Hegseth Says Iran War Not Becoming a ‘Forever War’ or ‘Quagmire’

The Pentagon has asked for an additional $200 billion from Congress to pay for the war against Iran, a person familiar with the matter said, as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth argued that the campaign was ahead of schedule and disputed that the US was getting embroiled in a quagmire.

Bloomberg.com
sophies choice? fund a war, or fund DHS.
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?
Special military operation
Do we now call it a war? I thought it was an excursion?
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.

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.

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

“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.

Whatever israel wants.
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.

Yes, foreign nation building with murky win conditions and a steadily increasing cost ledger are famously pretty good for US dominance
China will be just fine mate :) They are smartly just watching US destroy itself from within and outside and chillin'
ConocoPhillips and Exxon just announced a 20 billion hit due to attacks. No one will leave this thing unscathed.
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.

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...

Trump’s War on Iran Could Cost Trillions

“My kids’ kids, and probably their kids, are going to be paying for this,” said one official briefed on the U.S war on Iran.

The Intercept