- The Aid package is not immediately spent all at once. It authorizes up to $26 billion, but the CBO estimates it may take all the way into 2033 to claim the money.
- To that end, a lot of these costs are double counted. It's including the bill that authorizes these expenses, and then those expenses all in the same calculation.
More realistically, the $6.5M/day in theater operations for a Carrier Strike Group is probably pretty accurate (In reality, they already cost the US about $30M/day just operate normally). The flyaway costs for the Tomahawk missiles are going to be about $1M each (a lot of price estimates include the R&D costs divided per units).
In reality, the cost of a 60 day war with Iran using current methods at our current loss rates will get you closer to about $8-12B total cost. Which is still a lot more more incrementally accurate.
These are really two different costs, hardly comparable. And both useful (if it ends up with a true liberation of the Iranians)
In April 2024, Congress passed a $95.3 billion national-security supplemental package that included funding for Ukraine, Israel, and Indo-Pacific security. The Israel portion totaled about $26.38 billion.
Key points about that money:
Total Israel-related funding: about $26.38B. Humanitarian aid: roughly $9.15B (for civilians affected by conflicts, including Gaza). Missile defense: about $5.2B for systems like Iron Dome and David’s Sling. Weapons procurement: about $3.5B for new weapons. Other military supplies/services: about $4.4B.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/whats-us-houses-foreign-aid... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Law_118-50
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/fact-check-fake-image-de...
https://www.news18.com/world/iran-destroyed-uss-1-1-billion-...
For context, in the case of foreign military sales, the US government usually buys the equipment from its suppliers, then resells it to the foreign government.
Iran War Cost Tracker (iran-cost-ticker.com) 312 points | 23 hours ago | 440 comments
How does yours compare to that one?
That is certainly a difference between the two sites. :) (In my defense, I hadn't visited since yesterday.)
- Proxy war waged by Iran in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Qasem_Soleima...
Arguably the bombing of IRGC meeting in the consulate-adjacent structure was not really "direct conflict". It was Iran firing missiles at Israel that was the first real direct conflict: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_2024_Iranian_strikes_on_...
Also if we want to split hairs Iran attacked Israel's embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Buenos_Aires_Israeli_emba...
"In April 2024, Argentina's second highest court ruled that the Iranian government was responsible for the bombing, and that it was carried out in retaliation for Argentina reneging on agreements to transfer nuclear material to Iran. The ruling also characterized Iran as a terrorist state"
Bombing an Embassy/Consulate is a direct attack on sovereign territory according to international law, so technically Israel started first, but I agree, it's splitting hair, both sides attacked each other in various ways, via proxies, sabotage, killing scientists, economic damages, sanctions long before any of this happened.
I don't think it's clear from an international law perspective. I remember reading the Vienna Convention and not really finding anything specific and my attempts to read it now and use AI to figure it out aren't yielding anything.
The status of the embassy or consulate is generally considered to be an agreement between the host and guest countries. It is not considered territory of the sending country at all.
Anyways, as we said this is mostly splitting hairs. Israel had really no grievance with Iran and no reason to act or attack it before Iran decided that destroying Israel is one of its goals. In the kindergarten game of "who started" it was clearly Iran, no doubt about that.
Hamas (Oct 7), Hezbollah on the northern border, the Houthis in the Red Sea, Iraqi militias hitting U.S. bases — that’s been Iran’s strategy for decades.
April 2024 may have been the first direct exchange, but the war with Iran’s proxy system was already underway.
