Donald Davis

No matter how you look at it, $25 billion is a lot of money. And if Secretary of War Peter Hegseth’s estimate is right, Americans are spending more to kill Iranians than to ensure people in this country have adequate healthcare, food and housing.

The $25 billion is the estimate of what’s been spent so far. The war in Iran is hardly over. But it’s still not clear if Iran has nuclear weapons or if they were obliterated in the attack last year. And it’s still not clear what, if anything, has changed in Iran’s government.

The war killed one ayatollah in his 80s, but his son has taken his place, sounding just as belligerent and determined to stand against what they see as the “Great Satan.“

So, there’s been no regime change, just a new, younger man at the top of what the Trump Administration sees as the same “radical Islamic state.”

Meanwhile, gas is now more than $4 a gallon and rising. More than 300,000 people soon will have their healthcare cut by the Big, Beautiful Bill because our nation just can’t afford to carry them any longer. And thousands of children in this great and wealthy nation will go to bed hungry. Americans just can’t afford to keep feeding them anymore.

But we can spend $25 billion and counting to kill people rather than to keep them alive … all while summoning Christians to prayer and a marathon reading of the Holy Bible.

How warped is that?

The New York Times has done some of the math, and it reports the amount the Trump Administration has spent so far to bomb, bomb, bomb Iran would pay for Obamacare subsidies for one whole year, helping millions of people stay healthy and alive.

The $25 billion we’ve already spent to bomb Iran is more than the budgets of several federal agencies and the entire annual budget of NASA.

And the $25 billion Hegseth says the United States has spent to destroy Iran could go to the noboost U.S. humanitarian prograaround the world instead of cutting aid to the world’s starving people anymore. It’s too expensive.

If the $25 billion had actually achieved something to help the American people, there might be an argument that the pain we’re now experiencing when we buy food, pay for healthcare and fill up our tanks may be worth it. But the shockwaves of the U.S. war in Iran is creating casualties around the world, including here at home.

The rich parts of the world depends on the free flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz to keep their privileged lifestyles intact.

Iran controls about 12% of the world’s known oil reserves and is one of the top ten producers. It’s oil being off market hurts not only Europe and Asia, but it’s directly the cause of skyrocketing gas prices in the United States. It is making it harder for many families to heat and cool their homes, fill up their gas tanks and keep the lights on. And it’s going to get worse.

America and the world need Iranian oil; as well as a stable Iranian government to get oil from the entire Middle East to the rest of the world.

Despite what Hegseth and President Donald Trump may want to do, they can’t just take Iranian oil in bombing raids. If the United States destroys Iran’s ability to produce and distribute oil, we risk destroying ourselves, after we go bankrupt.

Experts know Hegseth and our president will soon come to that realization if they haven’t already. It could explain why there’s now an indefinite ceasefire as they try to coax or bully Iran back to the negotiating table. We wish them luck and godspeed.

Anyone who knows anything about Iran could have told them bombing raids alone won’t destroy a civilization that is as old as the world itself. And they would know its people once ruled much of it.

Joyce M. Davis is PennLive’s Outreach & Opinion Editor. She also is former sernior supervisor of Radio Farda. the American broadcast station into Iran, and author of two books on the Middle East.

Follow her on Facebook, Bluesky @joycemdavis.bsky.social, and on Twitter @byjoycedavis.