An ascendant New York lawmaker could provide an unlikely boost to parts of President Trump’s foreign policy in the Democratic-controlled House, Iran hawks believe.

Rep. Eliot Engel, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is poised to take the chairman’s gavel from retiring Republican Ed Royce of California. While the new Democratic majority is threatening investigations into the Trump administration, Engel’s rise could help fortify one of the administration’s most controversial policies: the president’s crackdown on Iran in the wake of the withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal forged by then-President Barack Obama.