“We need some hard answers and some straight talk.” Republican Sen. John Kennedy dispensed with his usual folksy patter to speak bluntly for the nation Tuesday on Capitol Hill. Kennedy and Americans who want to know how long President Donald Trump’s war will last and at what cost were looking for answers from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. They didn’t get them. Instead, most Republicans stood firm in a critical hearing with an administration waging a hugely unpopular war, while Democrats highlighted the gap between its premature victory laps and the current stalemate. In the hearing’s most illuminating moment, Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff told Hegseth: “You will not answer whether your statement made on the 14th day of the war that Iran’s military had been quote destroyed and made combat ineffective was a truthful statement to the American people as you sit here and ask for tens of billions (of dollars) more.” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth testifies during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill on Tuesday in Washington, DC. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images The Georgia senator’s monotone but relentless cross-examination extracted the hearing’s critical takeaway: The administration is asking for a huge windfall in financing for a war it has always struggled to explain, can’t control and for which it lacks metrics of success and a way out. Hegseth, and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Dan Caine, came armed with an $87.6 billion Trump administration supplemental request that includes more than $67 billion for the war and other Pentagon spending. And as Hegseth announced that the conflict had racked up $37.5 billion in costs, it is expanding. More US troops died over the weekend, bringing the death toll to 18; CNN reported that 100 American personnel had been injured since early July; Iran has all but closed shipping in the Strait of Hormuz; its Houthi allies in Yemen are threatening alternative Red Sea routes; and Trump warned Tuesday he would “soon” order another escalation, with an attack on Pickaxe Mountain, another suspected Iranian nuclear site. US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, left, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine depart after testifying during a Senate Committee on Appropriations hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on Tuesday, July 21. Alex Wroblewski/AFP/Getty Images A daunting new reality Hegseth and Caine mostly dodged. And it was a masterstroke for the White House to send Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, a talented politician, to testify on a supplemental that seeks $11 billion for producers affected by winter storms. After all, every senator has a farm problem. But as Hegseth praised Trump for launching the war and blamed the Biden administration for everything, and Caine gingerly piloted himself away from partisan storms, the hearing did end up shedding a little more light than the administration may have hoped. It’s now clear that failure of the Memorandum of Understanding that briefly stopped the fighting has narrowed the administration’s war aims and — many Americans will not be pleased to hear — left them apparently more open ended. Once, Trump spoke of regime change in Iran, of unleashing its people to reclaim their country and of transforming the Middle East. But Hegseth, pressed repeatedly on what victory looks like, was vague. “You asked me what the overarching objective is, and I would say ensuring Iran never has a nuclear weapon,” Hegseth said. He later added : “Ultimately, a lot of the strikes … are taking Iran’s ability to see and sense away in the Strait of Hormuz.” This will be concerning news for Americans wary of Middle East entanglements for two specific reasons. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth testifies during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill on Tuesday in Washington, DC. Finn Gomez/Getty Images North America/Getty Images First, the administration said last year it had “obliterated” Iran’s capacity to ever build a nuclear weapon with its strikes on atomic plants. If that was true, why did Trump launch the war this year? If it wasn’t, it suggests the US will have to perpetually be ready to use military action to tamp down Iranian nuclear activity. Second, Hegseth’s comments also seem to point to prolonged US military action. After all, the Strait was open when the war began. And even if the current US bombardment works, it might require constant vigilance and attacks to halt missile and drone strikes on oil and gas tankers. Some of Trump’s comments Tuesday also supported the idea that the war could drag on. He told reporters in the Oval Office that the midterm elections in November wouldn’t impact his strategy. “I don’t view it as ‘Gee we’re having an election in a period of time,’” he said. This will be bad news for Republican candidates amid a war that polls show a majority of Americans oppose. And later in the day, Trump seemed to imply that a longer war in Iran wouldn’t be a big deal, in historical terms. He compared the 18 US combat deaths in the Iran war with losses in other modern military engagements, including the 58,000 killed in Vietnam and death tolls in the low thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan. His post struck some critics as disrespectful to the fallen. Trump will attend a dignified transfer service Wednesday at Dover Air Force Base for the remains of soldiers lost over the weekend. The President often changes his mind on a dime — so nothing is ever certain. A sudden reversal might even be likely if gas prices zoom up, global oil reserves wane and economic costs again stir damaging political winds. But the administration — unlike at the start of the war — is not setting timelines measured in weeks for the war to be over and troops to come home. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) looks on during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill on Tuesday in Washington, DC. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images Democrats test their 2026 voter appeal The hearing also tested the Democratic Party’s emerging midterm message. The linkage between a deeply unpopular war and the affordability crisis facing millions of Americans was best expressed by New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. “Secretary Hegseth, you’re requesting billions of dollars in supplemental funding for a war that you said would last for weeks and that the president has no plan or ability to end,” Gillibrand told Hegseth. “(Voters) have seen their grocery and gas bills rise, and this unpopular and unauthorized war abroad is a higher priority to this administration than their ability to feed their families and provide healthcare to their loved ones who are sick.” Hegseth argued that politics was about trade-offs and preventing a nuclear Iran was a long-run cost saving measure. He had a point, in both geopolitical and financial terms. But justifying real time economic pain by citing a distant threat is hardly likely to help GOP candidates. Despite the vague and sometimes disconcerting administration messaging, most Republicans in the room stood firm beside Hegseth and backed the supplemental. The session didn’t deteriorate into the performative shout fest that most congressional hearings become in a poisoned political age — at least until the final questions, when Michigan Sen. Gary Peters blasted Hegseth as a “failure” and the Defense Secretary slammed what he called Democratic “cowardice.” Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins set a courteous and respectful tone. But Collins, the most endangered Republican senator in the midterms, would hardly have welcomed signs the war is far from over. And a perception that the administration may not be talking about an exit strategy — because there isn’t one — could create political repercussions that go far beyond her seat in Maine, which could decide who runs the Senate next year. The post On Iran, a $37 billion price tag and no answers on how it ends appeared first on Egypt Independent.
