Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of a segment from today’s edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words” with Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to Hanson’s own YouTube channel to watch past episodes. This show was filmed prior to the start of Operation Epic Fury.
Jack Fowler: Victor, your thoughts if we don’t take action because Iran is, despite what happened a few months ago, the bombing of the enrichment and the nuclear facilities, they are constructing new facilities even deeper in some other mountain. But is there any doubt in your mind that if Iran goes unchecked for the next months or years, that there will not be a catastrophe from them having nuclear capability?
Victor Davis Hanson: No, you can’t negotiate with them because their whole currency is lying, and they’re fanatic ideologues. And they have a supernatural view of what’s going to happen, and they’re on the right side of Cosmic Divinity and all of these ideas. I think [former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi] Rafsanjani in a disputed statement, but I think it was accurate, said that Israel was a one bomb state, and that was the advantage that you got half the Jews in the world in one place, where all you needed was one bomb. So you can’t negotiate.
I think their strategy, to tell you, was kind of a Muhammad Ali “Rope-a-Dope” where they were going to ride it out. And then [President Donald] Trump would be gone in three years, and people would be angry, and you’d get a Joe Biden, or better yet a type of puppet of the Left. But better yet, you would get an [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] or a “squad” member, or a [Gavin] Newsom or [Kamala] Harris, and then you’re home free to get the bomb.
Because they would not do anything. That was the strategy. I think it would’ve worked actually if Trump had let him off the hook. So now the question is the domestic support. When the statue [of Saddam Hussein] fell in April of 2003, I think most polls showed that George Bush had a popularity rating of between 80% and 90%.
There was a controversy over the carrier flag “Mission Accomplished” because there was a little bit of terrorist activity. I was in Washington at the Naval Academy, and I remember distinctly that Chris Matthews, I was watching CNN, who ended up despising Bush, was a big critic. He said, “We’re all neocons now,” on the air.
And then I remember Andrew Sullivan, who was sort of a chameleon in his political views, but mostly started out as, I guess, a British conservative, but ended up very left-wing. He was all for it. There was a guy who did little green footballs. Remember that little podcast? I knew the guy. He was a nice guy.
I rode a bike with him once and he was all in, and then all of a sudden the insurgency came. And the American casualties started and everybody adopted. And then there was a Vanity Fair on the neocons that they felt had been the architects, Richard Perle, David Frum, Bill Crystal, and all of them, had adopted, I guess you would call it my beautiful war and your lousy occupation.
And the scapegoat they focused on was [former Secretary of Defense] Don Rumsfeld. If you just get rid of Dom Rumsfeld, everything will be okay. What I’m saying is that domestic support will depend on how many American casualties, how quick is it over, and how effective are the results.
If it is over within three weeks, and there’s a revolution and they have some type of transitional government, unlike Iraq, then everybody’s going to say, I was for it all along. Even the ones that were against it.
If, on the other hand, they start shooting down planes or they hit an American base or they take out a frigate or something, they get a lucky shot on a carrier, and we don’t get a change and we stop, then everybody said I was never for it.
That’s the way people react, and the base is going be very tricky because the MAGA base, remember it was predicated on no forever wars. And no optional wars in the Middle East in reaction to Afghanistan and Iraq. And already Tucker Carlson, as you pointed out, I think in an email to me, has already said that Donald Trump’s war was evil.
And he crossed the Rubicon because, remember, during the Dominion voting controversy, right after Jan. 6, when Dominion forced the Fox Corporation to settle for hundreds of millions of dollars, and they had the interrogatories and the messages. One reason I think they wanted to settle is because the discovery phase of that lawsuit was going to show a lot of internal communication and outtakes and stuff.
But Tucker, do you remember? He was there, and he said, I really hate Donald Trump and I hate him. If you think about it, his first, I’m trying to remember, but I think I’m pretty accurate. This administration has nothing that can show, so he was a diehard critic. Then he came back into the fold, and he was credited with, along with [Donald Trump Jr.] to get JD Vance, who he felt was a kindred spirit.
Kind of neo-isolationist and his son Buckley went to work for him. And that was sort of the veneer of the MAGA base.
And then there were people like Candace [Owens] and the Fringe and [Nick] Fuentes and etc. But he’s already come out against it now and said it’s evil. So, he’s basically saying Donald Trump is evil.
And this comes on the heels of Candace Owens coming out with a documentary about Charlie Kirk’s wife, “Bride of Charlie” or something.
Fowler: Yeah, like the Bride of Frankenstein. Yeah.
Hanson: So, I think that fringe, those people are isolating themselves from the Trump movement, if I could say that. So, I don’t think he’s going to get a lot of popular right-wing opposition.
He’ll get opposition no matter what happens. No matter what happens, from AOC, the squad, Jasmine Crockett, all the candidates that are running for office. And you’ll have [John] Fetterman. I think he’s already said that he thought this was a good idea. You’ll see a guy like him or Mark Penn, a reasonable Democrat understand why [Trump attacked].
Ben Rhodes is already saying that this was a disaster. And this is the guy who was the architect of the disastrous Iran [nuclear] deal.
Fowler: Well, we were going be slaughtered because of the death of [Iranian General Qasam] Soleimani, right?
Hanson: We’ll see. Again, I think the base will stay with him.
I think independents will stay if it’s successful. And I think the Democrats are in a holding pattern, and they’re hoping—I’m not saying that out of maliciousness—I think they actually hope that it won’t work, even though that would put American lives at risk. Because from what I can read today, and again, I’m speaking on Saturday, what they’re posting, it’s not just that it was a mistake, but it’s wrong. It’s evil. You know what I mean?
Well, if it’s evil, then you want it to stop, and then you want to destroy evil.
But if you think the Americans, I don’t know what Tucker means when he says it’s evil. If there’s Americans in the way of fire, if you believe it was an evil decision in the sense of wrong, then you might say, I disagree with the decision, but now that it’s made, I want Americans to prevail and be safe.
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