Smotrich: US Fighting Iran Is 'Best for Us' While 18 Americans Die
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich told a conference audience on July 22 that the US fighting Iran while Israel sits out is 'the best situation for us.' Eighteen American soldiers are dead and the war's internal cost estimate has reached $80-100 billion.
Israel's Finance Minister openly admitted that America doing the fighting and dying in Operation Epic Fury serves Israeli strategic interests. The bill, in blood and dollars, lands on American citizens.
Key takeaways
- Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich declared on July 22 that the US fighting Iran while Israel sits out is "the best situation for us," openly acknowledging that American soldiers are advancing Israeli strategic objectives.
- The Pentagon's public war cost stands at roughly $30 billion; internal estimates cited by NBC News put the real figure at $80-100 billion, and an $80 billion supplemental funding request is already before Congress.
- Eighteen US service members have been killed in the Iran war as of July 20, including PVT Isabella Gonzales, 19, and 1LT Tyler Feehan, 25, killed in an Iranian strike on Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan on July 17-18.
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich told an audience at the Katif Conference for National Responsibility on July 22, 2026 that Israel has no interest in rejoining the US-Iran war because the current arrangement is optimal for Israel. Four more American soldiers have died since the US re-escalated strikes on Iran, and the gap between the war's public price tag and its actual cost keeps widening.
The Admission
Smotrich's remarks were first reported in English by Middle East Eye and corroborated by Antiwar.com and Israel National News.
His words were unambiguous:
"The State of Israel has no interest in joining the contained confrontation between Iran and the United States, the current situation is the best one for us."
He then made explicit that Israel and the US do not share the same war aims:
"[We] must remember that the ultimate goal of Israel, and not necessarily the United States, is to undermine and weaken the regime in Iran, to the point of overthrowing it."
Smotrich's party, Religious Zionism, is a linchpin of Netanyahu's coalition government, which has held power since late December 2022 and controls a Knesset majority. His position gives him real influence over Israeli policy, not just a platform for commentary.
The Human and Fiscal Cost
Three US Army soldiers were killed in an Iranian missile and drone strike on Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan on July 17-18, per a Department of Defense statement as reported by CNN. The Pentagon initially confirmed two fatalities: PVT Isabella Gonzales, 19, of Carrollton, TX, and 1LT Tyler Feehan, 25, of Ewa Beach, HI. A third soldier is listed as believed deceased, with remains under processing; the DoD has not publicly confirmed that soldier's identity and the name circulating in some reports has not been verified against official Pentagon releases.
SGT Michael Emmanuel Swinton, 30, of Fayetteville, NC, was killed separately on July 19 in northern Iraq when a controlled detonation of a downed Iranian drone went wrong at Erbil Air Base, per CNN and PBS reporting.
Total confirmed US service members killed in the Iran war stands at 18 as of July 20, per CNN. Israel has sustained zero casualties in the renewed phase of fighting.
On the financial side, the Pentagon's publicly stated cost for Operation Epic Fury sits at approximately $30 billion. Internal estimates cited by NBC News, sourced to three US officials and three people familiar with internal cost estimates, put the real figure between $80 billion and $100 billion, more than triple the public number. An $80 billion supplemental funding request is already before Congress, per CNN.
What the Asymmetry Actually Means
Smotrich's candor is a clean illustration of how imperial cost structures work. The US provides the security umbrella. Allies absorb the strategic benefit. American workers absorb the cost through deficit spending that eventually gets monetized or borrowed.
The war debt lands on a national balance sheet already carrying more than $36 trillion in obligations. Every new dollar of war spending either competes with private capital for financing (pushing rates up) or gets absorbed by the Fed (pushing purchasing power down). Neither outcome is neutral for anyone holding dollar-denominated savings. The Bab el-Mandeb chokepoint threat and elevated crude prices add an energy-inflation layer on top of the direct fiscal hit.
The falsifiable thesis here: if Congress passed a formal declaration of war with clearly defined, independent US strategic objectives and funded the operation without new deficit spending through real offsets, the "empire externalizing costs onto citizens" argument would weaken materially. Alternatively, if Israel re-enters the conflict and absorbs symmetric casualties and costs, the asymmetric-burden case collapses. Neither condition is currently present or likely.
This is also the information-asymmetry problem the war keeps producing. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declared on day 14 of the war that Iran's military had been "destroyed and made combat ineffective," a claim he declined to directly defend under Senate questioning on July 21, 2026. Sen. Ted Cruz posted on X that the US had achieved "extraordinary military results, including destroying all of their missiles & drones and sinking their entire navy." Iran subsequently killed three US soldiers in Jordan with ballistic missiles and drones. The public $30 billion figure is less than a third of the internal estimate. When official numbers cannot be trusted, the case for a monetary asset outside that system, one with a fixed supply and no issuer who can dilute it to fund a war you didn't vote for, gets harder to dismiss.
What to Watch
Congress has the $80 billion supplemental request in front of it. Whether that funding gets approved without a serious debate about war aims, strategic asymmetry between the US and Israel, and constitutional authorization will be the near-term signal. A formal AUMF vote that fails, or a committee hearing that produces documented pushback on the cost gap, would be the first indication that the political cost of this arrangement is starting to register.
Sources
Frequently Asked Questions
Smotrich stated it directly: Israel sees no reason to join a fight that is already advancing its goal of economically crushing and ultimately toppling the Iranian government, without Israel absorbing Iranian retaliatory strikes or budget costs. This is a unilateral Israeli decision, not the product of a formal agreement with the US to stay out. Israel did oppose the earlier ceasefire and has continued operations in other theaters throughout the conflict.
The Pentagon's public figure is approximately $30 billion. Internal US government estimates, cited by NBC News sourced to three US officials and three people familiar with internal cost estimates, put the real cost at $80-100 billion. An $80 billion supplemental funding request is before Congress. Independent analyses that include Hormuz disruption, elevated fuel prices, and long-term veterans costs push the total economic impact well above $100 billion.
