The Daily Signal - Victor Davis Hanson: Iran War Ends in One of Three Ways

Episode Date: April 7, 2026

President Donald Trump recently outlined the endgame for Iran. How does it end? There are three scenarios: 👉 Bomb the mullahs back to the Stone Age, hoping a popular uprising takes root and overthrows the regime. 👉 The Venezuela solution: Install a current, more moderate member of the regime as a transitional figure until elections can be held. 👉 Bomb the infrastructure and leave.Donald Trump recently outlined the end game for Iran. We’ve been there about a month, and he was saying in week five it would take two or three weeks, so maybe seven weeks total or two months. That got people very angry and said it’s an endless war. And the people on the left, remember, don’t want the war to work because they want to win the midterms. And they’re not, they haven’t been successful so far in hurting Trump, but they feel that if they can create a narrative that this is an Afghanistan-like withdrawal, which they oversaw that was a disaster, or a Vietnam or an Afghanistan or Iraq, maybe they can bring him down. (00:00) Trump’s Iran Endgame (00:58) Endless War Narrative (02:21) Casualties vs. Costs (04:03) Size, Scale, and Military Impact (06:12) Denuclearization and Strategic Results (08:10) Closing Takeaways 👉 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Donald Trump recently outlined the end game for Iran. How does it end? There's three scenarios. There's Trump's hinting that he was going to, in Curtis LeMay fashion, bomb them back to the Stone Age. Or he can do the Venezuela. Somebody you can talk to that would take over as a transitional government, and then they would probably have to accede to the demands of the people.

Finally, you don't even have to talk to anyone. When we're not going to worry, we're not going to argue, we're just going to take out your infrastructure and we're going to leave. Hello, this is Victor Davis-Hansson for the Daily Signal. Donald Trump recently outlined the endgame for Iran. We've been there about a month, and he was saying in week five, it would take two or three weeks. So maybe seven weeks total or two months. That got people very angry and said, well, it's an endless.

war. And the people on the left, remember, don't want the war to work because they want to win the midterms, and they're not, they haven't been successful so far in hurting Trump, but they feel that if they can create a narrative that this is a Afghanistan-like withdrawal, which they oversaw, that was a disaster, or a Vietnam, or an Afghanistan, or Iraq, maybe they can bring him down, and histories on their side is the out-party gaining seats and win the midterms and then impeach him. So their criticism is not empirical. It's entirely political, but it's infectious. Recently, we had a plane, an F-15 was shot down.

One of the pilots was rescued. We don't know yet as I speak the fate of the other one, but people just went crazy. And after Trump's speech, some of the commentators, Farid Zakaria, Newsweek said, can you ever imagine a war that cost so much and did so little, obtained so little? I thought, are you serious? We've lost 13, maybe 14. That's tragic, but 14 people attacking a country the size, almost twice the size of Texas, one and a half times the size of Alaska, 93 million people.

Five weeks. That's hardly, I mean, and we've pretty much denuclearized it and destroyed its ability to make war. It's just a question of, do you want to go and. into the civilian infrastructure when you're trying to help the Iranians stand up and have regime change because you can easily do that. You can take out their water and you can send it back, as Trump said, to this Stone Age. So the restrictions are all self-imposed. People said, well, how about the straight of our moves? Well, Donald Trump had a good point. He said, the countries that use it and need it need to come in and patrol it. Now we can help them. We can use

our ward hogs or our patchies or our tactical aircraft and make a sanitary corridor on the other side of the Iranian side of the strait. We can use some of our mine sweepers and our naval craft to sweep it of mines. We might even escort some ships in. But the countries that want the oil, I mean, they can do it. And by the way, there has been an implicit understanding before the war, before we ever bombed, that that straight was politicizing under the control of Iran. It had closed it in the past. And it had threatened to close it often. So there was a quid pro quo that if you are a nation that needs it, then you better temper your criticism of the the ocracy. And most of the European countries and a lot of the Asians did. They didn't want to really

