3 March, 2026
by Mohammed Bello Doka
The opening words of this title are a direct quote from the late American rapper Tupac Shakur in his track “Changes,” a searing indictment of a society that pours treasure into destruction while its most vulnerable go without. Nearly three decades after Tupac spoke those words, they ring with prophetic fury in March 2026. In the first five days of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran—launched on February 28 under the banner of Operation Epic Fury and Operation Roaring Lion—the United States and Israel have already spent sums that dwarf entire years of domestic anti-poverty programs. Meanwhile, 47.9 million Americans, including 14.1 million children, live in food-insecure households. This is not policy. This is moral bankruptcy on a planetary scale.
The numbers are not speculative. They are drawn from Pentagon-adjacent estimates, Anadolu Agency breakdowns, Penn Wharton Budget Model projections, and Gulf defense ministry statements released in the last 72 hours.
In the opening 24 hours alone, U.S. forces burned through an estimated $779 million in flight hours, munitions, and operations. B-2 Spirit bomber sorties accounted for $30.2 million. Fighter jets—F-35s, F-22s, F-18s, F-16s—consumed another $271 million. Tankers, drones, electronic-warfare aircraft, and naval assets pushed the first-day total to nearly $780 million. The pre-strike buildup—repositioning carrier strike groups, moving 12 additional naval vessels, surging aircraft and munitions into the region—added another $630 million before a single bomb fell. That is $1.4 billion in the first 36 hours, before Iran had fired a single retaliatory round.
Independent analysts at Penn Wharton now project direct U.S. military costs for a four-to-five-week campaign at $65 billion, with broader economic damage to the American economy reaching as high as $210 billion through disrupted supply chains, higher energy prices, and lost growth. Israel’s parallel offensive—hundreds of precision strikes on Iranian leadership compounds, nuclear sites, missile factories, and IRGC command centers—has already cost Tel Aviv between $800 million and $2 billion in the opening phase alone, according to defense-budget modeling by the Aaron Institute and Israeli media tallies. Arrow-3 interceptors at $2–3 million each, David’s Sling missiles at $1–2 million, and thousands of precision-guided munitions do not come cheap.
Then come the defensive costs. Iran responded with waves of ballistic missiles and drones. The UAE alone reported intercepting 161 of 174 ballistic missiles and 645 of 689 drones in the first three days. Using conservative pricing—PAC-3 MSE missiles at $4–6 million for export customers, THAAD interceptors at $12–13 million—UAE air-defense expenditure for missiles alone sits between $1.3 billion and $2.6 billion. Across Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan, the combined defensive bill already exceeds $5–10 billion. U.S. bases from Al Udeid in Qatar to Camp Arifjan in Kuwait burned through additional Patriot and THAAD stocks, with each engagement costing millions.
Contrast that with Iran’s expenditure. Ballistic missiles cost Tehran roughly $1–2 million each; Shahed-136 drones $20,000–50,000 apiece. For the UAE-targeted barrage alone, Iran spent an estimated $194–391 million. The entire regional retaliation—hundreds of missiles and nearly 1,000 drones—likely cost Iran under $500 million. For every dollar Tehran spent, the defenders spent fifteen to thirty. This is not defense. This is industrialized waste.
And who started it? Every major international voice warned against this path. The United Nations Secretary-General, the European Union, France’s President Macron (who called the strikes “grave consequences” for global peace), and even cautious Gulf diplomats pleaded for de-escalation during February’s frantic negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program. Trump and Netanyahu ignored them. They chose regime-change bombing runs that killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, at least 40 senior officials, and more than 555 Iranian civilians and soldiers in the first 72 hours. Israel lost 10 citizens to retaliatory fire; the United States lost 6 service members at Camp Arifjan. Civilian airports, hotels, power stations, and refineries across the Gulf have been hit by debris or direct drone strikes. This war was a choice—made by two leaders who campaigned on “America First” and “peace through strength,” then immediately pivoted to trillion-dollar adventurism.
Back home, President Trump’s signature domestic achievement—the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (OBBBA) of 2025—slashed SNAP by $187 billion over the next decade, the largest cut in the program’s history. Work requirements were expanded to include homeless adults, veterans, and young people aging out of foster care. An estimated 4 million people, including 1 million children, will lose or see sharply reduced food assistance starting October 2026. Food insecurity, already at 13.7 percent of households—the worst in a decade—will surge. Yet the same administration found $1.4 billion in 36 hours for opening salvos against Iran.
Consider what that money could have done at home.
The entire U.S. homeless population hovers around 771,000 on any given night. Permanent supportive housing for one chronically homeless person costs roughly $15,000–25,000 per year. The $65 billion direct war projection could house every homeless American for more than four years with money left over. It could restore every dollar cut from SNAP and still fund universal school meals nationwide. It could rebuild every public housing unit lost to disrepair since 2010. Instead, the Trump FY2026 budget proposes eliminating the Housing Opportunities for Persons With AIDS program entirely and slashing Homeless Assistance Grants by another $27 million—while defense spending surges past $1 trillion.
