According to my morning newspaper, we have now spent $43.6 billion on the war in Iran. $43.6 billion.

Well, good morning to us. The elderly among us trying to get by on a pensioner’s income, the working stiffs trying to figure out how to pay for their children’s education, the young families trying to save money for a first home—we’ve all spent $43.6 billion on the most phenomenal ego trip since Napoleon invaded Russia.

Because that’s all it’s been. The man whose ego is so pathologically desperate he’s trying to remake the capital with ballrooms, arches, and banners showing his face—the man threatening to tear down the Kennedy Center unless we put his name on it—that man wanted to flex his military muscle and brag about how much stuff he could blow up.

So he started a war against Iran. He didn’t talk to Congress about it, and he didn’t talk to our allies about it. As near as anyone can determine, he didn’t talk to anyone but Pete Hegseth about it. It’s his war, and he and he alone owns it.

He alone thought he could bring a theocracy to its knees by bombing it. He alone failed to realize only one thing brings a theocracy to its knees, and it’s not human agency.

So he rained video game destruction down on them, and couldn’t figure out why they didn’t just throw in the towel in what they regard as a religion-based attack by “The Great Satan.” That having failed, with the nuclear status quo having moved not a single millimeter, he moved on to Plan B.

Oops. No he didn’t. Because there was no Plan B. “Bomb them until they give up” was the whole plan. That’s all he had.

So now we’re fighting like hell to find ways to keep the Strait of Hormuz open. We’re having to negotiate with Iranian-supported Houthi rebels harassing Saudi Arabia and the Red Sea ports. And our military is sending out dire warnings that our weapon depletion—caused by the missiles and bombs we’ve spent so profligately in Iran—is reaching red-flag levels. Our ability to defend ourselves has been seriously compromised by what the President calls “an excursion.”

And what have we gained from it? Absolutely nothing.

It not only has gotten us nowhere; it’s taken us backward. Getting us nowhere would be a big step up from where we are now.

In fact, that’s now our bargaining position. We are desperately trying to make a deal that will get us back to where we were before all this started $43.6 billion ago.

That desperation has only just begun to sink in with the American people. We can feel the pump prices, the grocery prices, the cost of living, and the inflation problems.

But wait until the oil crisis we’re creating makes it impossible to get plastics for all the things we depend upon and jeopardizes our ability to fertilize our crops. The full effects of this fiasco are going to stretch our national resolve to its limit at a time when this administration’s policies have left us at our most divided.

The president’s response? He golfs. And he blusters. He tries to rename bodies of water, and he hosts cage matches.

This would have been a very funny movie ten years ago. It’s a very unfunny reality today.

Let me just leave you with this thought. 

There are 27,000 high schools in America. Had we not gone on this ego trip, had we not abrogated the treaty we signed with Iran, had we not gone to war with them on the morning following a day of “negotiations,” we could have given every high school in America—every single one, public and private—$1.6 million.

$1.6 million to pay teachers, buy computers, repair buildings, deal with special needs and take the steps necessary to enable us to remain a great nation.

Think about that the next time you face a school bond election. Think about it when you drop your kids off at school.

Better yet, just keep it in mind come November when you’re deciding whether to endorse this administration’s allies in Congress.

William W. Bedsworth was an associate justice of the California Court of Appeal from 1997-2024. Prior to that, he served as an Orange County Superior Court judge from 1987–1997.