Victor Davis Hanson: Iran Plans to Stall the War Until the Midterms

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
Welcome to The Daily Signal Podcast, where we provide intelligence for the intelligent. Now, without further ado, here's today's take.

**Victor Davis Hanson** (0:08)
We're approaching five months of our on and off war with Iran. If the price of gas is $4 and the price of oil is $1.10, and there's a war going on, the left will win the midterms. What is the strategy of the United States? The strategy is to say that I have taken a 50-year investment worth about a half a trillion dollars and essentially destroyed it.
Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal. We're approaching five months of our on and off war with Iran, but it's not really quite five months of war. It's more like 40 days of kinetic action. The first 40 days and then the subsequent 110 days are often on negotiations with the Iranian regime once in a while punctuated with exchanges of missiles and bombs, etc. So where are we now? What is the strategy of the United States? We've been talking about the midterms were seven months, six months, five months, four months, three months. But as we're looking at August, September and October, we're getting down now close to just three months. So what is the Trump strategy? What is the Iranian strategy? We know what the Iranian strategy is. The regime cares nothing for its own people, whether that's a thousand or so collateral deaths through our and our allies bombing. And we know that they slaughtered somewhere between 40,000 and 50,000 of their own, and they don't care. As long as they're corrupt, rich, and in control, that's all they care about. They have no problem being royals, monarchs, and lording over a nation of rubble.
So what should we do though? They're trying to wait us out, remember, because they think Trump will, if the price of gas is $4 and the price of oil is $1.10, and there's a war going on, the left will win the midterms, they'll take the house, and we'll have an impeachment circus for the next two years punctuated by lawfare. That's their strategy. And then you'll have a democratic president, they think, soon enough, and it will be Barack Obama, John Kerry, Joe Biden, Anthony Blinken all over again. That's what they hope.
Donald Trump has to have a strategy. So what is it? How's he going to stop and get out? I think we know he's now going on a two-week, he just finished two weeks of intensive bombing. The strategy is to say that I have taken a 50-year investment worth about a half a trillion dollars and essentially destroyed it, destroyed it.
And I've also hit some dual-use targets, and I'm about ready to leave. But I had certain objectives that I want to ensure are met. Number one, they can't have a nuclear bomb. I can bomb Pickaxe Mountain. I would expect he might do that in the next week and seal it, not necessarily get all the enrichment, but just seal as he did the other nuclear depositories. He can say, I wanted to create turmoil. So when this were gone and the Iranians start to recoup and they emerge from the rubble, they see what their government's doing, they see they're broke, their standard of living is falling, falling, falling. And this theocratic corrupt regime wants to take what little money they have and buy missile launchers and centrifuges and subsidize Arab terrorists. And therefore domestic unrest will continue if not accelerate. And that will be a form of containment itself. I also want to ensure if Donald Trump is talking, he would say, I want to ensure that the Strait of Hormuz is open. We have done considerable damage to the coastal offensive capability opposite of the Strait of the Iranians. And we have attrited its Navy, its drone forces. So he can probably say, with a skeleton American fleet, who is always stationed in or at the Gulf, the Strait, I can tell my Gulf allies and the Israelis and my allies in Europe and Asia, you depend on the Strait. You can help patrol it. And we will help you too. And it won't be hard to keep it open.
He can also say, we are not lifting the sanctions. No, no, no, no. And we're not going to stop the bank account freezes. You're not going to get any money. We're not going to talk to you is what I'm saying.
And then he can say as well, I don't know what the denominator of missiles is. I know the numerator, we have destroyed thousands. But obviously, they had prepared for this, and there are launchers here and there. But Israel and the Gulf States between them have 900 combat aircraft. We probably have 500 to 600 in the area. If they begin launching missiles, they can always retaliate.