Pentagon asks for $200bn for Iran War | Hacker News Reader

Pentagon asks for $200bn for Iran War

bloomberg.com

81 pointsmaster_crab56 comments

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Actual true cost of Iraq + Afghanistan war was $8 TRILLION

https://theintercept.com/2026/03/17/trump-iran-war-cost/

total spent on war and military from 2002-2021 was $21 TRILLION

https://ips-dc.org/report-state-of-insecurity-cost-militariz...

$421B per year. It is nice to see inflation hasn't hit military campaigns as hard.

Or maybe it has since there isn't yet an occupation.

To put this into perspective, the US provided Ukraine with $64.62bn of military aid and $50.72bn of humanitarian and financial support in the four years between January 2022 and December 2025.

And that is to hold off an invasion against a nuclear superpower neighbor

Whose conventional military was designed to invade Europe. That military is now decimated and the economy behind it is in real trouble.

Should probably ask Congress for permission as well?

Ask Elon Musk, he has an AI that he can use to cut money from the poor ang give it to Trump family and his billionaire pedo friends to continue this war, true genius negotiation this Trump, in fact I can't believe he did not received the Nobel Peace Prize.

Seriously what is in MAGA heads now, they voted this guy because they claimed Biden was spending money on wars like helping Ukraine, and now the peace maker, Trump needs a ton of money for his own wars.

I thought it wasn't a war until congress approves it?

It's not a war even if Congress approves it. It's still just "an exercise of the War Powers Act", which is not technically the same thing.

To actually be a war Congress has to declare war. But they passed the War Powers Act so that they wouldn't have to do that.

In theory, the War Powers Act is limited to 60-90 days unless Congress approves funding. Which they may -- a bill to refuse funding failed. Which isn't the same thing, but even if they can't pass the authorization, it's not clear if that actually matters to anybody.

A rose by any other name applies here. It is a war regardless of how the US government wants to legally dance around the term.

Special military operation

putin is laughing

Unless laws are enforced, the laws don't matter.

I think the country isn't officially at war without an act of congress, but whether a conflict is a war is probably a property of the conflict and not government declarations of the beligerants or the legallity of their participation.

Anyway, the Department of Whatever its name is needs money.

At least it’s “ahead of schedule”!

Is it? Haven't seen POTUS on a carrier flight deck with a "Mission Accomplished" banner yet, so we got at least 15 years of war ahead.

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c24d410m3g4t?post=asset%3A0575...

I don't know that I'd trust the words of a President that "starts a war with Iran because he has absolutely no ability to negotiate."

https://youtu.be/5KV_nIgg008

Do we now call it a war? I thought it was an excursion?

Legally the administration claims it's not a war. Publicly they all call it a way.

"They have no shame, do they? They don't even bother to lie badly anymore. I suppose that's the final humiliation" - Senator Mon Mothma, Andor

"Bombing campaign" is kinda clumsy. Can we just have a colloquial use of the term that differs from the legal one?

Why is this flagged?

Probably because it's 'political' news — but I don't think this is political as such. The Pentagon is (or should be) an inherently non-political government agency. @dang curious on your thoughts here though.

Politics has always been a lame excuse. If there's an article shitting on California's politics, it doesn't get flagged and there is no talk about "no politics on HN". Just tons of "California Bad" posts. If there's an article praising something political in Austin, TX. Same thing. No complaints about politics. Lots of posts about "California Bad". It's almost like the problem isn't politics. But the "politics" a certain segment of HN doesn't like.

It's completely intertwined to current United States politics and, I understand the hypocrisy of this statement as I'm commenting on it, doesn't really bring out meaningful discussions. The same arguments are made by both sides over and over again. I flagged it because, to me, the discussion is better suited somewhere else.

sophies choice? fund a war, or fund DHS.

“Oceania was at war with Eurasia; therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia”

But on a more serious non-political note, what is the end game here? It's not hard to see a future with a barren and destroyed landscape of Middle Eastern energy infrastructure, where neither the Gulf states nor Iran can reliably produce and export their energy due to continual risk.

The US can never fully defang Iran, unless it happens internally. And from history, we know that aerial bombing campaigns typically don't reinforce the civilian will for revolution.

So now we have a pariah state with a decapitated leadership structure, an array of Gulf states who cannot reliably defend their energy assets, and no will for a global detente because of the thousands of entangled interests that sit in the Gulf region.

Either this festers, or escalates, but no party seems to be willing to step down and accept a loss.

I know I'm going to get destroyed for this, but:

1) It's the current Iranian state has always been at war. They are at war with "the little Satan" (Israel) and "the Big Satan" (US). I know this sounds like a joke but they're absolutely 100% serious.

Serious enough to organize massacres ("terrorism") on unrelated individuals, like the Argentina bombing in the beginning and the Hezbollah massacres in Syria just last year.

