{"id":392,"date":"2026-07-10T09:38:56","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T09:38:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/frontierhousingreport.com\/?p=392"},"modified":"2026-07-10T09:38:56","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T09:38:56","slug":"aftermath-wars-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/frontierhousingreport.com\/?p=392","title":{"rendered":"Aftermath: War\u2019s On"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This story was first featured in the <\/em>Aftermath<\/em> newsletter, a series from David Dayen exploring the economic consequences of the war in Iran. To have these stories delivered to your in-box as soon as they are published, <\/em>sign up for the newsletter here<\/em>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Read more Appeasing Trump Is a Futile Sugar High<\/a><\/p>\n

Hello, and welcome to Aftermath, which was supposed to be shifting into analysis of the implications of a war that ended, and now has to pivot back into analysis of a war that has restarted. Sigh.<\/p>\n

Are We Still at War?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Yep. We\u2019re back to where we were in early March; the U.S. is attacking targets in Iran, and Iran is attacking targets throughout the region, in Bahrain and Kuwait and Jordan, though those last ones were intercepted. Where international shipping was starting to revive, that now has ended, and I\u2019d expect the reimposition of the blockade, following the U.S. revocation of Iran\u2019s license to sell oil internationally.<\/p>\n

In retrospect, this was not a hard thing to predict. Donald Trump gets ornery when he doesn\u2019t get his way, and there was no way to get his way in this war. Iran has asserted operational control of the Strait of Hormuz, with eventual fees inevitable, and it was only a matter of time before there would be tensions around that. Trump\u2019s usual style of bullying didn\u2019t interact well with negotiations either, which have been called off multiple times due to his threats.<\/p>\n

There is no scenario which returns shipping back to being open and free, with a nuclear deal that is in any way better or different than the Obama deal that Trump tore up, that somehow doesn\u2019t give Iran cash or other financial incentives. Those were the terms that Trump sought before the war, and that war was lost. And since Trump won\u2019t admit that, there\u2019s an increasing likelihood of seeing bombs lobbed back and forth through the duration of his presidency.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the Aftermath?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

There are a number of implications here.<\/p>\n

War powers<\/em>. First, we are likely to see a revival of the concurrent war powers resolution that passed both houses of Congress in June. That resolution, which instructs Trump to end hostilities in Iran, is being ignored by the White House, initially on the no-longer-operative grounds that the war was over. Now, the courts would need to affirm that it\u2019s legally binding, for the first time in the history of the War Powers Act.<\/p>\n

There are a couple of hurdles. First, because it was a concurrent resolution, Trump didn\u2019t have the ability to veto it. But two Republicans flipped in the Senate, reversing the passage of the resolution a week after it had passed. However, Democrats, including Sen. Tim Kaine (VA) and Rep. Gregory Meeks (NY), when talking about weighing their options, certainly aren\u2019t acting as if a new resolution needs to be passed that supersedes the old one.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur view is that H.Con.Res.86 still stands,\u201d said Erik Sperling with Just Foreign Policy. \u201cA later, different war powers measure failing after two members voted differently doesn\u2019t undo the earlier bicameral passage \u2026 it remains Congress\u2019s formal directive under the War Powers Act to remove U.S. forces from unauthorized hostilities with Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n

Second, the mechanism for Congress to sue the president to enforce its resolution has never been tested before, as Bruce Ackerman wrote for the Prospect<\/em> back in 2020, when the issue involved a different resolution on, yes, hostilities with Iran. It\u2019s unclear whether litigation would be invoked by the Republican congressional leadership, the Republican-controlled Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (BLAG) that counsels the House on these matters, or by any member, including a Democrat. You could even see Republicans countersue, on the grounds that the Iran war referred to in the concurrent resolution ended, and this flare-up is a new war, meaning the president could continue fighting for another 60 days.<\/p>\n

