Several Democratic lawmakers raised alarm about the possibility of limited airstrikes extending into a protracted conflict.

Democratic lawmakers voiced concern Sunday that President Donald Trump’s decision to attack Tehran could plunge the U.S. into another protracted war in the Middle East, and called on Congress to vote for a war powers resolution to define the scope of executive authority.

The warnings from Democrats come as Trump, who campaigned on a promise to end “forever wars” and to focus on “America First” governing, faces the challenge of protecting the GOP’s fragile congressional majorities ahead of the midterm elections.

Less than two days after Israel and the U.S. launched a joint military operation against Iran, killing the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Tehran has already unleashed a wave of retaliatory attacks across the Middle East. Iranian airstrikes in Oman, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and other countries in the Persian Gulf have left several people dead and dozens more injured.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said in a Sunday morning appearance on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that the Trump administration’s plan is “destined to fail,” warning that U.S. intervention could lead to an even more hard-line regime filling the power vacuum left by Khamenei’s killing.

“What are we getting out of this? We’re not getting regime change to a democracy. We’re not going to eliminate their nuclear program. We are going to have regional war breaking out,” Murphy told host Margaret Brennan.

Vice President JD Vance told The Washington Post on Thursday — ahead of the strikes — that “there is no chance” the U.S. gets dragged into a prolonged war in the Middle East.

But Trump wrote in a Saturday evening social media post announcing the death of Khamenei that the bombing of Iran “will continue, uninterrupted throughout the week or, as long as necessary to achieve our objective of PEACE THROUGHOUT THE MIDDLE EAST AND, INDEED, THE WORLD!”

U.S. Central Command also announced Sunday morning that three U.S. troops were killed and five more “seriously wounded” in the conflict, marking the first American casualties related to the military operation, dubbed Operation Epic Fury by the Pentagon.

Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that “eliminating things and fully taking out a capability is really challenging without putting people there on the ground,” casting doubt on the Trump administration’s ability to successfully pursue its goals in Iran with limited airstrikes.

“My concern here going forward is what happens now?” he told host Kristen Welker. “We saw in Iraq that in 2006, Saddam Hussein was finally killed, and then over more than a decade, we lost 1,500 Americans. I don’t want to see a wide conflict in the Middle East.”

That possibility, Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) said in a statement, “risks increased instability in the region while endangering American troops and harming America’s national security.” Warnock urged the Trump administration to focus on domestic issues instead of instigating a wider regional conflict.

“Americans have long been weary of forever wars in the Middle East and the painful lessons that should have already been learned,” he wrote. “The Trump administration’s dramatic and deadly escalation in Iran risks yet another sad chapter of decades-long entanglements.

Fewer than a third of Americans said the U.S. should attack Iran in a January POLITICO poll, with only half of 2024 Trump voters saying they supported military action against the country, with a plurality saying the U.S. should not take military action and a quarter saying they didn’t know.

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), meanwhile, said he hoped Iranians might successfully overthrow the Iranian regime but worried that they may “get slaughtered” after acting on Trump’s “implicit promise” that the U.S. will be there to support them.

“I would not want to raise expectations among the Iranian people that if they rise up, that American troops will be there on the ground to support them,” Schiff told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos during a Sunday morning interview on “This Week.”

He added that “the president will bear responsibility” for any loss of a life if an attempted coup in Tehran “ends in a bloody massacre.”