was probably right. He may also have been describing a constitutional dereliction that will be litigated long after the bombs stop falling.
Representative Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, was more direct: "This is a war of choice, launched by this administration without authorisation, without clearly stated objectives or a defined endgame." The war has now killed more than 1,000 people — the vast majority of them Iranian, according to available figures — including at least six US service members, and has cost an estimated $3.7 billion in its first 100 hours — most of it unbudgeted, according to a Center for Strategic and International Studies report. The Pentagon will need emergency supplemental funding within weeks.
The Energy Crisis the War Was Not Supposed to Cause
The war's architects almost certainly assumed the Gulf would remain stable — that Iran's neighbours, dependent on US security guarantees, would keep the oil and gas flowing whatever else burned. That assumption is now in serious trouble.
Qatar, one of the world's largest exporters of liquefied natural gas, halted LNG production on Monday after Iranian drone strikes. Qatar's energy minister on Friday warned that if the conflict continues at its current pace, Gulf energy exporters could be forced to stop shipments altogether — the Financial Times citing "within days," the Japan Times reporting "within weeks" — a discrepancy that may reflect the pace of escalation rather than different sources. Asian gas prices have surged to three-year highs. Analysts are projecting oil at $150 a barrel if the Strait of Hormuz closes — a scenario that only days ago seemed extreme.
For more than 24 hours on Friday, not a single tanker transited the strait, through which roughly 20% of global oil and a third of all LNG normally passes. More than 3,000 vessels are reportedly stranded at Gulf ports, awaiting clearance. Foxconn founder Terry Gou said bluntly that the war "will impact everyone." He expressed hope it would end soon. It is not ending.
China, which imports 1.38 million barrels of Iranian crude daily under a 25-year cooperation agreement, faces the most complex calculation. Analysts at the South China Morning Post note that Beijing cannot protect its energy supply through diplomacy alone — and cannot afford the political cost of openly aiding Iran. Chinese economic officials at the ongoing National People's Congress sessions acknowledged the war risk on Friday and vowed "balanced" trade responses. For Beijing, balance may prove impossible.
Russia in the Shadows
The most alarming development of the week has nothing to do with bombs. According to three US officials cited by The Washington Post and corroborated by reporting in India's Times of India, Russia has been providing Iran with real-time intelligence on the locations of American warships and aircraft in the Middle East since the war began. The targeting data has included the positions of US naval assets at sea.
The assistance, described by one anonymous official as "a pretty comprehensive effort," may explain what analysts had struggled to account for: the precision of some Iranian strikes on US-linked targets. The intelligence is unverified, and its publication by US officials — all speaking anonymously — could itself be an information operation designed to pressure Moscow diplomatically. That caveat noted, the technical argument is credible. Iran's own satellite capability is limited; it lacks a military-grade constellation for real-time tracking. Russia has both. Since the conflict began, Iran has launched thousands of one-way attack drones and hundreds of missiles against US military positions, embassies, and allied targets. A CIA station in Riyadh was struck. Six US troops were killed in Kuwait.
Dara Massicot, a Russia military analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, noted Iran's pattern: "They're making very precise hits on early warning radars or over-the-horizon radars. They're doing this in a very targeted way. They're going after command and control." That kind of targeting demands intelligence Iran alone could not have acquired. Russia denies it. The Kremlin said Friday that Moscow "maintains dialogue with Iranian leadership" — a statement that confirms the relationship without characterising it.
This is, if confirmed, the clearest indication yet that the US-Iran war is not a bilateral conflict. It is a proxy theatre for the deeper US-Russia geopolitical contest being fought in the shadows, on water, and from space.
Friday Prayers and the Question of Will
In Tehran on Friday, Iranians gathered for the first communal Friday prayers since the war began, in the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Crowds filling the Grand Mosque of Imam Khomeini carried portraits of the assassinated Supreme Leader Khamenei and chanted slogans against the US and Israel. Women in black wept openly. Men sat on prayer rugs beneath a city being bombed. An Al Jazeera team on the ground described the scene as one of mourning, solidarity and defiance — not collapse.
This matters militarily as much as politically. US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth declared this week that American forces are "winning": Iran's ballistic missile launches are down 86% from Day One, the navy has been largely destroyed, 2,000 targets have been struck. General Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, called the Iranian military "command structure" compromised. But a population gathering for Friday prayers under bombardment, in visible solidarity with its government, is not a population preparing to sue for peace.