talk about this regime when it killed 30 to 40,000 of its own people. They were mum because they were given a free pass. So we can help reopen the straight over moves either by doing it tactically or just giving them, as Donald Trump said, here's a list of targets. It's your decision. If you don't, if you want this power plant, you don't want it, tell us, because we'll take it out. We'll take it out. So what is the end game? A lot of people think that Russia Friza Riccara said, Russia's a beneficiary. Russia's mired in Ukraine. It's lost a million dead. It's probably got a million and a half casualties. It's completely broke. It's been kicked out of the Middle East. It's Syrian proxy. The Assad regime is over with. The price of oil

is just a brief spike. They haven't won anything. They're out. China, they've lost the Venezuelan discount on oil. They're out of basically the Western Hemisphere. They don't know what to do with Iran. They're watching to see if it's going to survive or not. They're probably stealthily trying to supply it, but they're not winners yet. How does it end? There's three scenarios. Seems to me there's Trump's hinting that he was going to, in Curtis LeMay fashion, bomb them back to the Stone Age. He can do that. He can just at some point say, you know what, we're going to be here for two or three weeks, but they don't want to negotiate, and I'm going to lift all restrictions off their target. And I hope that the people will revolt, stand up, have an insurrection

against this horrible wicked regime, and the moment I see them doing it in the next two weeks, I'll stop. But if they're not going to do it, I'm going to take out their bridges. And he started that. I'm going to take out the rail facilities. I'm going to take out their oil facility. I'm going to take out their power. Just write down the list, and either one of two things will stop me. Either the people will come out and fight, and then I'll stop and try to help them by not taking out the infrastructure they will inherit. Or if they come out to fight the regime, I will go after the regime more intensely. Or in three weeks, I'll say that I did enough, and it's up to you people. See, you wouldn't want to be you.

Or he can do the Venezuela solution. I think he's trying to do that. In other words, he can find people as he has, the Speaker of the Iranian Party, to talk to. And yes, they are contaminated with the theocratic hardliners, but maybe they want to break away, or maybe they can deliver the goods of an agreement, or maybe they can just say, we're not going to build nukes for a while or ever. But somebody you can talk to that would take over as a transitional government, and then they would probably have to accede to the demands of the people. And while you're talking to them, you can tell them, if you're not being sincere, we're going to put you on the list. And the list is, go look at it.

Anybody who's on this list and the Revolutionary Guard or part of theocratic government isn't here anymore. Because the Israelis know better than you and I where they are. And they're going down the list. If we put you on the list, who knows? But if you're not on the list, the people who are opposing you are going to be dwindling in numbers. and they're going to be held responsible after this war, and they're probably going to be at the mercy of the people, and you won't be, and you can have a Venezuela solution,

not the best in the world, but a way to create stability and end that awful regime. And then finally, you don't even have to talk to anyone. You just say, these were what we wanted. Think about it. I don't care who talks, but if I see, we're going to have to be We're going to keep bombing. If I see that you are importing missiles, if I see that you are trying to rescue the nuclear material, if I see you're killing your people, if the straight is not open, we're not going to worry, we're not going to argue, we're just going to take out your infrastructure and we're going to leave.

And somebody will have to do this maybe every four or five years, and I mean infrastructure. And that means there are no distinctions between civilians and military targets. And Trump, all he has to say is, I'm going to follow the Iranian theocratic model. You people, when you attack Israel, you aim for, you don't even aim for necessarily electric plants or sewage or water or transportation. You go after residential. We're not going to do that. We're not going to go after hotels or airports the way you do. But we are going to go after your infrastructure.

your ability to maintain a sophisticated society. And then we're going to leave. And it's up to you whether we come back. Either way, this war is not a disaster. It's one of the few times in history where Western power has had very, very minimal losses, has had a huge country to subdue and has done it very quickly and effectively.

Thank you very much, Victor Davis-Hanson, for the Daily Sea. 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.