For the first time since President Donald Trump launched Operation Epic Fury against Iran two months ago, the Pentagon has put a public price tag on the conflict: twenty-five billion dollars. The figure, disclosed by acting comptroller Jules Hurst during a stormy House Armed Services Committee hearing, covers munitions, daily operations, and equipment replacement — but does not include long-term replenishment costs or the broader economic toll of a campaign that has closed the Strait of Hormuz and sent energy prices soaring. The disclosure came as Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth faced his first sworn interrogation from lawmakers since the war began, and his combative performance did little to quell growing bipartisan unease.

From Washington, the hearing exposed a deepening rift between the administration and Congress over a conflict waged without explicit legislative authorisation. Democrats accused Hegseth of offering shifting justifications — from nuclear non-proliferation to regime capitulation — while refusing to outline an endgame. Representative Adam Smith, the committee’s senior Democrat, pressed Hegseth on how victory would be defined; the Defence Secretary retorted that Iran must be forced to the negotiating table. When Smith noted that the enemy had not yet broken, Hegseth claimed that key nuclear facilities had been destroyed. The exchange encapsulated a hearing in which the Pentagon chief dismissed domestic critics as defeatist, a posture that analysts in London judged to be calibrated more for President Trump’s approval than for congressional consensus.

Beyond the Beltway, the cost figure has resonated sharply. In the Middle East, regional capitals view the $25bn as a measure not just of American resolve but of strategic drift. The war has already killed thirteen U.S. service members, and a fragile ceasefire brokered by Trump has failed to stop skirmishes or ease the humanitarian crisis inside Iran, where the regime has executed at least twenty-one people since the conflict began. European diplomats note that the administration has yet to submit a formal supplemental spending request, and the Pentagon’s budget official conceded that no full assessment of the war’s total expense has been completed. Independent analysts, quoted by Russian and German outlets, suggest the true figure may be considerably higher once long-term maintenance and replacement costs are factored in.

Attention now shifts to the Senate, where Democrats on the Armed Services Committee are preparing to press Hegseth on Thursday with renewed vigour. Several Republican senators, including Susan Collins and Thom Tillis, have signalled that a looming sixty-day deadline could force a drawdown unless Congress authorises continued hostilities. With mid-term elections just six months away, the White House faces a precarious calculus: sustaining a costly and indefinite military campaign without losing the Republican majority. The $25bn price tag, for all its precision, may prove to be the least of Mr Hegseth’s problems.