Ohio Democrat Who Enabled Trump's Iran War Now Wants It to End

The Vote That Could Have Mattered

On March 5, the House of Representatives came within a single vote of passing a war-powers resolution that would have required Donald Trump to end military involvement in his unauthorized war against Iran. The resolution failed 212-219.

Among the no votes: Ohio Democrat Greg Landsman, who joined just three other Democrats in siding with Trump.

If Landsman and those three colleagues had voted yes, the resolution would have passed by one vote. While it had already failed in the Senate and wouldn't have carried the force of law, it would have been an unprecedented rebuke of an American president at the start of a war.

Now, five weeks into a conflict that Trump promised would take "four to five weeks" (then six, now "two to three"), Landsman says he wants the war to end and would vote for another resolution if given the chance.

What he won't say is whether any of this was predictable.

A War Without Planning or Purpose

Trump launched the war on February 28 with minimal consultation with Congress and virtually none with the American public or U.S. allies. He attacked a nation of 92 million people that has been preparing for exactly this scenario since 1979.

The results have been catastrophic -- and entirely foreseeable.

Iran has closed the Strait of Hormuz, choking off 20% of the world's oil supply. Gas prices are spiking. The stock market is falling. American service members have died. And Trump keeps moving the goalposts on what "winning" means, at various times claiming he's already won, that regime change is the goal, and that the war will be over in just a few more weeks.

"Iran is now executing a strategy that has managed to neutralize key U.S. and Israeli air defense batteries, severely damage U.S. military bases in the Persian Gulf, inflict substantial economic pain, and drive a wedge between the United States and its Gulf allies," wrote Narges Bajoghli, associate professor of Middle East studies at Johns Hopkins University, in Foreign Affairs on March 26. "The Iranian regime, in other words, is not just surviving the U.S. and Israeli bombardment. The serious economic and political problems it is creating for its adversaries are, on a strategic level, giving Iran the upper hand."

Landsman's Rationale Then and Now

At the time of his March 5 vote, Landsman said he wasn't giving Trump a blank check.

"Congress declares war, and Congress must fund it," he said then. "These are targeted strikes on core military assets -- missiles, rockets, drones, ships. I support targeted strikes to destroy Iran's missiles and bombs to stop the regime from taking more lives."

He added that he would support a separate war-powers resolution giving Trump 30 days to wrap things up. That resolution has never come up for a vote.

The "targeted strikes" Landsman supported have since escalated into a full-scale war with no clear endgame and mounting American casualties.

Trump's Shifting Story

In a Wednesday night address from the White House, Trump boasted about "victories like few people have ever seen before" while simultaneously claiming the U.S. is "there to help" Iran.

He called on U.S. allies to simply take and "cherish" oil from the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran continues to blockade. He suggested the strait could open "naturally" -- whatever that means.

Most disturbingly, Trump invoked the deaths of American service members as justification for continuing the war, claiming their families told him to "finish the job."

"I was with them and their families, their parents, their wives and husbands," Trump said. "We salute them, and now we must honor them by completing the mission for which they gave their lives. And every single one of the people -- their loved ones -- said 'Please, sir, please finish the job.' Every one."

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has made similar claims. At least one family has publicly denied them.

Trump also acknowledged what makes this war different: "Essentially, I did what no other president was willing to do."

That's true. No president before Trump launched a major war against Iran, despite the regime's 45-year record of terrorism and human rights abuses. Perhaps that's because previous presidents understood that Iran's geography and military strategy would allow it to inflict massive economic damage on the global economy -- exactly what's happening now.

The Predictable Disaster

The war was historically unpopular when Trump started it. Security experts warned about Iran's ability to close the Strait of Hormuz. The tight geography of the waterway and Iran's decades of preparation for exactly this scenario made the outcome obvious to anyone paying attention.

When asked whether it was predictable that Iran would close the strait if attacked, and whether it was predictable that Trump would undertake a Middle East war without clear goals or proper planning, Landsman's office did not respond.

Oil prices spiked during Trump's Wednesday speech and continued rising Thursday as global markets absorbed the reality that there is no clear path out of this mess.

Trump has requested a massive 43% increase in defense spending in his new budget. American service members continue to die in a war that Congress never authorized. And a Democrat who could have helped stop it now says he wishes things were different.

The question Landsman won't answer is whether he saw this coming -- and if he did, why he voted the way he did.