This was very quick though.

It turns out public money is more expensive these days. Debt is a more mainstreamly exposed problem.

https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtid=2&...

"The estimated cost of the war in Vietnam during the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations was $176 billion."

Adjusted for inflation, that is $1,192 billion in 2026 dollars.

"The longest war in American history had significant economic effects both domestically and internationally in terms of what was spent on the war and what expenses had to be cut."

https://www.thecollector.com/vietnam-war-economic-effects/

Iran has been preparing for this war for almost 50 years, and they have more leverage than Vietnamese or Talebans had.

They have been preparing for 50 years yet lost all their leadership, nuclear facilities, ballistic missile manufacturing ecosystem and air defenses in minutes to days.

The US is not doing amazing in this war but no need to give the Iranians too much credit. The Iranians are expanding a lot of resources of their own as much as this war drags on.

It is still very early to say how a country will fare considering that it ran out of water and was on a verge of economic breakdown and revolt before fighting a prolonged war with economic blockade of its main export.

According to the US administration Iran military was supposed to be obliterated, and still. Either way, they have figure out they have a much cheaper way to hold Trump by the balls, and let him dance to their tune. I believe Ukraine and Iran are showing that there is a new level of inflicting damage to your aggressor.

They are mainly using the known fact that there's no chance in hell that the US will invade Iran with ground forces. They also previously negotiated as if this war would never start, so they might make a mistake as this is Trump after all.

In any case, Iran is not in a prime position either, it has many economic assets that can be completely destroyed as it has no air defense and then leave them in a much worse situation, while the only real damage they can do to the US is by attacking their own neighbors

the US can make Iran look like Afghanistan and still loose the war.

Iran is a paper tiger.