The waste extends far beyond dollars. Six American service members are dead—sons, daughters, spouses, parents—killed defending bases that Iran would never have targeted had Washington not launched unprovoked decapitation strikes. Hundreds of Iranian civilians, including children in schools near military sites, are dead. Israeli families mourn 10 of their own. Property damage across the Gulf runs into the billions: Dubai airport terminals scorched by debris, Jebel Ali power station hit, Ras Tanura refinery attacked, aluminum smelters in Bahrain damaged. Each destroyed drone or missile represents industrial capacity, infrastructure, and human ingenuity turned to ash.
The global poor pay the heaviest price. Oil prices spiked 6–8.5 percent in the first 48 hours, Brent crude climbing past $83 per barrel. Natural gas prices in Europe jumped 38 percent after QatarEnergy halted production at attacked sites. Every sustained dollar increase in oil adds billions to global transportation and fertilizer costs. Low-income countries in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, where families already spend 50–70 percent of income on food, face another wave of price shocks. The World Bank warned last week that prolonged disruption in the Strait of Hormuz—now threatened by Iran—could push another 50–100 million people into extreme poverty this year alone. The asymmetry is grotesque: billionaires in Washington and Tel Aviv debate “regime change,” while a mother in Lagos or Dhaka chooses which child eats today.
This war also accelerates the climate crisis it claims to ignore. Military operations are among the world’s largest institutional emitters of greenhouse gases. Each B-2 sortie burns tens of thousands of gallons of jet fuel. Carrier strike groups consume millions of gallons per week. The U.S. Department of Defense is already the planet’s single largest institutional consumer of petroleum. Add the risk of oil spills from damaged Gulf infrastructure, flaring from emergency refinery operations, and the inevitable surge in coal and gas use as nations scramble for energy security, and the carbon footprint of this five-day-old conflict already rivals that of entire small nations for a year. While politicians lecture about net-zero targets, they are torching the atmosphere to bomb a country whose nuclear program could have been contained through the very diplomacy they discarded.
The human cost compounds daily. U.S. embassies across 14 Middle Eastern countries have urged Americans to evacuate. Airlines have canceled flights into Dubai, Doha, and Riyadh. Global shipping faces rerouting around a volatile Strait of Hormuz, driving up costs for everything from wheat to semiconductors. Stock markets tumbled Monday as investors priced in prolonged inflation. The Federal Reserve now faces the nightmare scenario of stagflation—higher energy prices feeding consumer prices while growth stalls. The very people Trump promised to protect—working-class Americans already squeezed by 2025’s SNAP interruptions—are about to see grocery bills rise another 5–10 percent while their food stamps shrink.
This is not “defense.” This is predation dressed in the language of strength. Trump ran in 2024 promising to end endless wars and put America First. Instead, he launched the largest U.S. offensive in the Middle East since 2003 within weeks of taking office, then slashed the safety net to pay for it. Netanyahu, facing corruption trials and political oblivion at home, found in this war a lifeline of nationalist fervor. Together they have gambled the lives of soldiers, the futures of children, and the stability of the global economy on the fantasy that bombs can install compliant regimes.
Tupac was right. They have money for war but cannot feed the poor—because feeding the poor does not generate defense-contract dividends, does not produce campaign footage of missile launches, and does not distract from domestic failures. Every Patriot missile fired at a $30,000 Shahed drone is a choice against school lunches. Every billion spent on F-35 sorties is a choice against permanent housing for veterans sleeping on streets. Every diplomatic warning ignored is a choice to let the global poor subsidize rich nations’ geopolitical theater through higher food and fuel prices.
The war is not over. Trump has signaled it could last five weeks or “far longer.” Each additional week will add billions more to the ledger while SNAP cuts take effect and homelessness surges. Iran’s low-cost drone-and-missile strategy is designed precisely to bleed expensive Western stockpiles dry. Already analysts warn that Qatar’s Patriot inventory may last only four more days at current rates. The queue for replenishment will stretch from Gulf allies to Ukraine to Taiwan, all while American children go to bed hungry.
History will record this as one of the most cynical misuses of power in the 21st century. Two nuclear-armed democracies, claiming moral superiority, chose to ignite a regional war despite every warning, then asked their poorest citizens—and the world’s poorest nations—to foot the bill in blood, hunger, and climate chaos. The refrain “They have money for war but can’t feed the poor” is no longer a rap lyric. It is the epitaph of a broken social contract.
Until the American people demand that every dollar spent on foreign bombs be matched by a dollar invested in domestic dignity—until we refuse to let our leaders choose missiles over meals—this cycle will continue. The poor will remain unfed, the homeless unhoused, the planet unspared, and the war machine insatiable.
Tupac saw it coming. The question is whether we will finally listen.
Mohammed Bello Doka is the chairman CEO Abuja Network News can be reached via [email protected]
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