Foreign Policy > Iran

47 Years of Economic War: Epic Fury at Iran’s Assault on America

Iran is often looked at in terms of terrorism. But economically, the mullah regime has cost us billions, too.

Joseph Ford Cotto | March 5, 2026

Operation Epic Fury did not emerge from impulse.

It followed nearly half a century of sustained hostility from Iran that has imposed ludicrous costs on the United States. While Iran is indisputably a state sponsor of terror, it also has a long string of related economic acts that have cost taxpayers billions, too.

President Donald J. Trump authorized the operation on Feb. 28, after three rounds of failed negotiations in which Iran refused to renounce its nuclear ambitions.

He described the mission as a precise and overwhelming military campaign. It is designed to eliminate the nuclear threat, destroy ballistic missile infrastructure, neutralize proxy terror networks, and cripple naval assets. Of course, there is also the goal of spurring internal regime change, hopefully led by the Iranian people.

The justification for decisive action rests on a documented record that stretches back generations.

Iran’s revolution sharply reduced oil production. Before Islamism overthrew the pro-Western monarchy in 1979, this was at roughly 6 million barrels per day. However, output plummeted to about 1.5 million barrels daily in 1980. Global oil prices rose from approximately $15 per barrel in early 1979 to more than $39 by mid-1980.

That supply shock intensified the already present inflation and deepened recession in the U.S., raising gasoline and heating costs for American households.

The 1979 hostage crisis halted roughly $12 billion in annual trade between Iran and America, disrupting agricultural and manufacturing exports and harming U.S. producers. As oil prices climbed from $13 to $34 per barrel during the crisis period, the broader economic toll on America reached an estimated $70 billion in lost gross domestic product. Those figures reflect direct economic harm tied to Islamist revolutionary upheaval.

During the ensuing Iran-Iraq War, Iran targeted neutral shipping amid the Persian Gulf in what became known as the Tanker War. These attacks jeopardized significant volumes of global oil transit through the Strait of Hormuz, increasing shipping insurance premiums and raising energy import costs. To preserve maritime security, Uncle Sam launched Operation Earnest Will from July 1987 to September 1988, the largest convoy effort since World War II.

This operation required substantial naval deployments and defense expenditures, for which U.S. taxpayers were responsible.

Iran’s sponsorship of terrorism struck Americans directly. The June 25, 1996 bombing of Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia killed 19 U.S. Air Force personnel. In response, the U.S. incurred major security upgrade and force protection costs at overseas installations. Once again, this was fully at taxpayer expense.

Sanctions followed Iran’s pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and support for terrorist organizations.

Executive Orders 12957 and 12959 in 1995 imposed a comprehensive embargo on American trade and investment with Iran, canceling projects such as a $600 million Conoco energy contract. The Iran and Libya Sanctions Act of 1996 imposed penalties on foreign firms investing more than $20 million annually in Iran’s energy sector.

Compliance costs were inevitably passed on to consumers, adding additional costs to inflation.

Cumulative sanctions between 1995 and 2012 deprived the U.S. economy of an estimated $135 billion to $175 billion in potential export revenue. American firms lost access to energy contracts valued at roughly $1.5 billion annually during certain sanction periods. Compliance and enforcement also imposed costs on U.S. financial institutions and exporters, yet another driver of inflation.

Iran’s interference in Iraq deepened the burden.

After 2003, Tehran supported Shia militias with weapons and training, fueling insurgency against American forces. Iranian-supplied, explosively-formed penetrators were linked to the deaths of at least 500 U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Countering those threats required billions in additional federal spending on armor, countermeasures, intelligence, and medical care. As usual, taxpayers footed the whole bill.

The nuclear dispute with Iran escalated through the 2000s.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1803 in 2008 imposed multilateral restrictions on Iranian financial and technological transactions. The Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2010 targeted Iran’s energy and banking sectors. Enforcement demanded sustained monitoring and compliance expenditures.

Once more, American taxpayers financed this, despite their own country spiraling into debt.

Meanwhile, Iran deftly evaded sanctions. From 2011 to 2015, smuggling networks and covert oil sales maintained revenue flows that funded proxy forces in Iraq and Syria. Despite restrictions, Iran exported approximately 1.3 million barrels of oil per day in 2023. This deprived America’s massive oil sector of access to lucrative foreign markets, harming the broader national economy.

Iranian oil revenues surged as Americans paid more at the pump.

Iran earned between $53 billion and $54 billion in 2022 and 2023, up from roughly $16 billion in 2020, largely through sales to China and shadow fleet tactics. In 2024, oil export earnings were estimated at $43 billion, despite sanctions. These revenues supported Hezbollah, Iraqi militias, and Houthi forces, all of which are sworn enemies of American life and property.

Beginning in late 2023, Iran-backed Houthi militants attacked commercial vessels in the Red Sea, forcing rerouting around the Cape of Good Hope. Freight rates spiked dramatically, with the Drewry World Container Index rising from $1,521 to $3,777 per 40 foot container by January 2024. More than $200 billion in trade was diverted from the Red Sea route, with insurance premiums rising nearly tenfold and fuel costs increasing by up to $1 million per round trip.

Those disruptions raised shipping expenses that filtered into American consumer prices. This hit especially hard during a time of rampant inflation.

Between October 2023 and January 2024, Iran-backed militias in Iraq and Syria launched more than 180 attacks on U.S. bases and personnel. These assaults required expanded force protection, extended deployments, and medical treatment for injured service members. Like night following day, American taxpayers were tasked with paying the awesome price, even as inflation climbed and the national debt soared.

Operation Epic Fury was born in the wake of this cumulative, not to mention hellish, record.

The White House described the mission as preventing nuclear acquisition permanently, razing missile infrastructure, degrading proxy terror networks, and annihilating naval capabilities threatening international commerce. Follow-up analysis noted strikes on hundreds of targets including Revolutionary Guard facilities and naval assets as part of a strategy to degrade Iran’s operational capacity.

For 47 years, the Iranian regime has combined ideological hostility — rooted in Islamism, which is avowedly, murderously loathsome of the U.S. — with actions that produced horrid economic consequences for Americans. Oil shocks, disrupted trade, sanctions losses, defense expenditures, and proxy warfare, among numerous other things, have imposed documented, astronomical financial costs.

Operation Epic Fury does many things on paper, and all of them are righteous. Unofficially, however, it serves another function: vengeance for the generations of Iranian economic warfare against America. After the carnage of costly confrontation and economic attrition, every sane American should recognize that regime change is the only path capable of ending Iran’s hyper-destructive cycle at its source.

Almost half a century of oil shocks, terror attacks, sanctions losses, proxy wars, shipping disruptions, and inflation trace back to one regime that never stopped declaring economic war, with a literal death wish, on the United States. Operation Epic Fury is not reckless. It is overdue. It is the first serious effort to end the toxic Tehran cycle rather than absorb it.

Opposing Donald Trump’s mission means accepting more inflation, more attacks, more dead Americans, and more stolen prosperity. It means tolerating economic carnage as the permanent cost of doing nothing.

Only America-last losers would ever consider this.

Dr. Joseph Ford Cotto is the creator, host, and producer of News Sight, delivering sharp insights on the key events that shape our lives. He publishes Dr. Cotto's Digest, sharing how business and the economy really impact us all. During the 2024 presidential race, he developed the Five-Point Forecast, which accurately predicted Donald Trump’s national victory and correctly called every swing state. Cotto holds a doctorate in business administration and is a Lean Six Sigma Certified Black Belt.

Image: Wikimedia Commons, via Picryl // public domain

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