The cost of folly

On the one hand, the death and destruction aren’t accomplishing anything. On the other hand, it’s highly inflationary. But at least it’s extremely expensive:

The cost of the Iran war has risen to $29 billion, a top Pentagon official told lawmakers Tuesday, even as the U.S. says combat operations have largely ceased.

The estimate, provided by acting Pentagon Comptroller Jules Hurst at budget hearings in the House and Senate Appropriations panels, increased from the $25 billion the administration told lawmakers last month and is still significantly lower than outside projections. The latest figure comes amid a shaky ceasefire, competing naval blockades, skyrocketing gas prices and declining public support for the war.

“A lot of that increase comes from having a refined estimate on repair and replacement costs for equipment,” Hurst told senators, testifying alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Dan Caine.

That cost is largely driving the $4 billion increase, Hurst said, but the estimate also includes operational costs and munitions.

The latest tab still doesn’t include the cost of repairing U.S. facilities in the Middle East, which sustained damage from Iranian counterattacks.

“We don’t know what our future posture is going to be,” Hurst said. “We don’t know how those bases would be reconstructed and we don’t know what percentage our allies and partners will pay for that reconstruction.”

But Democratic senators seized on the latest estimate, arguing the administration is lowballing the cost of a war with no clear end and relying on Congress to pick up the tab. The top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, accused the latest numbers of being “suspiciously low.”

“You’re spending families’ hard-earned tax dollars on a war that many strongly oppose, and you’re forcing many to pay more at the pump, and yet you’re not even providing a real breakdown of the cost of this war so far,” she said.

So $29 billion is both $29 billion more than this war is worth and also almost certainly a significant underestimate even leaving aside that the war shows no sign of being over. I’m afraid there are things about the non-interventionist mindest you may not understand.