How Will US End the Iran War?

As we approach the end of 60 days of the war in Iran, we continue to hear from the Left that President Donald Trump has failed because the United States is losing the war. According to Victor Davis Hanson, this is “completely nonempirical” and “antithetical to the evidence.” 

Iran has big problems. It “is losing about $500 million in input per day” and “running out of storage space in a week or two for its daily output of oil.” At that “point they either have to stop pumping or they’re going to have – if they don’t stop pumping – their wells will collapse.” They will be forced to either “stop pumping” or “build, as fast as they can, storage facilities, which will be known to us and we can take out.”

Hanson believes that Iran is “at the brink economically” with “no military ability.” In fact, the “course of the war, how it ends, is entirely in the hands of the United States” depending on whether we “want an unconditional surrender and you want to pay an extra price – maybe another month or two – with economic strangulation” or we “want to use air power to take out bridges.” America can choose how to do it.

What I’m getting at is it’s not a military problem like Afghanistan and Helmand Province, or the Marines having to go into Fallujah in Iraq. It’s entirely a political problem. It’s not a military problem. The military problem has been solved. It’s just a question of how much political price does President Donald Trump – or risk, I should say – want to take to get an unconditional surrender and the removal of the regime.

He doesn’t need to do that. That was not one of his prewar agendas. The prewar agenda was to neutralize the nuclear proliferation of Iran, the missile and drone force, to attrite its military so it was not capable of conducting war, to stop the subsidies to its terrorist proxies, and to make sure it no longer attacked Americans and our allies as it has for 47 years. These have mostly been met – not quite, but mostly.

After explaining that the United States is winning the war in Iran and that Iran has nearly reached the end of its options, Hanson then proceeded to share the strategic ripple effects of the war.

·       United Arab Emirates announced that it would leave OPEC, formed in 1973 with the purpose of driving “up the price of oil” – “by not pumping what they could pump.” Oman and possibly Saudi Arabia may join UAE in leaving OPEC.

In OPEC, “each individual country has a quota” – maybe “70% to 80% of what they could pump if they were not in the cartel.” This is a disadvantage to them because “the United States is pumping right now – maximum.” Both Russia and Venezuela could “be pumping at maximum very soon.”

UAE could be pumping “2 million barrels” with Saudi Arabia pumping “another 20%.” Hanson says that the “long-range strategic value of the Straits of Hormuz are going to decline because all the Middle East countries will take “advantage of these high prices” and “swarm to get out.”

“But once they get out and pump more oil – and they’re immediately capable of pumping more oil – the price will drop, and the Straits of Hormuz will not be so important” – not good for Iran, whether or not they still have “oil wells in two or three weeks.”

·       “The other thing to remember is China” – which “hasn’t come out well.” All during the Biden administration, China “threatened to go into Taiwan.”

The military actions in Venezuela and Iran have shown that “the United States can pretty much do what it wants militarily, and China will be somewhat deterred.”

China’s control of Venezuela and Iran are no longer what they were. Therefore, the discounted oil is no longer available to them, and they are no longer selling arms to Iran to give to their proxies (Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis) nor spreading “their influence in Latin America” (think Panama Canal). With a broke Iran, the starving people will not stand for sending millions of dollars – “$50-$60 million a month” – of money and equipment for wars against Israel and the United States.

With the price of oil plunging, “Russia will be a big loser in this.”

The demonstration of air power by the United States was evident to Russia, China, and Iran – as well as the rest of the world. Russia is “running out of people and money” and may “try to get out of the war,” taking “as much territory as they can along the existing battlefield today – maybe call it a DMZ.”

Hanson also claimed that “Europe was a big, big, big loser.” The European nations were paying more of their share of NATO and even call Trump “Daddy.” “Trump assumed they were normal allies.” Even so, he did not want to share his plans for Iran with “the U.S. Left and the Congress, or the Europeans” because he thought they would end any surprise element.

But more importantly, he felt that the Spanish, the Italians, the British, the French – all of them – would just say, “No comment,” or “This is a United States effort. We support our NATO ally,” and then call him up and say “Donald, we’re not going to talk about it but use our airspace, use our NATO bases you pay for most of them. And this is what we’re gonna do but we’re gonna do it under the radar.”

No. Instead, they pandered to their Islamic constituencies, their left-wing constituencies. In Spain, even in Italy with Meloni, they said: No bombers in Sicily. No planes in Spain. Can’t fly over France. Can’t use Diego Garcia unless it’s for defensive purposes…. Europe came off really badly – really badly.

And then they made it worse when they said they were going to patrol the strait and then they realized the Strait might be kinetic, and they would have to use some force if we were to turn it over to them and they don’t have that force. So, it’s all talk, talk, talk, and it’s based on envy and anger at the United States.

And it’s a very dangerous game they’re playing because at some point the United States says: We love you. Europe’s a great place. You’ve got problems – just settle them yourself….

So, go ahead, do what you want, but count us out.

Hanson’s final point was the “American Left kept saying the war was lost – the war was lost – the war was lost. Donald Trump blew it.”

Don’t count him out. We have six months before the midterms. The price of oil could crash. A lot of the things Donald Trump put into practice – with the big, beautiful bill, deregulation, tax cuts, enormous amount of foreign investment – all of that has plenty of time to kick in in August or July and have a stronger economy than we do now, with cheap oil.

More importantly, he can say that in his regime, his realm, his tenure, he neutralized the threat from Venezuela. It’s not spreading communism throughout South America – Latin America, and he neutralized the Middle East in a way that all seven prior presidents had dreamed and had never done.