Sperling and other anti-war advocates are proposing that members of Congress could identify other plaintiffs, like service members sent to Iran, and offer amicus briefs in support. And pressure could be placed on BLAG to authorize litigation; Congress could even authorize litigation through a new resolution. \u201cWe don\u2019t think members should concede in advance that the resolution is unenforceable or that they have no role in enforcing it,\u201d he said. \u201cLawmakers should make a major public and legal fight out of the administration\u2019s refusal to comply.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Supreme Court, which would hear the case, is of course dominated by very partisan Republicans. The cost of an adverse ruling could render the War Powers Act moot. But that\u2019s not a reason to fold, Sperling said. \u201cCongress acted, the public wants this war ended, and the president is defying both the law and the will of the people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more The Un-Mysterious Case of the Socialist Surge<\/a><\/p>\n

War funding<\/em>. The Trump administration has already submitted a $67 billion war supplemental. That ticker is moving ahead with every precision-guided bomb the Pentagon decides to launch. But there is no plan to pass a supplemental; Democrats are thoroughly uninterested and want to stop the war entirely. The process of boosting the Pentagon budget by $350 billion, by a combination of regular order and a mythical third reconciliation bill, is highly dubious as well. The votes aren\u2019t there on a party line for Republicans, and it implicates the impossible-to-pass SAVE Act, which has frustrated any legislative efforts over the past several weeks. Since regular order hinges on what Republicans can get out of reconciliation, that\u2019s stalled too.<\/p>\n

Denying war funding would be a separate exercise of Congress\u2019s authority to declare war, complementing the war powers vote.<\/p>\n

Oil and gas<\/em>. The administration had at least a colorable argument that it had tamed the inflationary beast. Walmart reducing prices on thousands of items, which was more about regaining market share, was nonetheless seized upon by Trump as evidence of his success. And the administration has touted these new, odd \u201cFreedom Fuel\u201d gas stations selling at $3.47 a gallon (the 47th president, get it?), which, incidentally, is 50 cents higher than the pre-war price but lower than the national average. The brand-new Freedom Fuel Network owns 25 stations in Pennsylvania and New Jersey; there are more than 211,000 gas stations nationally. Nonetheless, it was a useful talking point, even if there\u2019s no explanation for why a company that just popped up is selling gas below cost.<\/p>\n

Anyway, the resumption of the war blows these green shoots away. Oil prices spiked to $80 a barrel before settling in lower. Freedom Fuel may continue its (perhaps subsidized) money-losing venture, but the other hundreds of thousands of gas stations will push their prices back up. Higher oil prices means higher prices for everything else that\u2019s shipped by truck; so, pretty much everything.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Traversing the strait will simply remain unstable for who knows how long, with shipments stalled, risk insurance going up, and costs along with it. Qatar\u2019s LNG facility, which was damaged by attacks during the war, is on an indefinite pause because they don\u2019t want to send product out on the strait.<\/p>\n

The only product that went out during the ramp-up in travel through the strait (41 ships on Tuesday, relative to the 130-a-day average before the war) mostly reflected the ships that were trapped before. There was no return to normal, which was already going to take months even before the truce was scrapped. Remember that Trump said he signed the memorandum of understanding because there was going to be \u201ceconomic catastrophe\u201d if the fighting continued, due to dramatically lower oil inventories. Well \u2026<\/p>\n

Alternatives<\/em>. The war was already causing a reckoning on the future reliability of the Strait of Hormuz. Part of that is about the Gulf powers finding a way to get their oil out. The Saudis are rapidly extending their East-West Pipeline to bypass the strait, and other countries are hoping to piggyback on that. And U.S. exports have been soaring: A report out this week from the Energy Information Administration shows April petroleum exports hitting a new record high.<\/p>\n

But alternatives also include energy other than fossil fuels. U.S. electric-vehicle sales in May hit their highest level since the end of the federal $7,500 tax incentives, and globally sales are soaring. Recent difficulties with natural gas supply chains mean that renewables are actually the option with the fastest potential to get onto the grid. And the Hormuz crisis, which seems never-ending, makes a hard-to-miss connection between fossil fuels and geopolitical volatility. Propping up shipping of oil and gas has already been disrupted. Renewable build-out could make that permanent.<\/p>\n

Thanks for reading. If you have tips or ideas for future stories, let us know! You can email us at <\/mark><\/em>aftermath@prospect.org<\/em><\/mark>.<\/mark><\/em><\/em><\/p>\n

Read more Maine\u2019s Three Likely Replacements for Graham Platner<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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