Iran is not surrendering. It is adapting. Iran's government, for its part, has made clear it views the killing of Khamenei as an act of war requiring full retaliation — not negotiation. Tehran has not publicly offered any ceasefire terms and has continued striking Gulf infrastructure, US military assets, and Israeli territory simultaneously. Whatever the US military's assessment of Iranian degradation, Iran's political calculus appears unchanged.
A British Mirror
In the United Kingdom, the war has fractured both the political consensus and the intelligence of the debate. A YouGov poll this week found 49% of Britons oppose US action in Iran; only 28% support it. Half oppose allowing the US to use British military bases — a decision Prime Minister Keir Starmer took anyway. Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins wrote on Friday that "Britain is now contending with an unreliable, mendacious and warmongering ally across the Atlantic." Even among Trump's traditional American supporters, fractures have appeared: Tucker Carlson has accused the president of being "in Netanyahu's pocket"; far-right commentator Nick Fuentes declared "something has gone horribly wrong."
Jenkins' assessment is uncomfortable but grounded: Trump was elected on a platform of ending, not starting, American wars. The Iran operation was, by multiple accounts including Israeli intelligence sources, timed and shaped by the Netanyahu government's reading of a window of opportunity — not a US strategic imperative. The president's own supporters sense this. The war has no declared objectives, no defined endpoint, and no political constituency outside the narrow Republican leadership that just handed it a legislative pass.
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Counter-View
The case for the war — made by Republican hawks and Israeli officials — runs as follows: Iran, as the largest state sponsor of terrorism and the most advanced near-nuclear power in the Middle East, posed an imminent threat that would only grow if left unaddressed. The killing of Supreme Leader Khamenei removed the ideological centre of gravity of the Islamic Republic. The window to degrade Iran's military capacity, opened by Mossad's intelligence work, may not reopen. A weakened Iran means a safer Israel, a more stable Gulf, and a deterred Hezbollah and Hamas.
There is evidence for some of these claims. Iran's ballistic missile arsenal has been significantly degraded. Hezbollah has been weakened simultaneously — Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon on Friday killed at least 123 people and displaced hundreds of thousands, with the UN human rights chief warning that blanket evacuation orders may violate international law. Before the Iran war began, IAEA reports placed Iran's uranium enrichment at 60% purity — below weapons-grade but above any plausible civilian need, and a genuine proliferation risk. The Gulf states have not yet publicly broken with the US. Turkey has not invoked Article 5. The war, for now, remains contained to a broader Middle East perimeter rather than a global conflagration.
But containment is not the same as success. The Gulf energy infrastructure has been struck. Qatar has halted LNG. Russia is feeding intelligence to Iran. The war has cost $3.7 billion in 100 hours with no budget for it. The Strait of Hormuz sits empty. Any one of these dynamics, if allowed to compound, turns a decapitation strike into a global economic crisis.
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Sources
1. The Hindu – "U.S. House rejects war powers resolution, backs Trump on Iran war" (March 5, 2026). Vote: 219–212.
2. France 24 – "US Congress rejects 'war powers resolution' that would halt strikes in Iran" (March 6, 2026).
3. Financial Times – "Qatar warns war will force Gulf to stop energy exports 'within days'" (March 6, 2026).
4. Japan Times – "Qatar energy minister warns war will force Gulf to halt energy exports within weeks" (March 6, 2026).
5. Times of India / Washington Post – "Russia giving Iran real-time intel on US warships, aircraft" (March 6, 2026). Sources: three US officials.
6. Al Jazeera – "Iranians mourn Khamenei as they gather for first Friday prayers during war" (March 6, 2026).
7. Al Jazeera – "Cost to US for war on Iran is $3.7bn in first 100 hours, says think tank" (March 6, 2026). Source: CSIS report.
8. TASS – "Not a single tanker passes through Strait of Hormuz for past 24 hours" (March 6, 2026).
9. South China Morning Post – "Iran's uncertain future poses a strategic test for China" (March 6, 2026).
10. The Guardian – Simon Jenkins, "Trump broke his promises to pursue this unwinnable war. Britain must not follow him into the abyss" (March 6, 2026).
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This article was generated using artificial intelligence and may contain factual errors, incomplete analysis, or hallucinations. While sources are cited and editorial review has been applied, readers should independently verify claims before relying on this analysis for decision-making.