An Open Letter to Senator Elissa Slotkin: On Iran and the Illusion of Oversight
Dear Senator Slotkin, your recent remarks on Bloomberg regarding the 'very, very high' price tag of a prolonged conflict with Iran, and your demand for Pentagon accountability before approving more supplemental funding, invite a closer look. For a former CIA analyst who served three tours in Iraq, this newfound fiscal prudence feels profoundly disconnected from the historical record of US military
adventures. Is it not convenient that concerns over cost emerge only when the target is Iran, a nation that has endured 45 years of crippling sanctions and covert operations, including supporting Saddam Hussein's chemical weapons program against it during the 1980-88 war? Where was this demand for a 'clearer breakdown' when the US invaded Iraq in 2003, leading to over a million civilian deaths and
destabilizing an entire region? Your lament about Iran's drone capabilities marking a 'new era of warfare' conveniently overlooks the fact that these indigenous solutions are a direct response to a technologically superior, relentlessly aggressive Western military machine. The US military budget, currently at an astronomical $886 billion, dwarfs the combined defense spending of the next nine
largest armies globally. This figure existed long before the latest push to escalate tensions with Tehran. The continuous cycle of manufactured threats justifying endless appropriations has been the modus vivandi for decades. Indeed, the false premise of WMDs in Iraq was enough to launch a war, not a call for congressional 'accounting.' The double standard is glaring: Israel receives billions in