"the first experiments capable of validating fusion for power would not come until the end of 2025, five years later than the date set when the ITER agreement was signed in 2006."

If this doesn't indicate a classic political JOBS program, in this case for physicists, I don't know what would qualify. Validating results (if any, which I strongly doubt) 2 decades post funding.

This one trick pony expensive boondoggle has monopolized fusion research funding at the expense of substantive funding for myriad alternative creative possibilities. The history of science will not look back favorably on Big Fusion.