Iran has sent waves of missiles and drones at Israel and Gulf states in recent weeks and shot down an American fighter jet on Friday.
President Trump faces the possibility that at the end of his own two-to-three week window for wrapping up the war in Iran, nothing much will have changed.
After resisting calls for public hearings for weeks, House Republicans have called the secretary of defense to testify at a budget hearing in late April for the first time since the attacks on Iran began.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, took questions from reporters for the first time in nearly two weeks.
Iran continued to retaliate across the region on Tuesday but markets saw hopes that fighting might ebb. Israel said it would occupy a large chunk of Lebanon even after the war ends.
President Trump and his aides have made contradictory statements on whether the United States and Israel have transformed the Iranian government through violence.
President Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel suggested that the war with Iran could end soon, but that there were still more attacks ahead.
The request, which the White House has not yet submitted to Congress, is already encountering some resistance.
Barraged by Iranian attacks and questioning the value of security ties with the United States, nations in the Gulf have turned to Ukraine, Australia and Italy for help.
As the conflict with Iran expands and intensifies, President Trump’s options — to fight on, or to move toward declaring victory and pulling back — both carry deeply problematic consequences.