In anticipation of the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Brown University’s Costs of War Project on Wednesday published an “updated estimates on the most comprehensive and widely-cited assessments of the financial and human costs of the past 20 years of war.”
The Project’s last update in 2019 estimated that the post-9/11 wars cost more than $6 trillion and 800,000 lives. But its new assessment has found that between 897,000 and 929,000 have been “directly killed,” while the United States has appropriated and obligated to spend more than $8 trillion.
The latest report comes as President Biden ended America’s 20-year war in Afghanistan, which was estimated to have cost U.S. taxpayers $2.313 trillion, while Washington has so-far spent $2.058 trillion on the wars in Iraq and Syria. But while the U.S. war in Afghanistan is now over, the so-called “forever wars” are still ongoing throughout the region in places like Yemen and the Horn of Africa, where the Project estimates that roughly $355 billion have been spent.
The Project’s estimate includes the cost of veterans’ care from 2001 to 2050, which according to its report from August, will cost U.S. taxpayers between $2.2 and 2.5 trillion.
“Many people don’t know the extraordinary toll these wars take, not just the cost of deploying troops, not just the cost in terms of human lives, but the costs in terms of benefits and in terms of our obligations for decades to come,” said Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) in prepared remarks for the Cost of War Project’s online event launching their new findings. “Had we not stayed in Afghanistan for 20 years we would have had enough money to provide a free college education or vocational school for every American.”
Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), also in prepared remarks for the event, noted that she voted “no” on the authorization to use military force in Afghanistan after 9/11 (she was the lone dissenting vote).
“I voted no because I feared the consequences of giving the president, any president, open ended power to use military force anywhere against anyone or any nation,” she said, adding, ”Those consequences have been devastating.”
Ben Armbruster is the Managing Editor of Responsible Statecraft. He has more than a decade of experience working at the intersection of politics, foreign policy, and media. Ben previously held senior editorial and management positions at Media Matters, ThinkProgress, ReThink Media, and Win Without War.
Marine reinforcements fly towards an area somewhere near Kandahar
December 10, 2001. The Marines have pushed closer to Kandahar to
continue their mission of interdicting lines of escape.
REUTERS/POOL//Earnie Grafton, The San Diego Union-Tribune
DPW/WS
TAIWAN STRAIT (August 23, 2019) – US Naval Officers scan the horizon from the bridge while standing watch, part of Commander, Amphibious Squadron 11, operating in the Indo-Pacific region to enhance interoperability with partners and serve as a ready-response force for any type of contingency. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Markus Castaneda)
After more than a decade of calling for military action against Iran, they finally got their wish — sort of. The United States did not immediately join Israel’s campaign, but President Donald Trump acquiesced to Israel’s decision to use military force and has not meaningfully restrained Israel’s actions. For those hoping Trump would bring radical change to U.S. foreign policy, his failure to halt Israel’s preventative war is a disappointment and a betrayal of past promises.
Advocates of restraint should not give up hope, however, and observers abroad should not rush to prejudge the trajectory of U.S. foreign policy based on the events of the past week.
Trump can still avoid tarnishing his legacy by staying out of yet another long, costly adventure in the Middle East. This is best accomplished by eschewing any U.S. involvement in Israel’s war. But even if the United States is unable to immediately extricate itself from the conflict, there are compelling reasons to believe that the foreign policy consensus in Washington will ultimately shift in favor of those skeptical of U.S. military power and opposed to foreign interventions.
Moreover, as the U.S. military commitment to Europe has come under increasing scrutiny, similar questions about the U.S.-Israel relationship have been muted. While Republican members of Congress pushed back on the Biden administration’s requests for additional Ukraine aid in 2024, there was little resistance to the related request for additional military assistance for Israel to support its wars against Hezbollah and Hamas.
In part, the resilience of Israel’s position in U.S. foreign policy reflects the powerful influence of U.S.-based Israel supporters who have for decades effectively used political donations and media pressure to shape U.S. strategy and commitments in the Middle East. While U.S. European and Asian allies also have influential advocates in Washington, none can rival Israel’s strength of support. No other tail will wag the dog this effectively.
