With the Iran conflict entering its fourth day and posing a risk of spreading to the broader region, the enormous financial and strategic costs the U.S. is bearing to fund its military actions are clashing with a stark admission from the White House.
Since [blank] started on Saturday, the Trump administration has offered [blank] to defend its campaign, yet it has avoided directly stating leadership change as a definite objective—even though the results so far have essentially been a decapitation of the regime. Over the weekend, President Donald Trump asserted that the initial strikes had killed up to [blank] people, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
“This is not a so-called ‘regime change war’, but the regime sure did change,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth [blank] in public comments on Monday.
However, for Trump, the large-scale nature of the attack has also been paired with uncertainty about what happens next—particularly how to fill the significant leadership void without the risk of returning to Khamenei’s authoritarian rule. This is a challenge that Trump himself is acutely conscious of.
“The worst case would be we do this and then somebody takes over who’s as bad as the previous person,” Trump [blank] in public remarks on Tuesday, laying out a worst-case scenario that could reflect the exact instability the military operation was supposedly meant to fix.
“It would probably be the worst. You go through this, and then, in five years, you realize you put somebody in who was no better,” Trump stated.
The president’s honest evaluation came as critics from the U.S. and around the world fault the administration for its seeming absence of a plan to address Iran’s leadership situation. These questions have grown more urgent as cost estimates for the war are made public. Kent Smetters, head of the Penn Wharton Budget Model, recently [blank] that the total economic impact on the U.S. could hit $210 billion. This number includes direct military costs—projected at up to $95 billion—plus major disruptions to global trade, energy markets, and financial systems.
The scope of U.S. engagement in Iran may shift. For instance, its campaign could soon [blank] for critical weapons, but the war’s cost could increase the longer it continues and if it draws in more groups and combatants from other parts of the region. Mohamed El-Erian, Allianz’s chief economic advisor, warned this week that extended disruptions to Middle Eastern oil and gas production could cause [blank] globally.
An unfavorable audience
The absence of a clear succession plan in Iran is one reason many Americans are worried about U.S. participation in another possible “forever” war in the Middle East. [blank] indicates that 43% of Americans oppose the war. A [blank] taken on Monday and Tuesday also revealed that 62% of Americans believe the Trump administration hasn’t fully explained the U.S. military’s objectives in Iran.
Lawmakers have also expressed alarm at the lack of a clear endgame.
“It’s like we’re going to break all the china and you guys decide how to put it back together,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) [blank] on Sunday. On Tuesday, Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) referred to the administration’s approach as “[blank]” in an interview with News.
The economic consequences are already being felt around the world. Gas prices across the U.S. [blank] overnight on Tuesday. Although Trump [blank] on Tuesday that oil prices would eventually fall “lower than even before,” the current situation is marked by growing uncertainty and geopolitical tension. Allies such as [blank] and the [blank] declined to take part in the initial strikes; Spain’s President Pedro Sánchez called the war a breach of international law, leading Trump to threaten [blank] with the country.
Even though Trump has urged the Iranian people to “take over” their government, his administration has not provided any support to civil society groups that could establish a rule-of-law society, according to Atlantic reporter Anne Applebaum [blank] over the weekend. She cautioned that the void left by the attacks could be filled by splinter groups within the Revolutionary Guard or other extremist factions. She also pointed out that some of the Trump administration’s actions over the past year—including [blank] to the international broadcaster Voice of America, which once offered daily Persian-language news to citizens of authoritarian regimes like Iran’s—have created additional barriers to Iran’s future.