Beginning of the End for Iran

Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of today’s video from Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to see more of his videos.

Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal.

Donald Trump recently outlined the end game for Iran. We’ve been there about a month, and he was saying in week five it would take two or three weeks, so maybe seven weeks total or two months. That got people very angry and said it’s an endless war. 

And the people on the Left, remember, don’t want the war to work because they want to win the midterms. And they’re not, they haven’t been successful so far in hurting Trump, but they feel that if they can create a narrative that this is an Afghanistan-like withdrawal, which they oversaw that was a disaster, or a Vietnam or an Afghanistan or Iraq, maybe they can bring him down. 

And history’s on their side—with the out party gaining seats—and winning the midterms and then impeach him. So their criticism is not empirical. It’s entirely political, but it’s infectious.

Recently we had a plane, an F-15 was shot down. One of the pilots was rescued. We don’t know yet, as I speak, the fate of the other one, but people just went crazy. 

And after Trump’s speech, some of the commentators, Fareed Zakaria at Newsweek, said, “can you ever imagine a war that costs so much and did so little, obtained so little?” I thought, are you serious? 

We’ve lost 13, maybe 14. That’s tragic, but 14 people attacking a country almost twice the size of Texas, one and a half times the size of Alaska, 93 million people, five weeks. And we’ve pretty much denuclearized it and destroyed its ability to make war. 

It’s just a question of, do you want to go into the civilian infrastructure when you’re trying to help the Iranians stand up and have regime change? Because you can easily do that. You can take out their water, their electric, and you can send it back, as Trump said, to the Stone Age. So, the restrictions are all self-imposed. 

People said, “How about the Strait of Hormuz?” 

Donald Trump had a good point. He said the countries that use it and need it need to come in and patrol it. Now, we can help them. We can use our Warthogs or our Apaches or our tactical aircraft and make a sanitary corridor on the other side of the Iranian side of the strait. We can use some of our minesweepers and our naval craft to sweep it of mines. We might even escort some ships in. 

But the countries that want the oil, they can do it. And by the way, there has been an implicit understanding before the war, before we ever bombed, that strait was politicized and under the control of Iran, had closed it in the past, and it had threatened to close it often. So there was a quid pro quo that if you are a nation that needs it, then you better temper your criticism of the theocracy. 

And most of the European countries, and a lot of the Asians, did. They didn’t want to really talk about this regime. When it killed 30,000 to 40,000 of its own people, they were mum, because they were given a free pass. 

So we can help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, either by doing it tactically or just giving them, as Donald Trump said, here’s a list of targets. It’s your decision. If you want this power plant … you don’t want it, tell us, because we’ll take it out. We’ll do it. Take it out. 

What is the end game? A lot of people think that Russia, Zakaria said Russia’s a beneficiary.

Russia’s mired in Ukraine. It’s lost a million dead. It’s probably got a million and a half casualties. It’s completely broke. It’s been kicked out of the Middle East. Its Syrian proxy, the Assad regime, is over with. The price of oil is just a brief spike. They haven’t won anything. They’re out. 

China, they’ve lost the Venezuelan discount on oil. They’re out of basically the Western Hemisphere. They don’t know what to do with Iran. They’re watching to see if it’s going to survive or not. They’re probably stealthily trying to supply it, but they’re not winners yet. 

How does it end? There are three scenarios. Seems to me there’s Trump’s hinting that he was going to, in Curtis LeMay fashion, bomb them back to the Stone Age. He can do that. He can just at some point say, “You know what, we’re gonna be here for two or three weeks, but they don’t want to negotiate, and I’m going to lift all restrictions off their targets. 

“And I hope that the people will revolt, stand up, have an insurrection against this horrible, wicked regime. And the moment I see them doing it in the next two weeks, I’ll stop. But if they’re not gonna do it, I’m gonna take out their bridges.”

And he started that. “I’m gonna take out the rail facilities. I’m gonna take out their oil facilities. I’m going to take out their power. 

Just write down the list, and either one of two things will stop me. Either the people will come out and fight, and then I’ll stop and try to help them by not taking out the infrastructure they will inherit. Or if they come out to fight the regime, I will go after the regime more intensely. 

Or in three weeks I’ll say that I did enough, and it’s up to you people. See, you wouldn’t want to be you.”

Or he can do the Venezuela solution. I think he’s trying to do that. In other words, he can find people, as he has, a speaker of the Iranian party to talk to. And yes, they are contaminated with the theocratic hard-liners, but maybe they want to break away, or maybe they can deliver the goods of an agreement. 

Or maybe they can just say, “We’re not gonna build nukes for a while or ever.” But somebody you can talk to that would take over as a transitional government, and then they would probably have to accede to the demands of the people. 

And while you’re talking to them, you can tell them, if you’re not being sincere, we’re gonna put you on the list. And the list is, go look at it. Anybody who’s on this list and the Revolutionary Guard or part of the theocratic government isn’t here anymore, because the Israelis know better than you and I where they are, and they’re going down the list. 

If we put you on the list, who knows? But if you’re not on the list, the people who are opposing you are gonna be dwindling in numbers, and they’re gonna be held responsible after this war, and they’re probably gonna be at the mercy of the people, and you won’t be. 

And you can have a Venezuela solution. Not the best in the world, but a way to create stability and end that awful regime. 

And then finally, you don’t even have to talk to anyone. You just say, “These were what we wanted. Think about it. I don’t care who talks, but if I see we’re gonna have, we’re gonna keep bombing. 

If I see that you are importing missiles, if I see that you are trying to rescue the nuclear material, if I see you’re killing your people, if Strait is not open, we’re not going to worry. We’re not gonna argue. We’re just going to take out your infrastructure, and we’re going to leave.” 

And infrastructure—and that means there are no distinctions between civilians and military targets. And Trump, all he has to say is, “I’m gonna follow the Iranian theocratic model. You people, when you attack Israel, you aim for, you don’t even aim for necessarily electric plants or sewage or water or transportation. You go after residential. 

“We’re not gonna do that. We’re not gonna go after hotels or airports the way you do, but we are gonna go after your infrastructure, your ability to maintain a sophisticated society. And then we’re gonna leave. And it’s up to you whether we come back.” 

Either way, this war is not a disaster. It’s one of the few times in history where Western power has had very minimal losses, has had a huge country to subdue, and has done it very quickly and effectively. 

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