Second, the recent push for greater restraint in U.S. foreign policy will continue to gain momentum due to an ongoing generational shift in attitudes about the limits of American military power and U.S. foreign policy priorities.
The voices pushing hardest for the United States to join Israel’s military campaign come from the “old guard,” including Reagan Republicans and Baby Boomers nearing retirement, including, for example Mark Levin of Fox News, long-time members of Congress like Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), and architects of the catastrophic U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, such as Ari Fleischer, Elliott Abrams, and John Bolton. Cold War crusaders and “end-of-history” triumphalists may retain some sway over Trump’s foreign policy today, but their careers are coming to an end.
Already, the advocates of endless war are being displaced by a younger generation that has had to pay its price. Anti-interventionist figures shaped by the failures of the War on Terror and the Iraq war occupy key positions in the current administration and increasingly staff mid-level positions in government. After watching the United States waste money, lives, and military power in the Middle East, this rising generation is eager to pursue a foreign policy more directly defined by the national interest.
Members of this cohort have already been pushing for changes to U.S. commitments abroad, especially in Europe, where the United States has signaled its intention to reduce its military involvement, and on Ukraine, where the Pentagon has indicated that it will cut military assistance to Kyiv in the coming months to focus on other priorities.
Finally, there are real structural limits to the ability of the United States to continue its pursuit of global preeminence, regardless of what happens in the Middle East in coming weeks. The most important of these is constrained resources. Washington simply does not have the monetary or military means to indefinitely sustain a strategy of American primacy.
Already the Pentagon is concerned about the depth of its munition stockpiles and the sufficiency of its air defense assets after years of supporting Ukraine and well over a year of battling the Houthis in Yemen and the Red Sea. At the same time, the military balance in Asia has shifted more in China’s favor in recent years, raising questions about Washington’s continued ability to credibly meet its commitments to allies and partners in that region.
Some argue that the solution for the eroding U.S. military advantage is higher defense spending. Roger Wicker (R-Miss), chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and former Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky), for instance, have called for defense spending of at least 5% of GDP. The Commission on the National Defense Strategy also called for large increases in the Pentagon budget to sustain U.S. military dominance. This group, however, helpfully admitted that to do so in today’s budget environment would require both tax increases and entitlement reform. With no political appetite for either, the level of spending needed for continued U.S. primacy seems unattainable.
Out of necessity, then, U.S. foreign policy goals will have to become more limited over time. Future presidents, if not Trump himself, will have to make hard choices about how to expend U.S. military power. This decision point may come sooner rather than later if Trump gives into pressure to join Israel’s war on Iran. The military expenditures required for such a war would greatly reduce what the United States has available to support security goals and commitments in Europe and Asia—certainly in the near term and perhaps for decades.
This could demand significant shifts in U.S. strategy in both theaters and lead to a forced, rather than managed, U.S. military retrenchment.
Movement toward a more restrained U.S. foreign policy is not inevitable, but it remains likely despite Trump’s acquiescence to Israel’s military campaign. For those in the United States who are pushing for this type of transformation, the priority over the next days and weeks should be to focus public attention on the hard tradeoffs that the United States faces when it comes to military resources and security commitments and to remind Trump and his advisors of the limits of American military power to solve problems in the Middle East—Iran’s nuclear program included.
Advocates of restraint should also hold Trump to account for the promises he has made repeatedly during his decade on the political stage, including his commitments to avoid starting new “forever wars,” to put America’s domestic interests first, and to be a peacemaker.
For those abroad uncertain about the direction of U.S. foreign policy or confused by recent inconsistencies, the best approach is patience. Neoconservatism has grown old. Although it has refused to learn new tricks, it’s no longer the only game in town.
