WASHINGTON (AP) — Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) and Jacky Rosen (D-NV) voted for an unsuccessful effort Wednesday to halt President Donald Trump’s war against Iran, underscoring their concerns about a conflict that has rapidly spread across the Middle East with no clear U.S. exit strategy.

“President Trump should not be bypassing Congress and the American public to spend our tax dollars and sacrifice American lives on a war with no clear objective, end game, or exit plan,” Cortez Masto said in a statement after the vote. She added that the death of the “brutal dictator Ayatollah Khamenei” will present “an opportunity for the people of Iran to create a better future for themselves.”

In her own statement, Rosen wrote that she believes Iran cannot be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon and that she “shed no tears over the death of Ayatollah Khamenei and so many other leaders of the brutal Iranian regime.” 

 “At the same time, we owe it to our servicemembers and the American people to ensure we don’t enter into another protracted conflict in the Middle East, without authorization from Congress and without concrete goals or strategy,” she continued. “The U.S. Constitution is clear that only Congress has the authority to declare war, and the American people are wary of open-ended wars with unclear objectives.”

The legislation considered Wednesday, known as a war powers resolution, failed on a 47-53 vote tally, mostly along party lines. It 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.

Underscoring the gravity of the moment, Democratic senators filled the Senate chamber and sat at their desks as the voting got underway. Typically, senators step into the chamber to cast their vote, then leave.

“Today every senator — every single one — will pick a side,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said before the vote. “Do you stand with the American people who are exhausted with forever wars in the Middle East or stand with Donald Trump and [Defense Secretary] Pete Hegseth as they bumble us headfirst into another war?”

Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), second in Senate Republican leadership, said during the debate that GOP senators would send a message that Democrats are wrong for forcing a vote on the war powers resolution.

“Democrats would rather obstruct Donald Trump than obliterate Iran’s national nuclear program,” he added.

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.

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.

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) 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.

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 (D-VA), who is 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, was 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 (R-OK).

Meanwhile, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), 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.

Reactions from the Nevada delegation in the House basically fell along party lines. All three of the state’s House Democrats voiced doubts about the president’s plan and intentions in Iran soon after the first strikes. 

In a statement on social media, Rep. Steven Horsford (D-NV) wrote, “Congress must be fully briefed, meaningfully consulted, and allowed to vote on a war powers resolution so every Member can state clearly where they stand as required under the Constitution and consistent with the War Powers Resolution.”

Rep. Dina Titus (D-NV) wrote that the “Trump Administration has failed to make a compelling case for war with Iran to Congress or the American people.”

Rep. Susie Lee (D-NV) had a similar message.

“While I remain firm in my commitment that Iran cannot be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon, I await an intelligence briefing laying out the justification for the U.S. committing our troops to this attack and the strategic plan for a conclusion where the region will not suffer further instability and the Iranian people will be able to transition to a democratic government and peace,” she wrote on social media.

In a release, Rep. Mark Amodei (R-NV) wrote, “As a leader of the free world, we have a responsibility not only to say that Iran cannot be nuclear-armed, but to promise that it never will be. The time has come to make it clear that radical regimes seeking to undermine democracy, while enthusiastically chanting ‘Death to America’, will be met with the strength of America and its allies.”

Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL), the 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 (D-NY), 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-CO). “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.”