Transcript
A (0:00)
Foreign. Hello, and welcome to Victor Davis Hansen in His own Words. This is our Saturday edition where we do something a little bit different in one of our middle segments. And Victor's going to be talking about the God Apollo today, so stay with us for that. Until then, we'll look at a few news stories and Victor wanted to give an update on the Iraq War first, and then we'll turn to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Stay with us and we'll be right back.
B (0:41)
If you enjoy Victor Davis Hansen, you might enjoy the Daily Signals flagship show. The Tony Kennett cast the same common sense perspectives you Love, weekdays at 7pm Eastern. And unlike some of the other evening shows, we work up until showtime to bring you the latest breaking news, analysis and good old American sarcasm. Thom Tillis I'm pretty sure might have been useful at one time as a doorstop. Find the Tony Kennett cast on YouTube, X Radio TV or wherever you get your podcasts.
A (1:11)
Welcome back Victor Davis Hanson in his own words. He is a subsidiary of the Daily Signal and you can find lots of articles and podcasts at the Daily Signal. In fact, Victor has short podcast that you can find there as well, so please join him there. He is the Martin and Neely Anderson Senior Fellow in Military History and Classics at the Hoover Institution and the Wayne and Marcia Buskey Distinguished Fellow in History at Hillsdale College.
C (1:42)
Wait, wait. I'm a real person with feelings. You said I was a subsidiary. You're objectifying me as an inanimate object. I'm a person. Don't you remember? The Thornbirds were What's her name? Barbara Stanwyck.
A (1:57)
Stanwyck.
C (1:57)
She said, I'm trapped in this old body, but I'm young, I'm young.
A (2:00)
I'm a person.
C (2:01)
I'm still a person. I'm not a subsidiary, an inanimate.
A (2:05)
Oh, you got a good point there. All right, Victor. So I know that you wanted to say a few more things on Iran this morning, and then we'll turn to the Southern Poverty Law center, but go ahead.
C (2:15)
Well, I think everybody should keep in mind what the Iranian strategy is, because they're bleeding out $400 million and economic activity of all sorts, imports coming in that are necessary to fuel their industries, to oil going out, their revenue, and it's only a matter of time until they implode. But they're trying to, as they always do, they're trying to negotiate, negotiate, negotiate and then stop negotiating, then talk, talk, then stalk, and then to revive their fides, send a few boats out to lay a mine or Attack a thing and say, no, no, we're still peace. And to give them, you know, their due. They've already dragged it out for two months. And it's all predicated on one premise. They think Donald Trump has acclimate. They have climatized Donald Trump to a piece. So we haven't had any kinetic action in two, two or three weeks. So the American people are getting used to that. The stock market's gone up, oil's gone down, and so now they say it's a status quo. So now they're going to push it, push it, push it a little bit. And why doesn't Donald Trump unload on them? For three reasons. He doesn't want to go back and have a war that you'd have to finish them off because there is stirring rumors that the resistance is getting emboldened. They may, within three or four months, rise up, and you don't want them to be without power or water or bridges. The other thing is the Israelis came out with a report that they might have over a thousand missiles that we thought were, were destroyed, that actually they wheeled out shot, and then we hit their subterranean cover and they went to other places. So if that's true, Trump may think they've already inflicted billions of dollars of damage on the Gulf. If we sink too many of their ships and bomb them in retaliation for breaking the armistice ceasefire, then they may, you know, take out the Saudi oil, petroleum refining. I don't think they will, because if they do that, they're not going to have a country. So where we are right now is each day things get worse for Iran. And they know that. But they think, especially as they distill what Americans are saying on the left, whether it's Senator Murphy or Tom Friedman or the squad or Chuck Schumer, they're openly rooting for Iran. They really are. I'm going to be frank about that. So they feel that the Europeans don't like Trump and they're sitting it out. And they feel that if they can just keep talking, hit now, hit there and get away with it. Trump will bleed in the polls to the 30s. He'll lose the midterms, he will be impeached, they'll cut off aid. That's their strategy. So sum it up. Hit just enough not to earn a full reprisal, threaten just enough that you have enough missiles to hit the Gulf states hard, but not too much to earn a reprisal. And that's where we are. And at some point, somebody in the administration is going to have to get out their calculator. That's an archaic term, slide rule. And say these are the amount of days left that they can be viable. Two weeks, three weeks. And so if it's eight weeks, you better do something because I don't think he has that much time. He should precipitate the conclusion within two weeks or so. Part of the problem is we don't know how much oil they had stocked in tankers that are sitting around the world ready to go to the places that will buy it, number one. Number two, we don't know to what degree the Chinese are sending by rail weapons. And across across Asia they have a rail line directly into Iran. We don't know, as I said earlier, if the Russians are supplying across the Caspian Sea. But I don't think that much is getting in by sea or air. But I don't know about land. So it's. We need to get an accurate assessment. The economists for the center for the Defense of Democracies made that now widely quoted estimate of 420something million in lost revenue a day. And that's not sustainable. But we also don't know how many mines they have laid and where they were laid. It seems that they didn't lay them too close to the coast of Oman. So maybe there's a channel that we could de mine and direct traffic away from their coast through. And I think that's what we're doing.
