Trump faces a high price for Iran strike

When President Donald Trump ordered the use of US military power abroad, he assumed that the casualties would be minimal and the economic impact would be minimal. But that assumption has been challenged since the start of the war against Iran.

So far, six American soldiers have been killed and US allies in the Persian Gulf have been attacked. The stock market has been in turmoil and oil prices have risen, leaving ordinary people worried.

According to military analysts, the Pentagon is spending hundreds of millions of dollars a day. At least 175 people were killed in an airstrike on a girls' school in Iran, and the investigation is ongoing.

The US has not yet sent ground troops to Iran, but the administration has not completely ruled out the possibility. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the conflict would not end anytime soon. They are not slowing down the operation, but rather accelerating it. He also said new bombers would be sent there.

The Trump administration was confident before the missile strikes that began on Saturday. Their plan was to quickly depose Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, attack Iranian nuclear facilities and launch a full-scale counterterrorism operation in Yemen or Somalia. Trump considered these operations successful and cost-effective.

But Representative Jason Crow, a Democrat from Colorado and a former Army Ranger, said the United States was now walking the same path that Trump had spoken out against “endless war.” “After 25 years of spending trillions of dollars and thousands of lives, we are back in the same predicament,” he said.

John Hoffman, a fellow at the Cato Institute, said Trump had begun to think he was “invincible” after the Maduro issue. He added that Trump likes big wins at low cost, but Iran and Venezuela are not the same. Natural gas prices in Europe have risen 40 percent and this is just the beginning.

Eliot Abrams, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, believes that dismantling the Iranian regime’s military power, which has targeted Americans for 40 years, would be beneficial for the United States and its allies. But according to Hoffman, destabilizing Iran means creating chaos throughout the region, where a refugee crisis and the extremist group ISIS could re-emerge.

Trump has called on the Iranian people to “occupy” their country, but the White House has not yet confirmed whether it will directly support any armed groups there.

Source: The New York Times