Pentagon asks for $200bn for Iran War(bloomberg.com) |
Pentagon asks for $200bn for Iran War(bloomberg.com) |
https://theintercept.com/2026/03/17/trump-iran-war-cost/
total spent on war and military from 2002-2021 was $21 TRILLION
https://ips-dc.org/report-state-of-insecurity-cost-militariz...
Or maybe it has since there isn't yet an occupation.
Seriously what is in MAGA heads now, they voted this guy because they claimed Biden was spending money on wars like helping Ukraine, and now the peace maker, Trump needs a ton of money for his own wars.
To actually be a war Congress has to declare war. But they passed the War Powers Act so that they wouldn't have to do that.
In theory, the War Powers Act is limited to 60-90 days unless Congress approves funding. Which they may -- a bill to refuse funding failed. Which isn't the same thing, but even if they can't pass the authorization, it's not clear if that actually matters to anybody.
Anyway, the Department of Whatever its name is needs money.
"They have no shame, do they? They don't even bother to lie badly anymore. I suppose that's the final humiliation" - Senator Mon Mothma, Andor
But on a more serious non-political note, what is the end game here? It's not hard to see a future with a barren and destroyed landscape of Middle Eastern energy infrastructure, where neither the Gulf states nor Iran can reliably produce and export their energy due to continual risk.
The US can never fully defang Iran, unless it happens internally. And from history, we know that aerial bombing campaigns typically don't reinforce the civilian will for revolution.
So now we have a pariah state with a decapitated leadership structure, an array of Gulf states who cannot reliably defend their energy assets, and no will for a global detente because of the thousands of entangled interests that sit in the Gulf region.
Either this festers, or escalates, but no party seems to be willing to step down and accept a loss.
Defense contractors, apocalypse prophecy crusaders, and Lindsey Graham love it though. It's $200B not going to housing, food, healthcare, elder care, scientific advancement, or infrastructure and it's limited munitions not going to Ukraine to help defeat Putin.
"Almost over" but needs 180 days of funding without Congressional authorization for the declaration of war.
1) It's the current Iranian state has always been at war. They are at war with "the little Satan" (Israel) and "the Big Satan" (US). I know this sounds like a joke but they're absolutely 100% serious.
Serious enough to organize massacres ("terrorism") on unrelated individuals, like the Argentina bombing in the beginning and the Hezbollah massacres in Syria just last year.
And yes, there was a time of military cooperation between Iran and Israel (just after the beginning. Israel was instrumental and helped Iran avoid getting conquered by Iraq/Saddam Hussein and got intelligence on the Iraqi nuclear program in return). This has not changed anything for the ayatollahs.
And btw: the Soviet Union has had a much similar experience. They helped the mullahs get to power, helped defend against Iraq, and got an enemy in return, because the mullahs ... well presumably they saw what was happening in Afghanistan.
2) Blocking of the strait of Hormuz by Iran did not start when the current war started. Iran has always created problems for ships' passage through the strait. It has obviously been 10x'ed as a result of the recent aggression, but it's not like they left it alone before.
2) I think the more important difference is that a large amount of gulf state energy infrastructure is being literally blown up. That has not happened before. We also don't know where it will end.
The question is, how do we get Israel out of this forever war state?
There is a loooooooooooooooooooooong queue to pick up the torch.
As much as it may seem like a narrow political win for the US to prevent Chinese access to energy infrastructure, China will continue to electrify. At the same time, the US is still massively dependent on shipping and industrial outputs from China.
It's all entangled. As are the interests of most energy companies.
So because they lie anyway, muslims will very quickly declare peace ... and then attack again. As I said, not exactly a new thing, that. Iran falsely declared peace with Israel (due to the Iraq war) before the Arab nations did. Iran even betrayed the Palestinians and the Soviets for that peace treaty. They never had any intention on following through on the agreement to Israel either, of course.
So can I ask: do you believe in international law? Because either international law works and Israel is at peace. In fact Israel is currently at peace. Iran has not declared war on them, and Palestinians have declared peace and signed a peace treaty ...
Or international law doesn't really exist, and any kind of diplomacy with Palestinians has no point. Because any agreement from their side, whether signed or not ... isn't worth the paper it's written on. Same with Iran's regime.