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Top photo credit: Iraqi Shi'ite Muslims hold a cutout of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as they attend a protest against Israeli strikes on Iran, in Baghdad, Iraq, June 16, 2025. REUTERS/Ahmed Saad
As Israeli jets and Iranian rockets streak across the Middle Eastern skies, Iraq finds itself caught squarely in the crossfire.
With regional titans clashing above its head, Iraq’s fragile and hard-won stability, painstakingly rebuilt over decades of conflict, now hangs precariously in the balance. Washington’s own tacit acknowledgement of Iraq’s vulnerable position was laid bare by its decision to partially evacuate embassy personnel in Iraq and allow military dependents to leave the region.
This withdrawal, prompted by intelligence indicating Israeli preparations for long-range strikes, highlighted that Iraq’s airspace would be an unwitting corridor for Israeli and Iranian operations.
Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani is now caught in a complicated bind, attempting to uphold Iraq’s security partnership with the United States while simultaneously facing intense domestic pressure from powerful, Iran-aligned Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) factions. These groups, emboldened by the Israel-Iran clash, have intensified their calls for American troop withdrawal and threaten renewed attacks against U.S. personnel, viewing them as legitimate targets and enablers of Israeli aggression.
The PMF, a powerful array of predominantly Shiite militias formalized in 2016 and nominally reporting to the prime minister as commander-in-chief of the armed forces after their pivotal role in fighting ISIS, have since presented a difficult challenge to Iraqi state sovereignty. For years, these groups, especially the hardline elements among them known as the “muqawama” or resistance factions, have demonstrated a capacity to act in opposition to Baghdad’s formal policy.
This was seen recently in their threats to arrest Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa ahead of the Arab League summit in Baghdad last month, citing an outstanding Iraqi arrest warrant for his past terrorist activities on Iraqi soil. This directly undermined the Iraqi prime minister’s attempts at rapprochement with Damascus. Moreover, one of the PMF’s hardline factions, Kata'ib Hezbollah, has been implicated in the abduction of Elizabeth Tsurkov, an Israeli-Russian academic whose release remains under negotiation, despite concerted efforts by Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein and Prime Minister al-Sudani.
The deep-seated hostility of these PMF factions toward American forces was significantly intensified by the 2020 U.S. killing of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani and PMF commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis — a strike the U.S. justified as necessary to prevent imminent attacks that Soleimani was allegedly planning against American diplomats and military personnel in Iraq and the region. This animosity escalated further following the outbreak of violence between Israel and Hamas in October 2023.
As a result, Iraq — a country uniquely navigating alliances with both the U.S. and Iran, hosting some 2,500 American troops while also having Iran-backed militias integrated into its security forces — has since witnessed a sharp escalation in both rhetoric and repeated attacks against U.S. assets and personnel. This belligerence has only amplified following Israel’s recent strikes on Iran.
“If America dares to intervene in the war, we will directly target its interests and military bases spread across the region without hesitation,” warned Abu Hussein al-Hamidawi, secretary-general of Kata’ib Hezbollah. Other PMF leaders have echoed this stance, with Akram Al-Kaabi, head of Harakat Hezbollah Al-Nujaba, asserting that the assault on Iran was “in cooperation with the American occupier” and demanding the U.S. “must be removed from Iraq.”
The Iraqi government’s ability to restrain these groups, given their power and influence within the political system, remains limited and may prove increasingly difficult in the face of a prolonged war between Israel and Iran.
This internal challenge is compounded by Iraq’s vulnerability to airspace violations. Despite recent multi-billion dollar investments aimed at modernizing its air defense systems, including plans to acquire advanced capabilities from South Korea and France and bolster early warning systems, these improvements remain incomplete.
Iraq’s current air defenses are therefore not robust enough to intercept high-speed or long-range threats, such as Israeli jets or Iranian ballistic missiles traversing its skies. Indeed, this vulnerability has manifested already, U.S. air defense systems near the American Consulate in Erbil reportedly shot down a suspected Iranian drone on June 15.
