They say, “If you have to ask how much it costs, you can’t afford it.” But when it comes to defending our values, our society, and our way of life, if all you care about is how much it costs, then you don’t deserve it.
Now come the headlines that place the cost of the Iran war at $38 billion. I’m not suggesting that’s a small amount of money. I am asking, can you put a price tag on freedom?
The Left insinuates that we are spending our blood and treasure on behalf of another nation. In reality, we are writing that check on behalf of every free nation in the world.
Didn’t the Obamas and their friends tell us, “When someone tells you who he is, believe him?” Since 1979, the Iranian regime has told us exactly who they are. They are terrorists, thugs, murderers, and literally the face of evil in our times. They call Israel the Little Satan. If you’ve been paying attention, they’ve been calling us the Great Satan.
And they’ve dedicated their blood and treasure to building a military, including nuclear weapons, to wipe both of the so-called Satans off the face of the Earth. How much is it worth to keep that from happening? Can you put a price tag on survival?
What was the cost of 9/11? What will the cost of the next 9/11 be? Whatever it is, it’s going to make $38 billion look like pocket change, a rounding error, the amount of coins that fall out of your pocket when you get up from the couch.
One of the tools of trial lawyers is to ask a jury, “How much would you be willing to pay per hour not to be experiencing the pain and suffering of my client, who was injured in that terrible accident?” Pick any dollar figure. Multiply it by 24 hours a day. Multiply that by 365 days in the year. Now multiply that by not just your expected lifespan but how long you want your children and grandchildren to live, and not just to live but to live in freedom.
And then ask yourself whether $38 billion isn’t the bargain of a lifetime.
Wars are unpredictable. They’re not an algorithm or a mathematical formula. War is messy and dangerous, full of unexpected outcomes. But every president since 1979 has allowed the Iranian theocracy to skate. To build. To murder their own people and ours. To foment terrorism throughout the Middle East and around the globe.
From the murder of our Marines in Beirut in 1983 through the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993, from 9/11 to London’s 7/7, and from Oct. 7, 2023, to the present day, there isn’t a single terrorist action in the West that doesn’t have Iran’s fingerprints all over it.
Was it risky for President Donald Trump to attack Iran? Absolutely. Is there a playbook, a previous war, a set of lessons learned, that provides absolute guidance as to what the next steps should be at any given moment? Absolutely not. War is improvisation based on relevant lessons learned. In this situation, some past lessons have been relevant. In other ways, it’s all been learning on the fly.
Americans aren’t gauging the cost of the Iran war in terms of the results that will occur by letting that regime continue to terrorize the world. Instead, the left-wing media has been coaching the American people to vote in the midterm elections on just two things: 1) the couthness of the president and 2) how much they’re paying at the pump.
No one is going to mistake Trump for Miss Manners. Even his strongest supporters wish that he could curb his, shall we say, enthusiasm for saying what does not need to be said. But to tell Americans that the only meaningful measure of the Iran war is the price of unleaded?
Perhaps the president could have done a better job explaining the purpose of the war, when it started and ever since. Perhaps he could have reminded us constantly of the cost of letting Iran’s regime, which exports terrorism along with its oil, continue.
And then there might be a counter to the constant propaganda message that’s carried into the ears of unwitting voters — the only thing that matters is whether unleaded costs $4 a gallon.
Let the word go forth from the lips of every Republican candidate between now and Election Day that the real cost of the Iran war isn’t what gasoline costs, or interest rates, or any of the other typical measures of standard of living. Instead, make the case that this is a time for tightening our belts and understanding the reasons for the sacrifices we’ve all been asked to make.
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What’s on the other side is a brighter day, a world free of the worst terrorist genocidal regime since the Nazis. That day is coming. We’re all paying a price. But that price is a lot smaller than the cost of doing nothing and letting evil prevail. “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,” is a phrase often attributed to 18th-century Irish philosopher Edward Burke.
When the Iranian regime falls, we will have created the bargain of a lifetime.
Michael Levin is a two-time New York Times bestselling author. His next novel, 2028, A Political Thriller, will be published by Morgan James in April.