Of course Palestinians have already violated the treaties where they declared that peace. Oh and not just violated it. Because there's violating a peace treaty and then there is putting out press releases saying you're proudly violating the peace treaty, while committing a massacre on Palestinians. Hamas likes to take such a drastically stupid approach, then wonder why Israel keeps reading their exact intentions so very, very, very well.
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/26/hamas-must-disarm-t...
(oh here's Hamas proudly declaring they're violating the peace treaty, while committing yet another massacre against Palestinians: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjr034p5prlo, and here again: https://www.algemeiner.com/2026/01/29/hamas-doubles-down-ref... ... and again: https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/khaled-mashaal-... )
For the last 10 years, Russia has been at war with Ukraine, and China has been at war, meaning regular kinetic exchanges with ... everyone really. Especially Taiwan, but also Korea, the Philippines, Japan, Vietnam, and, perhaps surprisingly, Russia. In the last 10 years the US has not had any war, and I'm betting everyone kind of understands that compared to Russia's war, the US war with Iran is not even at the level Russia would call a "war". Not even remotely close. If exchanging missiles and long-range drones to and from ships counts, Russia has been at war with the northern and southeastern countries of the EU for pretty much a decade (meaning both the East Sea with Finland/Denmark/Poland/Sweden... and Turkey + Mediterranean countries on the other side)
And yet, somehow people seem to be convinced of almost the exact opposite of the facts.
Oh and the propaganda both the extreme right and the extreme left in the EU, as well as state media in Russia, are spreading is that the EU is attacking Russia (not the US, that is not a typo, that the EU is attacking Russia), even separately from the Ukraine war. That is the main factor why EU countries are so convinced Russia is close to a large scale attack on the EU. And it also of course means that at least Russia does not care in the slightest who is a threat to them and who isn't. They only care who they perceive as weak. Frankly, the same goes for Iran. Iran is not remotely threatened by the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Kuwait or Qatar, and yet they're attacking all of them (they're even attacking Saudi Arabia with land forces by the way)
2) As to your second point, Iran was constantly attacking oil facilities pretty much their entire existence, if you include tankers, for at least 40 years, it was just constant. It was "normal", and barely reported. When it comes to land-based infrastructure attacked things heated up and cooled down, but never cooled down fully.
The US defended everyone, and the tankers, and by defended I mean we blew the hell out of Iranians, usually sinking boats, occasionally going after fixed installations. I don't think you're going to find many US Navy sailors surprised at what's happened.
Outside of that here is a list of attacks on gulf state energy infrastructure, just the last 6 years. You may notice that either by the location or the associations (e.g. Houthi attacks) it's always been Iran doing the attacks since Saddam Hussein left, with the occasional shot in the other direction. I couldn't find a good recent example, but actually it's not just Israel shooting and fighting back, but also Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. Iran isn't even at peace with the Taliban.
May 2019: sabotage of oil tankers near Fujairah in the UAE.
May 2019: drone strike on Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline pumping stations.
September 2019: the huge strike on Abqaiq and Khurais in Saudi Arabia, which temporarily knocked out more than half of Saudi output.
November 2020: attack on Aramco’s North Jeddah Bulk Plant.
March 2021: attempted strike on Ras Tanura and related Saudi energy targets.
March 2021: attack on the Jeddah petroleum products distribution plant.
November 2021: another Houthi claim of attacks on Aramco facilities in Jeddah.
March 2022: attacks on Saudi energy facilities, including Jeddah storage tanks.
March 25, 2022: Saudi Jeddah petroleum products distribution/storage site attacked.
June 14, 2025: Israeli strike on a Tehran fuel depot and refinery.
June 16, 2025: Iranian attack shut down Israel’s Haifa refinery.
March 2, 2026: drone attack on Saudi Ras Tanura refinery.
March 18, 2026: strike on Iran’s South Pars / Asaluyeh gas facilities.
March 18–19, 2026: Iranian retaliatory attacks on Ras Laffan in Qatar, SAMREF/Yanbu in Saudi Arabia, Mina al-Ahmadi and Mina Abdullah in Kuwait, and UAE energy sites including Habshan/Bab.
March 19, 2026: another strike affecting Israel’s Haifa refinery.
By the US's standard of what is considered a war, is China at war, and have they been at war in the last 10 years? If so, where and when?
Russia obviously has been at war with Ukraine, no question there.
But not the US, and not in dollars. Serious 20D chess, it’s so genius it’s incomprehensible.