From the Top of the Platform
Yasser Al-Fadni
The Cat Eats Its Kittens!!
In modern wars, the counter does not begin with the number of the dead, but with the billions that evaporate into thin air. That is what the figures coming from Washington say: $11.3 billion is the cost of the first week of the confrontation between the United States and Iran. It is a number that looks enormous, yet in reality it is only the opening bill, because American wars do not start expensive… they later turn into an open financial hemorrhage.
Recent history bears witness. The Iraq War began with a swift military strike and ended with a cost approaching two trillion dollars, while the War in Afghanistan swallowed more than $2.3 trillion before Washington withdrew, leaving behind a devastated country and a haunting question: who won, and who really lost?
Now the cycle returns to spin again in the Middle East. Missiles are launched, aircraft take off, aircraft carriers fill the seas, yet the American treasury knows very well that every hour of flight and every interceptor missile is worth millions of dollars. That is why the White House is preparing to knock on Congress’s door once again, requesting an additional funding package for the war.
But the problem in Washington is that a war may begin with a presidential decision, yet it cannot continue without a check from Congress. Here is where the real political battle begins.
President Donald Trump understands that passing the funding will not be easy. U.S. debt is approaching forty trillion dollars, and the American memory is still heavy with the bitterness of Iraq and Afghanistan. Members of the United States Congress will therefore ask the traditional question that accompanies every war: How much will it cost? How long will it last? And who will truly pay the price?
In fact, the human cost has already begun to appear. Iranian drone and missile attacks on American bases in the Gulf have caused deaths and injuries among U.S. soldiers. These losses may be limited militarily, but they are politically significant, because when an American soldier falls outside his homeland, he immediately becomes a matter of public opinion inside the United States.
But the story does not stop with American soldiers. The painful paradox of this war is that the Arab Gulf stands at the center of the economic losses. When missiles rise above the waters of the Strait of Hormuz, it is not only the sound of explosions that fills the air. Oil tankers slow down or halt, insurance costs surge, and global energy markets enter a state of turbulence. This narrow passage, through which nearly one-fifth of the world’s oil flows, suddenly becomes the most dangerous maritime corridor on the planet.
The result is that Gulf economies—largely dependent on energy exports—face a double shock: threatened exports, ports under security pressure, and air-defense systems firing interceptor missiles worth millions of dollars each. Thus the war becomes a strange equation: Israel fights on its front line, the United States manages the battle, but the Gulf pays the largest share of the economic bill.
The question now is: Will Congress approve the new funding?
Most likely the package will pass—but under tough conditions. Washington knows that a war with Iran is no military picnic. Iran is not a small state that can be toppled by a quick strike; it is a large country geographically, militarily, and politically. Many American politicians therefore fear that the confrontation could turn into a new quagmire similar to Iraq.
As for the Gulf states, they have only one path to restore their resilience after this storm: reducing their dependence on the bottleneck of the Strait of Hormuz, building alternative export networks through pipelines, strengthening joint defense systems, and most importantly accelerating economic transformation beyond reliance on oil alone.
Because the truth revealed by this war once again is simple yet harsh: in the Middle East, armies may fire the bullets, but oil markets pay the final bill.
And so, while the White House asks Congress for billions more, from my platform I look out and say: a question still hangs over the waters of the Gulf—how many more wars can the world endure before realizing that the cost of peace is far cheaper than the cost of missiles?