And yes, there was a time of military cooperation between Iran and Israel (just after the beginning. Israel was instrumental and helped Iran avoid getting conquered by Iraq/Saddam Hussein and got intelligence on the Iraqi nuclear program in return). This has not changed anything for the ayatollahs.

And btw: the Soviet Union has had a much similar experience. They helped the mullahs get to power, helped defend against Iraq, and got an enemy in return, because the mullahs ... well presumably they saw what was happening in Afghanistan.

2) Blocking of the strait of Hormuz by Iran did not start when the current war started. Iran has always created problems for ships' passage through the strait. It has obviously been 10x'ed as a result of the recent aggression, but it's not like they left it alone before.

1) Yes, clearly Iran is run by extremist zealots who are horrifyingly committed to their cause. I don't think any reasonable person disagrees with this. To invert my original comment, 'Eurasia has always been at war with Oceania,' right? But that doesn't mean that indiscriminately bombing them is a coherent military strategy. Nor is it leading to the mass civilian uprising that was clearly hoped for.

2) I think the more important difference is that a large amount of gulf state energy infrastructure is being literally blown up. That has not happened before. We also don't know where it will end.

1) you implied that the US is perpetually at war and Iran is not, my argument was that it's literally the exact opposite. In fact, let me point out, it's even worse than that. Of the 2 or 3 superpowers that exist, the US is by far the most peaceful one, in fact it's the only one that ISN'T perpetually at war.

For the last 10 years, Russia has been at war with Ukraine, and China has been at war, meaning regular kinetic exchanges with ... everyone really. Especially Taiwan, but also Korea, the Philippines, Japan, Vietnam, and, perhaps surprisingly, Russia. In the last 10 years the US has not had any war, and I'm betting everyone kind of understands that compared to Russia's war, the US war with Iran is not even at the level Russia would call a "war". Not even remotely close. If exchanging missiles and long-range drones to and from ships counts, Russia has been at war with the northern and southeastern countries of the EU for pretty much a decade (meaning both the East Sea with Finland/Denmark/Poland/Sweden... and Turkey + Mediterranean countries on the other side)

And yet, somehow people seem to be convinced of almost the exact opposite of the facts.

Oh and the propaganda both the extreme right and the extreme left in the EU, as well as state media in Russia, are spreading is that the EU is attacking Russia (not the US, that is not a typo, that the EU is attacking Russia), even separately from the Ukraine war. That is the main factor why EU countries are so convinced Russia is close to a large scale attack on the EU. And it also of course means that at least Russia does not care in the slightest who is a threat to them and who isn't. They only care who they perceive as weak. Frankly, the same goes for Iran. Iran is not remotely threatened by the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Kuwait or Qatar, and yet they're attacking all of them (they're even attacking Saudi Arabia with land forces by the way)

2) As to your second point, Iran was constantly attacking oil facilities pretty much their entire existence, if you include tankers, for at least 40 years, it was just constant. It was "normal", and barely reported. When it comes to land-based infrastructure attacked things heated up and cooled down, but never cooled down fully.

The US defended everyone, and the tankers, and by defended I mean we blew the hell out of Iranians, usually sinking boats, occasionally going after fixed installations. I don't think you're going to find many US Navy sailors surprised at what's happened.

Outside of that here is a list of attacks on gulf state energy infrastructure, just the last 6 years. You may notice that either by the location or the associations (e.g. Houthi attacks) it's always been Iran doing the attacks since Saddam Hussein left, with the occasional shot in the other direction. I couldn't find a good recent example, but actually it's not just Israel shooting and fighting back, but also Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. Iran isn't even at peace with the Taliban.

May 2019: sabotage of oil tankers near Fujairah in the UAE.

May 2019: drone strike on Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline pumping stations.

September 2019: the huge strike on Abqaiq and Khurais in Saudi Arabia, which temporarily knocked out more than half of Saudi output.

November 2020: attack on Aramco’s North Jeddah Bulk Plant.

March 2021: attempted strike on Ras Tanura and related Saudi energy targets.

March 2021: attack on the Jeddah petroleum products distribution plant.

November 2021: another Houthi claim of attacks on Aramco facilities in Jeddah.

March 2022: attacks on Saudi energy facilities, including Jeddah storage tanks.

March 25, 2022: Saudi Jeddah petroleum products distribution/storage site attacked.

June 14, 2025: Israeli strike on a Tehran fuel depot and refinery.

June 16, 2025: Iranian attack shut down Israel’s Haifa refinery.

March 2, 2026: drone attack on Saudi Ras Tanura refinery.

March 18, 2026: strike on Iran’s South Pars / Asaluyeh gas facilities.

March 18–19, 2026: Iranian retaliatory attacks on Ras Laffan in Qatar, SAMREF/Yanbu in Saudi Arabia, Mina al-Ahmadi and Mina Abdullah in Kuwait, and UAE energy sites including Habshan/Bab.

