Johnson calls for ‘resolution’ of Iran war

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is urging “a resolution” to the Iran war, sending the strongest signal to date that Republicans on Capitol Hill are feeling the political sting of the long-drawn conflict heading into the midterm elections.

“It’s been a priority and an objective of every administration, for 50 years nearly, to ensure that Iran didn’t have a nuclear capability. Now that’s done. Operation Epic Fury was an epic success. … The world is safer because of it,” Johnson said in an interview with a local TV station .

“But now we’ve got to bring that to a resolution.”

Johnson did not call for an immediate end to the conflict, nor did he name specific steps the administration could take to wind it down. But his message echoes the calls from a growing number of vulnerable Republicans in both chambers who have emerged in recent days to urge an end to the war for the sake of bringing down domestic consumer costs.

“Iowans are being squeezed and shouldn’t have to foot the bill at the pump or the checkout line for the war in Iran,” Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-Iowa), who is running for Senate, wrote Tuesday on the social platform X.

She’s calling for a suspension of the federal gas tax and a halt to diesel exports, among other steps.

“These actions to lower costs are needed ASAP,” she said, “and the war needs to be brought to a successful and immediate end.”

Democrats have criticized the war in Iran from the start, and in the final stretch of the campaign they’re going out of their way to highlight the direct link between the conflict and the spike in consumer costs at home, particularly on gas, diesel and fertilizer.

“It’s interesting to me that several [Republicans] who are in tight races, and are on the verge of losing — including in places like Iowa, or Michigan, or Wisconsin — are all now starting to say the war needs to end,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) told reporters Wednesday in the Capitol.

“Where were these Republican sycophants over the last six-plus months when Democrats, in lockstep, have been fighting to end the war of choice in Iran, precisely because it’s not made our country safer, but it has made America, and the American people, economically weaker?”

“That’s the source of the problem,” he added.

Even Johnson is now acknowledging that the Iran conflict has led directly to the higher fuel costs, which have increased the price of other staples as well.

“The Strait of Hormuz not being open affects commerce. It directly affects gas prices and fuel prices. And also, you know, the price of groceries, for example, because they got to be transported, and the higher fuel prices are a factor in that as well,” Johnson told the local outlet.

“Now, all that said, we acknowledge it. We got a lot of work to do,” he added. “I think as soon as the Strait of Hormuz is reopened, and I think we’re entering a new phase of that very soon, then the president’s right. Gas prices come back down.”