The Long View of Iran.. By Victor Davis Hanson

[mystery-ak]

The Long View of Iran › American Greatness
Victor Davis Hanson


One day, the United States seems ready to unleash a Curtis LeMay-style devastating bombing campaign of Iran. The next, it appears trapped in endless haggling with Iranian dissimulators.

Of the roughly 150 days since the first strike, about 90 have passed without major military operations.

Iran believes time is on its side. The Strait of Hormuz remains disrupted, gas prices are too high, and antiwar House Democrats seem poised to win the midterms and bring Trump’s war to a halt.

Trump, by contrast, believes Iran can talk all it wants while sanctions, embargoes, and military pressure steadily weaken the regime.

The war has become so politicized in an election year that several basic realities have gone largely unnoticed by the media.

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https://amgreatness.com/2026/08/06/the-long-view-of-iran/

[massadvj]

A shattered economy means nothing to religious fanatics who are willing to slaughter their own citizens in order to maintain control. We can make the mullahs pay a hefty price, but air power is not going to win the war.

We lose (and they win) if the USA demonstrates that it cannot control the Strait of Hormuz. Period. A negotiated settlement that acknowledges Iran's dominion over he strait is a loss, not just over the middle east, but globally as the world loses confidence in our other military commitments. The dollar will lose credibility as a global currency, and we will see massive economic upheaval at home.

Decisive engagement, which would require ground troops and a prolonged war, would be politically catastrophic for Republicans, and would likely end in outcomes similar to Iraq and Afghanistan. Iran is a Muslim majority country. Even if the regime is ousted, every decision the subsequent leaders make will be made using a sharia paradigm.

This is why it was a mistake to engage in this war to begin with. We can win nothing. Every nation in the middle east recognizes this. They want us engaged there because it brings them high oil prices and lots of cash. Killing and war is a way of life for them. They thrive under conditions of war.  We do not, at least in this day and age.

Trump is looking for an offramp, and rightly so. But he should never have taken the onramp to begin with. It has been a disaster in every imaginable, and predictable, way.

Victor Davis Hanson and the rest of the neocon elites can delude themselves that Iran is on the precipice of collapse, but how can that be if we cannot even keep them from attacking ships that attempt to traverse the SOH?  How can that be if the mullahs are willing to hunker down and kill every last citizen among them who questions their authority? The American people are not wearing blinders. What we see is Nixon bombing Hanoi and Haiphong in order to get a negotiated settlement that will ultimately preserve the enemy.

It isn't as if we have not been down this road before. We have. And we learned nothing.

[Right_in_Virginia]

This is why it was a mistake to engage in this war to begin with. We can win nothing. Every nation in the middle east recognizes this. They want us engaged there because it brings them high oil prices and lots of cash. Killing and war is a way of life for them. They thrive under conditions of war. 

Love of the blood feud is a contagion in the Middle East and every nation over there is infected with it.

Trump is looking for an offramp, and rightly so. But he should never have taken the onramp to begin with. It has been a disaster in every imaginable, and predictable, way.

The disaster became predictable the moment Trump invited Netanyahu and his road show into the US Situation Room. But, Trump had not agreed to the shit show Netanyahu presented....so he forced Trump's hand.  Secretary Rubio explains this better than I can.  Click on the link below:

https://youtu.be/T3pL_ZCWPz0?si=AblP9Dy-FWjeg4on

http://youtu.be/T3pL_ZCWPz0?si=AblP9Dy-FWjeg4on

[DefiantMassRINO]

The mullahs don't care about the same things we value.  They'll get their 72 virgins one way or another.

Numbers mean nothing.  Dollars mean nothing.  Iran is honey badger to America's poisonous snake - the honey badger can withstand the strikes of the snake because it has evolved to do so.  The same is to true with Iran.

Iran has designed its regime to withstand the strikes, bites, and stings America throws at it.  Eventually, the snake runs out of venom, runs out of energy, runs out of resolve, and gets eaten by the honey badger.

Good luck with your Neo-Con halucinations since you don't understand the enemy you're fighting.

America won the body count in Viet-Nam, but the North Viet-Namese achieved the strategic victory.

[IsailedawayfromFR]

We lose (and they win) if the USA demonstrates that it cannot control the Strait of Hormuz. Period.

Not a period. Iran's neighbors could muscle in the way of Iran's ambitions and do the controlling rather than the US.

And if Iran gets their nukes anyway, who cares who controls Hormuz?

[DefiantMassRINO]

The nukes Trump has obliterated twice?

The United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq won't fight to secure the Strait of Hormuz.  If they aren't fighting now, it's because they don't want their own hands dirty.

The Strait of Hormuz is not America's strait to secure.  India, China, and other Asian nations have a greater economic and national security interest in the Strait of Hormuz than America does.

Occasionally, some Persian Gulf states buy US military equipment as payment for using the United States as their mercenary guarantor of security.

America's capital is being wasted securing the Middle East.  That capital could be deployed elsewhere more productively to increase and develop more secure commerce and supply chains at home and abroad.
 
OPEC has F'ed us on oil prices every chance they got.  They are not our allies.  They are buying merecenary security from us.  America is getting the raw end of the deal.

Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia are culpable for 9/11.

If the Persian Gulf states were going to step up to defend themselves, they would have done that already.  They've had since 1979 to build their own defenses.  But why incur that expense themselves when they can pay the United States a pittance to do it for them.

Not a period. Iran's neighbors could muscle in the way of Iran's ambitions and do the controlling rather than the US.

And if Iran gets their nukes anyway, who cares who controls Hormuz?