The Iraqi government’s only recourse is through diplomatic channels. Prime Minister al-Sudani himself conveyed Iraq’s “categorical rejection of the use of its territory or airspace to carry out or facilitate any acts of aggression against neighboring countries” to Steven Fagin, the U.S. Chargé d’Affaires in Iraq, and Major General Kevin Leahy, commander of the International Coalition to Combat ISIS, according to a press release from his office.
Baghdad has also formally filed a complaint to the United Nations Security Council and directly urged the U.S. to prevent Israeli overflights. However, Iraq’s leverage remains minimal.
The 2008 Strategic Framework Agreement — designed to solidify long-term diplomatic, economic, and security relations between the U.S. and Iraq — explicitly precludes the use of Iraqi territory for "attacks against other countries." But in practice, U.S. strategic interests, especially amid the current conflict, evidently override Baghdad’s theoretical control. This places the U.S. in a dilemma: not preventing Israeli overflights for attacks on Iran implicitly undermines Iraq's airspace sovereignty and risks further escalation with Tehran, yet forcefully attempting to stop them could directly entangle Washington in the conflict.
Iran, keenly aware of Iraq’s impotence, has intensified its diplomatic pressure on Baghdad. Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi openly declared that Iraq “is unable to preserve and control the sovereignty of its territory in the face of aggression,” demanding Baghdad “bear its responsibility in preventing the use of its airspace for aggression against neighboring countries.” Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian reiterated this stance, urging Iraq to prevent its airspace from being “misused” against Iran.
Beyond the awkwardness of being an involuntary conduit for Israeli strikes, Iraq also needs stability in Iran for its energy needs. With roughly one-third of Iraq's electricity generated by Iranian natural gas, any sustained disruption to these supplies — already threatened by damage to Iran's energy infrastructure from recent strikes — risks triggering widespread blackouts and social unrest, further weakening Baghdad's position.
Adding to Iraq's woes, President Donald Trump’s confusing signals are of no help.
While praising Israel’s strikes as “excellent” and warning Iran of “more to come,” evidently hoping to extract concessions from nuclear talks that now appear on the verge of collapse, he simultaneously claimed advanced knowledge of Israeli plans, leaving the precise nature of U.S. support deliberately ambiguous. Simultaneously, Secretary of State Marco Rubio insisted on U.S. non-involvement, instead emphasizing that the priority was protecting American forces, distancing Washington from direct responsibility.
However, the U.S.'s role in helping intercept Iranian rockets during Iranian counter-attacks, and the U.S. decision to reduce its diplomatic footprint in Iraq just prior to Israel launching its attacks, have been widely interpreted, particularly by Iran and its allies in Iraq, as clear indicators of Washington's complicity.
The greatest risk is that if al-Sudani fails to restrain PMF factions and U.S. troops face sustained attacks, their focus would inevitably shift from fighting ISIS to self-defense or withdrawal. This would severely diminish their ability to support Iraqi and Kurdish forces on counterterrorism, creating a dangerous vacuum for ISIS to regroup and expand.
Internally fragile and geographically exposed, Iraq risks becoming both a battleground and casualty in the Israel-Iran conflict. A prolonged showdown poses an existential threat to its security and imperils its nascent recovery.
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This file photo shows Bush delivering a speech to crew aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, as the carrier steamed toward San Diego, California on May 1, 2003. via REUTERS
By now you’ve likely seen the viral video of an Iranian television reporter fleeing off-screen as Israel bombed the TV station where she was recording live. As the Quincy Institute’s Adam Weinstein quickly pointed out, Israel's attack on the broadcasting facility is directly out of the regime change playbook, “meant to shake public confidence in the Iranian government's ability to protect itself” and by implication, Iran’s citizenry.
Indeed, in the United States there is a steady drumbeat of media figures and legislators who have been loudly championing Israel’s apparent desire to overthrow the regime of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
If you haven't seen the barrage of tweets, cable news appearances, or hawkish op-eds calling for the U.S. to join Israel in its war on Iran, look no further than John Bolton’s recent Wall Street Journal piece, headlined “Iran's Ayatollahs Are Weaker Than Ever.” Bolton hammers on about how this is the moment for “overthrowing the Ayatollahs,” affirming in no uncertain terms that “America's declared objective should be just that.” In other words, and to no one's surprise, Bolton is back onhis B.S. — pushing for regime change in Iran.
