The Daily Signal - Victor Davis Hanson: How Trump is Bankrupting the Iranian War Machine

Episode Date: May 5, 2026

The standoff with Iran has reached a critical tipping point, and the regime’s desperate stall tactics are proving no match for America's crippling economic blockades. While radical Democrats cross their fingers for a domestic recession or a midterm-wrecking oil crisis, Donald Trump holds the ultimate trump card in the Strait of Hormuz. The clock is ticking on Tehran's revolutionary theatrics, and the United States military is perfectly positioned to shut down their terror subsidies once and for all, argues Victor Davis Hanson on today’s edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In a Few Words:”  👉 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.com00:00 War Nearing Endgame Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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For less, give AncestryDNA.A. Visit Ancestry.ca.C.T.A. Today. Offer ends May 10th. Terms apply. Hello, this is Victor Davis Hansen for the Daily Signal. I think we're coming to the last chapter, the epilogue, the post script of the Iran War. It's been going on for over 60 days, but there are certain time conditions or limits to the war on both sides. As I said earlier, the military question has been resolved. The United States, by day 40 had effectively destroyed.

ability of Iran to make war. And it has since then enacted certain blockades and economic coercion, especially canceling bank accounts, freezing assets abroad, interrupting commercial tankers on their way in and out of Iran on the high seas that will guarantee the Iranian economy will explode somewhere in the next two or three weeks or a month or so. but each side has a time constraint. On the side of Iran, it knows that the status quo is not acceptable.

It's a death warrant for them because they cannot continue their economic activity at the present rate. It's just a question of how long can they smuggle things in on rail or through land routes or across the casket, but it won't be enough. and so their strategy is to often negotiate and give a hint that they might give greater concessions and then we as a proverbial fish

take the bait they hook us we get into four or five days and we find out it's a ruse then we get mad and back off Donald Trump and the point of that is of course is to drag these negotiations out to the point where

either the War Powers Act restricts Donald Trump's options or concern about the midterms does or the price of gas. There might be a looming recession or the pressure of our Western allies in Europe and Asia to resolve this incomplete. So what Donald Trump has is a series of pressures as well as the Iranian. So right now we're in a standoff. Iran says we can outweigh you and Donald Trump says we can force you to bend to our will and they counterback and says

yes you can but you don't have enough time given the pressures that are upon you domestically politically economically globally and we have more time we won't go broke and Donald Trump says yes you can so you can see that these are two fixed objects in collision and there's

there's no way to resolve it except at some point as the United States opens the Straits of Hormuz and people starts to come in there's going to be greater traffic Wall Street will be happy about it and the price of oil will start to fall and Donald Trump has the ability with the U.S. Navy to make that happen And the Europeans, if they feel that it's a successful naval operation, will want to come in and come in at the end when there's no longer a military threat. They'll send, I don't know, 10 or 12 nations will send a ship or two. We'll guide them in, and then they will take credit, which is fine. But what is the likely end to this standoff?

And the likely end, I think, is something like the following. Iran will still send out boats to harass ships that get too close to the coast. It will still say it wants to negotiate, but it will never, never concede on two or three issues that were the purpose of the American intervention in the first place. Remember, we didn't go in there to get boots on the ground. We didn't go in there to change the regime. We went in there for two or three reasons. One, to ensure they could not enrich uranium or they would not have nuclear enriched uranium to make a bomb.

Number two, we were going to stop their ability, propensity to launch missiles at their adversaries. Number three, we did not want them to subsidize the terror masters of Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Hamas. And you could add there that we didn't want them killing Americans. anymore, that for 47 years, whether it was embassies or military barracks or individual Americans or, in some cases, U.S. soldiers fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq that were killed by Iranian shipped in shaped charges, we had enough of it. So all of those demands that we are putting upon them, I don't think they're going to concede to them, because to concede to them would mean they're no longer a revolutionary theocratic society. And that's what they exist to be.

So what will happen? In the next week, two weeks, or three weeks, Donald Trump has a magic date. I don't know what it is. You don't know what it is. He does. And his advisors do. And they say at this point, we can still continue a robust economy. The signs are good. We'll get the oil price. and around five months from now, almost six months, the economy will be roaring and will be in great shape, and people won't even remember this downturn. But we've got to do it in the next two or three months. And what will they do if we demand that they get off the seas of the Strait of Ramos?

They will send out boats. We will sink them. Then what will they do? They will send missiles into the Gulf and try to destroy the oil. capacity and potential of the Gulf states. I don't think they're going to spend that many into Israel because they haven't had the effect they achieved by sending six times more drones and missiles into the Gulf. And then what would we do? Seems to me that at that point, their economic status would be almost nil, and we would try to then destroy their ability to exist as a regime

without destroying the ability of the people to have regime change and take over or take back their country. Now, what would that exist like? Probably we would destroy the port facilities on Karg Island. We would damage as much of their missile capacity. We would destroy all their small boats. We would probably hit some dual-use targets, as Bill Clinton did in Serbia or Barack Obama did in Libya. that might be bridges, that might be generation plants, we don't know. And then we would, if we can't send troops to get the uranium, we would find out where it is,

and we would have an intensive bombing to seal it with hopes that the new regime then would let it stay there or try to recover it and give it back to us. So the bottom line is both sides have time constraints upon them. Iran knows that they are going broke, and they have no ability to stop. going broke. So they want to negotiate, negotiate and send little carrots for us to eat and then drag it out until

the midterms or until there's an economic crisis in the United States governing the price of oil. Donald Trump has time constraints. He's got to deal with an opposition who feels the war was a mistake or they're actually rooting in some cases for the Iranians. They want to impeach him

but when they take over the house they want a recession. and they want the price of oil to stay high. So in the next week to a month, something's got to give. And that got to give will be probably the United States will take the move to force open the streets of, straight of Hormuz. And when they react to that by sending missiles, then they will finish the job and destroy their ability economically and militarily for good.

It could be quite violent for a week or two, but ultimately the decision is not in doubt. And then, according to this line of logic, the United States then would have time to reboot and make sure that we do not have an oil crisis or a recession before the midterms. And that seems to be pretty much the scenario. So bottom line, let us watch very carefully the next two to four weeks, because something is going to happen to break this deadline. Thank you very much, Victor Davis-Hanson, for the Daily Seagy.

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 victorhansen.com and subscribe for exclusive features in addition. Behind every F-35 jet is a Canadian company, horizontal tails built in Winnipeg, engine sensors from Ottawa, and stealth composite panels crafted in Loonberg to name just a few. Thanks to thousands of skilled Canadian workers, the F-35 Aircraft. is delivering unmatched capabilities for 20 allied nations around the world and will generate more than $15.5 billion in industrial value for Canada.

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