The Catastrophe of Trump’s War and Its Mounting Costs
After Tehran dismissed his 15-point ceasefire plan,
Trump claimed
today that Iran is “begging to make a deal” and that he wasn’t
the one pushing for negotiations. (Earlier, he told Tehran to “get serious
soon” about negotiating an end to the war.)
“They’ll tell you, ‘We’re not negotiating,’” Trump said.
“Of course, they’re negotiating. They’ve been obliterated.” He said Iran is
allowing some oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz as a “present” to
show how serious it is about negotiating to end the war.
He rejected reports that he was looking for an exit ramp. “I
read a story today that I’m desperate to make a deal,” Trump told
reporters. “I’m the opposite of desperate. I don’t care.”
Is he naive? Ignorant? Stupid? Or does he think we’re so
stupid as not to see that he’s making this up as he goes, that he has no plan,
no exit strategy, no way out?
Trump — and Pete Hegseth and anyone else who may be advising
him — have already blown this.
They thought the Iranian regime would fall as easily as the
capture of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro. They assumed they could use air power
alone. Wrong on both counts.
They overestimated the capacity and desire of Iranians to
overthrow the regime.
They underestimated the regime’s resilience. They didn’t
count on it expanding the conflict through the use of cheap drones aimed at
closing the Strait of Hormuz, disrupting supply chains throughout the region,
and raising oil prices — thereby putting mounting political and economic
pressure on the United States.
They didn’t anticipate that they’d have to lift sanctions on
Iran, delivering the regime a huge windfall. Nor that they’d deliver vast oil
profits to Vladimir Putin.
To the extent they engaged in any planning at all, they
focused on America’s military might rather than the consequences of what might
happen next. But as we should have learned years ago from bombing North
Vietnam, political outcomes cannot be achieved solely from the skies.
Wars are judged by how they end, not how they begin. It is still possible, although highly improbable, that America will come out of this more secure than we went into it. But wars started without clear political objectives have rarely ended well.
The Trump regime now faces the task of trying to reopen
Hormuz to prevent even worse economic chaos.
Either it prolongs the war and puts boots on the ground at a
significance cost of human life, or it walks away and risks further economic
chaos, major damage to America’s image and influence, and an Iranian regime
more committed than ever to building a nuclear bomb.
Meanwhile, the costs of this war are accelerating
rapidly. The price of oil has resumed its upward trajectory and the stock
market its downward drift.
The American public is paying in many ways — not just for
more expensive gas but soon for more costly food due to pricier fertilizer.
The average rate on a 30-year mortgage has now hit 6.38
percent, the fourth increase since the war began.
The Pentagon is requesting an additional $200
billion to fund the war. This comes to more than $1,400 per American
household.
More costs will emerge. The George W. Bush administration in
2003 put the cost of the Iraq War at $40
billion; it ended up costing about $3
trillion.
Soldiers who develop medical disorders or aggravate existing
ones, for example, will receive lifelong benefits and medical care, as they
should. If today’s troops claim such benefits at the same rate as those who
participated in the 1990-91 Gulf War, this cost alone would eventually total at
least $600 billion, not counting the human toll.
So far, the war has cost us more than $1.3 million per
minute.
At this rate, as Times columnist Nicholas
Kristof has calculated,
for a bit more than two weeks of this war, we could offer free college
education to every American family earning less than $125,000 annually.
For less than three weeks of this war, we could run a
nationwide pre-K program for 3- and 4-year-olds. For less than 13 hours of
this war, we could screen all uninsured women for cervical cancer, saving
several hundred lives.
For four hours of this war we could get
glasses to all 2.3 million low-income schoolchildren in the United States who
need them but don’t have them. For less than three weeks of this war, we could
restore health insurance subsidies that the Trump administration let expire
last year and thus prevent an estimated 8,800 deaths.
For a bit more than five hours of this war, we could deworm
all children worldwide. For less than five hours of this war, we could provide
vitamin A supplementation for the 190 million children around the world who
need it, preventing up to 480,000 child deaths each year and virtually
eliminating blindness from vitamin A deficiency.
For about one day’s worth of war spending we could save more
than 350,000 lives worldwide from malaria.
Most Americans oppose this war. Congress did not authorize
it. It is one man’s war: Donald Trump’s. He alone decided to put us into this
horrific, bloody, hugely expensive bind.
I hope and pray we come out of it without even more deaths
and higher costs, but that seems improbable. The war is a deepening tragedy, a
horrific waste of life and money, a mounting bill we will be paying for years
to come.
Focus on this stark reality: One man has put us in this
Middle East quagmire. One man is wrecking our economy. One man’s immigration
agents have terrorized our neighbors and neighborhoods. One man has ridden
roughshod over our system of government.
That man is not our king. He did not even win a majority of
the national popular vote in 2024. (He won with a plurality of 49.8
percent, or just 32.5
percent of all eligible voters.)
He’s the only former or sitting president to have been
impeached twice, the only former or sitting president to have been convicted of
criminal charges (34 felony counts), the only former or sitting president to
have sought to overturn an election to remain in office.
So far he has gotten away with all of this.
We will march against him Saturday as a prelude to
organizing and mobilizing to take over Congress in the midterm elections.
Someday, I sincerely hope, we will hold him accountable for
the wreckage he has made of our country and much of the rest of the world.
