The Daily Signal - How Obama, Biden Made Iran Believe It Could Take On the Whole World | Victor Davis Hanson

Episode Date: April 20, 2026

Within a matter of weeks, Iran’s ability to wage war has been rendered inert by American and Israeli forces. Over the course of seven U.S. presidencies, Iran—the most populous Middle Eastern country—developed a self-inflated view of itself. But why? Whether through the Biden-backed Iran nuclear deal or Barack Obama’s “creative tension” approach to Middle East conflicts, numerous U.S. administrations gave the Iranian regime the impression that the Western world was afraid of them. Then Trump called their bluff, argues Victor Davis Hanson on today’s edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In a Few Words.” (00:00) Iran War Status Check (01:12) How Tehran Misread Obama Biden (03:23) Myth of Iranian Invincibility (05:12) October 7 Changed Israel (06:37) Negotiations and Endgame 👉 The Daily Signal cannot continue to tell stories, like this one, without the support of our viewers: http://dailysignal.com/donate 👉Don’t miss out on Victor’s latest short videos by subscribing to The Daily Signal today. You’ll be notified every time a new piece of content drops: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/dailysignal?sub_confirmation=1⁠  Also on Spotify: https://megaphone.link/THEDAILYSIGNAL9753340027  👉Want more VDH? Watch Victor’s weekly, hour-long podcast, “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words,” now! Subscribe to his YouTube channel, and enable notifications:  https://www.youtube.com/@victordavishanson7273?sub_confirmation=1👉More exclusive content is available on Victor’s website: https://victorhanson.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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We're now beginning the seventh week of military operations against Iran. They're in a lull now during a negotiation, but the war continues. And if you look at Iran, it's a very strange situation because its command and control have been decapitated. its military has been, I guess you'd call it inert. There is no air force. There's only PT boats left of its Navy. Its army is of no use since this is an air war. Its nuclear military industrial complex has been bombed smithereens.

It's probably lost a half a trillion dollars in a half-century-long investment in military hardware. and military industries at the expense of a very restive population. So what was it thinking? How did it get in itself in this place? How did it? What happened to it? Well, it had an expansive view of itself, an inflated view. Why?

During the Obama administration, the Obama State Department and Obama himself sent these messages to Iran that maybe a Shia crescent, maybe Tehran, Damascus, Beirut, Gaza, people in Yemen might balance the Sunni Arabs of the Gulf with their money and the military power of the Jewish state of Israel, and Obama might step in from time to time to adjudicate this, I guess they call it, creative tension. In other words, we said there was no moral difference between the Iranian bloc and its opponents, when there was, of course. That gave the impression to Iran that we were afraid of them or we would always be willing to make concessions. When Biden came in, the Iranians looked at him.

The first thing he did was beg them to get back in the Iran deal. That inflated their egos even greater. Then he lifted sanctions and gave them $100 billion of new revenue. Meanwhile, the Iranians were looking at Russia going into Ukraine and the United States had done nothing other than say our reaction will hinge on whether it's a minor or major invasion. And then came October 7th. And the Iranians had subsidized Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis, and its proxies and clients in Syria and Iraq with the idea they had created a ring of fire around the Jewish state

and that after the October 7th massacres, which they denied they had foreign knowledge, but they obviously strategically planned it with their clients. They thought that the United States wouldn't do anything, and they were pretty much right about that during the Biden administration. If even worse, we kind of distance ourselves from Israel, and Iran knew that. And they felt that after October 7th, it would be such a traumatic experience for the Israeli government. They wouldn't do much. A lot of this was hinged on the pseudo-reputation they had of being made.

militarily indominal, invincible, but there was never any proof that was true. In the Iran-Iraq War of 1980, they didn't do very well. Comini had to sue for peace, even though they had almost one and a half times a population of Iraq. But they were the terror of the Middle East. People said, whatever you do, go into Afghanistan, go into Iraq, bomb, don't get near Iran. They're crazy people. They have 93 million people. They're the second largest country in the Middle East by population.

They're the second largest by area. They're just dangerous people. They're fanatic Shia, and they're willing to die for their cause. But if you actually looked at what they had done, they had achieved that reputation through surrogate use of terrorism, blowing up embassies, blowing up marine barracks, assassinating individuals, sending weaponry to kill Americans and how. Afghanistan and Iraq, but they'd never really shown any impressive performance on the battlefield, either at sea, on the ground, or in the air. And then so they thought they could get away with October 7th, and that gave them even a greater inflated sense of self, because they kept telling us that between all of their proxies

and their own arsenals, they might have 300,000 short and long-range missiles. rockets and drones, and they would collapse Israel under a sea of explosives. So they thought that even after October 7th, Israel wouldn't dare do anything to them because they had sophisticated Chinese and Russian air defenses. What they didn't count on were two things. October 7th changed the entire mentality of Israel. It was the greatest loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust. And they said, you cannot live like this.

You cannot sustain a country like this. You can't have a sword of Damocles like this descending on you periodically. So we're going to have to go to the head of the snake. Hezbollah will deal with, yes. Hamas we're going to deal with, the Houthis we will deal with, the people in Syria will deal with. But in one way or the other, they get money and weapons from Tehran. And we don't believe that they're indomitable. Not now, not after October 7th.

And so in that 12-day war of last year, they destroyed the entire air defenses of Iran. And then they began taking out its military capability and its nuclear industry and infrastructure. And they called us in and asked us, and we were more than ready to comply because it was in our national interest. And in about 25 or 30 hours, we blew up their nuclear facilities. We thought that might be the end. They got the message. But, of course, they didn't. their proxies began to shoot missiles again.

They began to, from our intelligence, resume work on their nuclear facilities and nuclear proliferation trajectory. And so the United States entered negotiations again with them. And like all negotiations with the Iranians, they're drawn out, they're meant to delay why they rearm or they enrich more uranium. or they sick their terrorist appurtences on Israel or on individuals in the West as terrorist attacks. But they didn't again count on that Donald Trump doesn't care. And Benjamin Netanyahu doesn't care. And so they resumed the war. And now we're speaking as we go into the seventh week.

All of its assets are destroyed. It's losing $400 million plus a day and lost revenue. by the U.S. blockade. It has no cards to play, and all it can hope is that someone will call off the United States. And we'll talk about that in a later video. Who are those somethings or some buddies that might save Iran at the 11th hour? Because it will not be able to save itself if the United States decides to take out its bridges, take out its electrical generation capability, and force it back to the negotiating table,

not to negotiate, but to submit to terms. Thank you very much. This is Victor Davis-Hansson for The Daily Signal. Thank you for tuning in to The Daily Signal. Please like, share, and subscribe to be notified for more content like this. You can also check out my own website at victorhansan.com and subscribe for exclusive features in addition.