The Daily Signal - Victor Davis Hanson: Iran Deal Can Work If We Hit Them Every Time They Break It

Episode Date: June 16, 2026

The media claims Trump is isolated and the midterms are lost, but they are ignoring the reality of a crippled Iran and a redrawn map of Middle Eastern alliances. By shifting from appeasement to strength, the administration has effectively shut out Russia and China while setting the stage for a massive drop in oil prices. This strategy doesn't just secure the Strait—it puts the MAGA movement in the driver’s seat heading into the midterms. 👉Go to JoinADF.com/HANSON or Text HANSON to 83848 to help support Alliance Defending Freedom’s work!HTTPS://WWW.JOINADF.COM/HANSON.COM   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Daily Signal podcast, where we provide intelligence for the intelligent. Now, without further ado, here's today's take. For 250 years, America has been a bastion of freedom. As we look ahead to the next 250, we're reminded that freedom is ours to defend. Today, Alliance defending freedom stands in courtrooms across the country to protect those freedoms we cherish. life, free speech, religious freedom, parental rights. These freedoms are at the core of who we are as a nation and they must be preserved. ADF is approaching a critical fiscal year-end fundraising deadline.

Your support today helps ADF defend these freedoms so they may endure for many years to come. Every dollar you give will be doubled thanks to a special matching grant while funds last. Visit join ADF.com. Hanson or text Hanson to 838 to give today. That's join ADF.com slash Hanson or text Hanson to 8388. Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for the Daily Signal. There's a lot of confusion, controversy, and disagreement about the latest phase of the so-called Iran War. Remember, we bombed kinetically 38 to 40 days.

Then we had 60 days of negotiation. And here we are in mid-June in which Stalin Trump has announced yet another time. There is going to be a peace deal coming with a 60-day period for all the elements of the deal to be enacted. A lot of people are upset. They feel that Iran was on the ropes. They're going broke. And that had we continued, or if we were to continue now, we could put them out of commission. and then dictate a non-conditional surrender to them.

That's absolutely true. But what this deal then hinges on, because there's no history of Iran ever keeping their word or following any agreement explicit or implicit is the willingness to keep maybe one carrier group in the region to ensure that the strait stays open, that the missiles are not launched against our allies, and, of course, the enriched uranium is turned over. And if we're willing to do that and hit them hard every time they break it, then it might eventually work. There's a lot of misconceptions, though, about the deal and the war in general.

I'd like to address just a few of them. A lot of the critics of this administration are saying, I think Hickham Jeffery said that not long ago, well, the straight was open and now it's closed. so the deal didn't accomplish anything. In fact, it made it worse. Well, the straight was open because Iran had no reason as it did now to close it. And the reason they didn't have any reason to close it was the seven prior presidents, Carter, Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama,

And Joe Biden didn't want to disarm Iran. They didn't want to go in there and try to stop their proliferation agenda. Donald Trump did. Anybody who did was going to be confronted with a desperate effort of Iran to close the straight. Now, we'll open the straight, but the idea that we made things worse is ridiculous. And then second, people are saying, well, it's just like the Obama deal. Why did Trump get out of the Obama deal?

Well, they enriched uranium all through the Obama deal. We know that. They wouldn't let inspectors in. During Joe Biden's presidency, he begged them to go back into the Iran deal. They didn't want to do it. Why? Because we now know they had pretty much already enriched to the point 60 or more percent that they could make Obama in a month should they want it to. But here's the big difference.

In the Obama atmosphere of that deal of 2015-16, Iran was assented. Everybody was scared of it. Its military was heavily equipped with Chinese and Russian weaponry. People were afraid of it. Israel didn't want to attack it. The Gulf states didn't want to attack it. Europe was advising caution. It was an appeasing deal because nobody wanted to use force.

Now, whatever your disagreement is with the current war, people, and we don't have boots in the ground, we don't have journalists in the ground, but they agree that the Iranian military and its economy are devastated through 40 days of intense bombing with probably a thousand planes in the air at any one time. So we're dealing with a much diminished Iran that we can hit again and again because they have no air defenses. Obama was dealing with an ascendant Iran that he was scared to even mention the use of force. to make them comply.

There's a third misconception. People say, well, now we're isolated. We're all isolated. We have no allies. China and Russia are ascended. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is the first time in all of our lifetimes that the Gulf Council, for all their double-dealing over the years,

basically are more attuned to an alliance, maybe unspoken, with Israel than they are with Iran. We know now that some of the 600 combat aircraft based in the Gulf were stealthily flying missions, and that meant alongside the Israelis. We know that there are Israeli technicians in the Gulf helping them with missile defense. We know the Gulf states, and most of the moderate Arab countries, believe that Iran, not Israel, is the existential threat. In other words, we've never had a closer relationship with, the Gulf states vis-a-vis America, nor has Israel.

As far as Russia and China, they're both shut out of the Middle East. They have lost their client in Syria. They have lost, and they're going to lose their client in Iran. They have lost their client in Venezuela. They have an enormous problem. Russia cannot sell weapons to Iran anymore. They may smuggle some in, and China can't get discounted oil anymore. war. There's another misconception, that is the apostate right, that is the Tucker Carlson, Candace

O.O. isn't right, has said that they were going to fracture the party, and maybe their influence will turn the MAGA movement against Donald Trump. Well, first of all, on all the other issues, maybe except the Iran War, most of the conservative, if not all, agree with Donald Trump. Even Tucker Carlson would agree with Donald Trump's crime policy, his border policy, the wall, the deportation policy, the green rejection of the green energy mania. But on this question of the war, the MAGA and Republican Party still overwhelmingly 75% support Donald Trump. And the reason they do is they don't feel this is a forever endless war, as the apostate right do. They believe that we have not use ground troops, and we have lost fewer soldiers than the accident rate that the military

suffers daily over that period of 38 to 40 days of kinetic operations. Finally, everybody says we've lost the midterms. The midterms are four and a half months away. If the straight is open, suddenly you're going to have a traffic jam of two things. One, tankers leaving, trying to get out full of oil and tankers waiting to get in. But there may be 200 or 250 tankers full of a million to 2 million barrels at a time when the United States and Russia and the Middle East and Venezuela are up in production. So there could be a substantial drop in prices. And if you do get a deal, the left is going to be sort of fly.

because they said that we had lost the war and we didn't achieve our objectives. But if you do get a deal and the deal is enforced by military action on the part of the United States, it wouldn't hurt Trump. It could help him. And then there's a larger context of redistricting. In this redistricting war, it turns out that so far the Republican legislatures will outdo the Democratic legislatures. and the Republicans may pick up anywhere from three or four to five seats. And the Supreme Court that said it is a racial obsession, a fixation to create congressional districts on the basis of race,

and you can't do it, may lend the Republicans another four to five. I'm not suggesting that Donald Trump can overturn historical precedent. Remember that of the last 40 presidents, 95% lost their first midterm election. So his history is on the wrong side, but he will not lose the Senate. And it doesn't really matter to tell you the truth if they lose the House. It would be nice to get legislation through, but most of his legislation has already been through. He can still use executive orders, but most importantly, they may impeach him as they performance aren't hacked, but the Senate will never convict you. 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 victorhansen.com and subscribe for exclusive features in addition.