Victor Davis Hanson: The US Needs to Hit Iran Harder to End the War

We need to up the level of damage we do to Iran, and unfortunately that might entail dual targeting, electrical plants, roads, bridges, and the actual barracks, camps, military facilities of all the various aspects of the country.Iranian military.And then once we feel that they are so attrited, they're not going to pose a serious threat to those who are keeping the strait open, then we can go and remove most of our assets back home.Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for the Daily Signal.We're now in the 134th day of quote -unquote, the war with Iran.I'm speaking on July 12th.

But we've got to remember that we've really only had March and April, we started on February 28th, about 38 days until we stopped fighting on March 28th.April 8, so we're really talking about 90 plus days of negotiations and 38 days of actual fighting.That should tell us something about what the Iranian strategy is.They want to talk, talk, talk, and they do not want to fight, fight, fight.We want to fight and get over and go home, and they don't.And they, because of the length of the negotiation, vis -a -vis the kinetic part, they may be in an advantaged position.

Part of the problem is that we have knocked out the four centers, at least three of the centers of the four of their government.The theocracy with the death of Khomeini and the disabling of his son and killing of many of the others is sort of inert.We've taken out a lot of the heads of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.There's a lot of militaryplanners that were central to Iran's military -industrial -nuclear complex that are gone, and we have a few elected leaders.And so that's who we're dealing with, but we're not sure if they are good cops and the rest of what's left are bad cops, or if anybody's any cop.

So where do we go from here?What's happening right now is we have no war and no peace.That is about every day and a half or every other day, what's left of the bad cops, that is the theocracy, the military and the Guard Corps, freelance and they hit one of the Gulf states.or a tanker.Notice they don't ever hit Israel.They don't ever hit Israel because Israel has announced that their response will be disproportionate and aimed at the surviving government.

So they don't do that.We haven't said that.But every other day they do that and now we're starting to respond disproportionately and that means for every 50 or so strikes we have 120 or 130.But that itself will go on and on and on.What we need to do is to find a way to do two things.One, stop their ability to make any strikes.

That can be accomplished various ways.We can either stop all of their supplies, and I mean all of them.That is, we can take out their airlift capacity, their airport.We can take out all the rail lines overland to China.We can take out the Caspian Sea ports.We can not allow any seaborne traffic into Iran.

And we can take out their electrical generation plan, short out the grid, take out more power.can stop their ability to make war rather than just hunt for an individual target, a missile target or a launcher pad or something like that.And then we have to make the conditions for which we can go home.We did the hard work.They're no longer a threat.We've taken out their 47 -year, half a trillion dollar military investment.

There's a lot of other vested interests that would like the Gulf open, particularly the Gulf Council states, the Europeans, the Japanese, the Chinese, South Koreans.So we need to make Iran so weak if they do not want to negotiate, and we're not going to get into this tit -for -tat cycle, that these other countries will be able to keep the Strait of Hormuz open.In other words, we'll leave maybe a rotating carrier group that comes in periodically, a few ships, and they will help organize a flotilla that keeps the strait open if we have done enough damage to their military that it has no ability to oppose the opening of the strait.So what am I getting at?I'm getting at we need to up the level of damage we do to Iran, and unfortunately that might entail dual targeting, electrical plants, roads, bridges.and the actual barracks, camps, military facilities of all the various aspects of the Iranian military.

And then once we feel that they are so attrited, they're not going to pose a serious threat to those who are keeping the strait open, then we can go and remove most of our assets back home and outsource it to the people who have a vested interest.and keeping the straight open.That's not us.We're independent of it.Our only interest is in keeping the straight open.open is so that our allies don't suffer from a global recession.

There's some good news.The price of oil has stabilized now.China is importing less.It's turning to coal power perhaps for It's industries to produce electricity, but more likely their electrical car industry is growing and growing and growing.Maybe they feel they can cut back on oil.They're cutting back about four million barrels.

Venezuela's pumping more.Russia's trying to pump more.The United States is pumping more.There's apostates who have left OPEC.UAE is pumping more.the pipelines to the Red Sea and to the Gulf outside the Strait are now open.

So it hasn't been the catastrophe everybody thought.There's not a global shortage of oil.In fact, we're looking probably at a global glut pretty soon of oil that will radically take the price down.The second thing is that the midterms for the Republicans are not lost.The Senate The Democrats only have a 50 chance, maybe perhaps less, to take the Senate.A lot will depend on who takes Mitch McConnell's place if he's unable to continue as senator.

There's a Democratic governor who will appoint somebody if he should not be able to take his place back in the Senate.But the midterms are not lost.There's been redistricting, both to stop racial gerrymandering.And red state has outdone the blue state in redistricting.That might pick up 9 to 10 to 11 seats.And then the latest development is in association with what we've seen with Graham Platner.

The other aspect is the Democratic Party cannot really hide its socialist, islamicist, and even communist base, and there's going to be a lot of high -profile candidates, not just at the congressional level.but perhaps in Texas and maybe, Mr. El -Sayed, and Michigan, and in some governor's races where they're openly doing, calling for issues, agendas, policies that are antithetical to not just Americans' belief now, but the whole idea of founding of America.That's not going to play well.In addition, the Republicans are probably going to have somewhere between $100 and $200 million more dollars to spend.What does that mean?It means that If Donald Trump is able to inflict a level of damage that the Iranians will either concede almost immediately, whoever they are, and I mean I'm talking about the most extreme elements, say we can't take any more of this, or if they don't concede he's able to inflict a number of hit a number of sites, as I outlined, dual -use targeting, where they're not going to be able to hurt anybody else, at least for four or five years, then the bulk of the forces can go home and a residual force can help organize our allies to keep the strait open, which will be pretty easy to do if we can get rid of their missile fleet and what's left of their navy.

So once again, we are in a cycle of tit for tat.The good news is militarily that we are starting to respond much more disproportionately, which we should have done in the beginning.And we're starting to catch on that the Iranians are either not serious or they're playing bad cop, good cop, or nobody's in charge at all.But that's all irrelevant.All that matters is that we use enough force to prohibit Iran from hurting its neighbors or attacking.We have that power.

If we use it, the war will end.There will be time for the Republican administration to concentrate on the economy and the midterms, and we have allies in the region.and without that have all the power they need to keep the straight of our moves open.Thank you very much.This is Victor Davis Hanson for the Daily Signal.

And no one should be punished for recognizing that truth.And guess what?The U .S.Supreme Court knows it too.Just days ago, the court ruled that under both the U .

S.Constitution and under federal law, states are free to protect female athletes.That means girls can compete on a level playing field in 27 states.Now we must fight to ensure the remaining 23 states stand up for safety and fairness too.That's really important for girls like Kaylee Keeler, a high school wrestler in Washington State who was sexually assaulted by a male during the middle of a competition.No female should have to experience what she did.

Sign Alliance Defending Freedom's petition to protect female sports now.Visit joinadf .com slash Hanson or text Hanson, H -A -N -S -O -N to 83848 to add your name to their declaration and side with truth and fairness.That's joinadf .com slash Hanson or text Hanson to 83848.

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