But here's the thing: regime change operations don't work, and there's a long history of failed American interventions to prove it.
Take, for example, the dozens of covert regime change operations the United States undertook during the Cold War. Over 60% of these failed in their goal to replace the targeted country’s political leadership, though in many of these attempts countless lives were lost and diminished as a result of American efforts. Even the so-called “successful” regime change operations were ineffective, given that in about half of these cases the U.S.-installed government was eventually overthrown, often violently.
Regime change operations also have had the effect of keeping the United States bogged down in irresponsible conflicts that have little connection to the American national interest. U.S. behavior during the Vietnam War provides a case in point. The United States first got involved with supporting the government of Ngô Đình Diệm, the president of the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam), in the mid-1950s. By late 1963, it was clear that Diệm and his administration were profoundly unpopular, and U.S. officials greenlighted a regime change operation that “succeeded” in assassinating and replacing Diệm, but ultimately did little to stabilize South Vietnam or increase support for the government.
In fact, the operation kept the United States committed to a South Vietnamese state that was doomed to collapse. Ironically, of course, the United States’ primary strategic goal in southeast Asia was to — you guessed it — force regime change in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) — a goal Americans were never able to accomplish.
Tragically, the disastrous experience in Vietnam did little to cure America’s addiction to regime change. Throughout the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, U.S. forces attempted to force regime changes in a diversity of countries, from Iraq to Portugal, from Liberia to Angola, and from Haiti to Serbia.
Predictably, the Global War on Terror was riddled with regime change operations that — surprise — ended up undermining U.S. interests and one of the stated reasons for American involvement in the first place: bringing democracy to the broader Middle East. Disbanding the Ba'ath Party in Iraq led to insurgency and ISIS; assisting in the removal of Muammar Gaddafi created a power vacuum that resulted in Libya descending into a devastating civil war; and the 20-year war in Afghanistan, which began with the removal of the Taliban, ended with the group’s return.
Direct U.S. participation in Israel’s war against Iran wouldn't even be America's first rodeo with regime change in that country. Back in 1953, the CIA, in coordination with the United Kingdom’s MI6, orchestrated a coup against Iran's democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, installing the Shah in his place. And what did that result in? The 1979 Islamic Revolution — driven partly by fury over decades of American interference in Iran — gave us the very theocratic government Bolton and many others are now obsessed with toppling. In other words, the regime we’re being told we need to overthrow only seized power because of our last attempt to enact regime change in Iran.
And yet, if you’ve watched even a minute of the latest 24-hour news cycle, you’ve likely heard the phrase “regime change” dozens of times. But why should the United States pursue regime change in Iran? The threat of the country obtaining nuclear weapons? Not to dismiss a legitimate concern, but fear-mongering headlines about Iran’s nuclear capabilities have been gracing the front pages of major newspapers for the entirety of millennials’ lifetimes.
And weren’t we just participating in negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program that, by all accounts, were going smoothly — that is, until Israel's targeted attacks took out key Iranian officials, including Ali Shamkhani, one of Iran's top negotiators?
Even if we ignore the fact that Israel is very clearly calling the shots when it comes to a war with Iran, it's worth highlighting just how devastating pursuing a regime change in the country could be. The combined population of Iraq and Afghanistan in 2003 was just 50 million; Iran's current population is approximately 88 million. The combined size of Iraq and Afghanistan is 421,000 square miles; Iran is a whopping 636,000 square miles. In this context, regime change would likely result in nothing more than death and deracination for the people of Iran; even if the United States desired to transform Iran into a liberal capitalist democracy, it is very difficult to imagine how this could be accomplished.
It almost goes without saying: Americans must resist being dragged into yet another disastrous military adventure in service of a strategy that doesn’t work, and never will.
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