The Patriot missile launcher systems the US sells to Qatar cost about $4 million each.Jack Guez/Getty Images
As peace talks with Iran continue to stall, the Trump administration announced on Friday an additional $8.6 billion in fast-tracked weapons sales to Israel, Qatar, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates. Secretary of State Marco Rubio justified the deal under an “emergency provision” allowing arms to be sold without the congressional approval nominally required for warmaking. This is the third time since the US started bombing Iran two months ago that Rubio has invoked emergency authorization to sell weapons to Israel and its allies.
During those two months, the US and Israel have reportedly drained their munitions stockpiles bombing Iran and Lebanon. At least 3,375 people have been killed in Iran, according to the country’s health ministry; at least 2,509 people have been killed in Lebanon, per the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health. Last week, a White House official for the first time offered an estimate of the conflict’s costs to the United States, ballparking the campaign at around $25 billion.
Generally, arms sales are supposed to go through a congressional review process under the Arms Export Control Act. But it’s not uncommon for the government to bypass that process entirely. (The Biden administration also approved arms sales under emergency powers.)
This most recent set of weapons sales includes $4 billion for American-made Patriot missile interceptors, to be sent to Qatar; “Advanced Precision Kill Weapons Systems” for Israel, Qatar, and Kuwait; and an “Integrated Battle Command System” for Kuwait. The contractors receiving that money will include Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, and Northrop Grumman.
Those contractors might be the only people happy about the ongoing war on Iran: 61 percent of Americans in one recent poll said they believed the war was a mistake. Another recent survey said that the main priority among Americans, regarding the war, was to end it as soon as possible—whether out of concern for human lives or for gas prices, which have skyrocketed in recent weeks.