March 19, 2026: another strike affecting Israel’s Haifa refinery.

You're really playing fast and loose with your definition of war here, you change it depending on the country, but aren't clearly delineating which you're using. So let me ask a question to try to clear this up:

By the US's standard of what is considered a war, is China at war, and have they been at war in the last 10 years? If so, where and when?

Russia obviously has been at war with Ukraine, no question there.

China has been conquering territory from other nations, making it their own, always advancing (even in cases where it makes no sense whatsoever, read some articles about the Vietnamese border). If that is not war, then what is?

My understanding is that its Israel that is in endless war. Their state was birthed in 1948 by war and violence and they have been at war with their neighbors ever since. First it was the Arab states. When they made peace, they then pivoted to Iran and made them their enemy. Before this, Iran was a very pro western country (and we all know the historical lead up to this).

The question is, how do we get Israel out of this forever war state?

Can I just be cynical about such a stupid question? Obviously you're ignoring which side is attacking. But due to muslim tactics, it is easy. UN has rules about declaring war and peace that all countries (including Iran) have agreed to uphold, and muslims have a tradition of lying with peace treaties (you see, apparently some prophet did that, so it's a bit of a religious tradition). And I mean actually using peace treaties as tools for deception, ie. lying. I'm not saying nobody else does that, Russia and China certainly have the same habit, but they do too.

So because they lie anyway, muslims will very quickly declare peace ... and then attack again. As I said, not exactly a new thing, that. Iran falsely declared peace with Israel (due to the Iraq war) before the Arab nations did. Iran even betrayed the Palestinians and the Soviets for that peace treaty. They never had any intention on following through on the agreement to Israel either, of course.

So can I ask: do you believe in international law? Because either international law works and Israel is at peace. In fact Israel is currently at peace. Iran has not declared war on them, and Palestinians have declared peace and signed a peace treaty ...

Or international law doesn't really exist, and any kind of diplomacy with Palestinians has no point. Because any agreement from their side, whether signed or not ... isn't worth the paper it's written on. Same with Iran's regime.

Of course Palestinians have already violated the treaties where they declared that peace. Oh and not just violated it. Because there's violating a peace treaty and then there is putting out press releases saying you're proudly violating the peace treaty, while committing a massacre on Palestinians. Hamas likes to take such a drastically stupid approach, then wonder why Israel keeps reading their exact intentions so very, very, very well.

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/26/hamas-must-disarm-t...

(oh here's Hamas proudly declaring they're violating the peace treaty, while committing yet another massacre against Palestinians: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjr034p5prlo, and here again: https://www.algemeiner.com/2026/01/29/hamas-doubles-down-ref... ... and again: https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/khaled-mashaal-... )

The endgame is a wasteland of miserable neighbours that Israel can control, occupy and plunder without encountering any resistance. As for the US, they are not in control of their own actions, they're a puppet moved by Israel.

I agree with what you just said except, the leadership structure in Iran is absolutely not “decapitated”.

There is a loooooooooooooooooooooong queue to pick up the torch.

To make the analogy much more gruesome, I guess you could say the the ears and nose have been cut off, but the head remains.

I think it’s just business as usual, except the USA is losing their wars quickly, not slowly.

that's a huge boon for US dominance actually. Exporting oil for $$$, china having no way to get massive quantities of cheap oil, etc.

Russia and the US, from a “market share” standpoint, will be massive benefactors… but the knock-on effects of having a crippled global energy economy will be significant.

As much as it may seem like a narrow political win for the US to prevent Chinese access to energy infrastructure, China will continue to electrify. At the same time, the US is still massively dependent on shipping and industrial outputs from China.

It's all entangled. As are the interests of most energy companies.

China will be just fine mate :) They are smartly just watching US destroy itself from within and outside and chillin'

They have a heavy dependence on imported crude from the middle east, and their alternative sources like pipelines from russia do not have enough to cover them, their domestic resources are max tapped and thier strategic supply cannot last for an extended period.

Which will resume trading in Yuan. Anyone who bends the knee, will get to buy oil.

But not the US, and not in dollars. Serious 20D chess, it’s so genius it’s incomprehensible.

doesnt matter what its trading in, you need to be able to physically move the goods.

yea, this is why they are sitting idle and doing nothing right now, makes sense /s

ConocoPhillips and Exxon just announced a 20 billion hit due to attacks. No one will leave this thing unscathed.

Yes, foreign nation building with murky win conditions and a steadily increasing cost ledger are famously pretty good for US dominance

Whatever israel wants.

No more wars, America first, and lower prices. /s

Defense contractors, apocalypse prophecy crusaders, and Lindsey Graham love it though. It's $200B not going to housing, food, healthcare, elder care, scientific advancement, or infrastructure and it's limited munitions not going to Ukraine to help defeat Putin.

"Almost over" but needs 180 days of funding without Congressional authorization for the declaration of war.

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