John Cassidy: “In principle, it’s easier to estimate the economic costs of the war; in practice, the task is far from straightforward. Even if the calculation is restricted to the United States, you first have to count the military outlays on things such as munitions, additional troop deployments, and repairing the extensive damage that Iranian counterstrikes have done to American bases in the Middle East.”“Then there are the financial costs that higher energy prices have imposed on American households and businesses. Plus, there are more indirect costs, such as the penalties that Americans have paid in terms of higher inflation and rising interest rates. Only by putting all these things together is it possible to estimate the total cost.”