Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness
Until last year, for some 46 years, Iran enjoyed a North Korea-like reputation in the heart of the Middle East: always unpredictable, reckless, dangerous, inevitably to be nuclear, self-destructive, and nihilistic.
All that said, was it really ever all that formidable?
The mullahs came into power after the removal of the Shah and, subsequently, the interim secular socialists. They did so by taking American hostages, murdering opponents, executing former supporters, and transforming the most secular and modern of the Middle East Muslim nations into the most medieval that routinely hung homosexuals, adulterers, and almost anyone who questioned the authority of the ayatollahs. In other words, these were gruesome people, but they didn’t necessarily have a competent military.
The theocracy’s only constant with the prior monarchical Iran was that it inherited near limitless oil and natural gas reserves, sophisticated arms, and the Shah’s modernized cities. It controlled the key strategic chokepoint at the Strait of Hormuz and enjoyed a geostrategically critical location between Asia and the Middle East. It fueled Iran’s historical chauvinism and pique that the millennia-long historical preeminence of Middle Eastern Persia was not fully appreciated by its Arab neighbors. So there were lots of natural advantages—and all for the most part squandered.
Under the camouflage of Shiite puritanism and otherworldliness, the ayatollahs proved even more corrupt (and far more incompetent) than the Shah’s entourage. They fought a destructive eight-year war with Saddam Hussein’s overrated Iraqi dictatorship and showed they were mostly just as militarily incompetent.
Over decades, they killed and wounded thousands of Americans by bombing U.S. embassies, barracks, and bases in the Middle East—without directly confronting the American military. For years, they sent lethal shaped charge IEDs to the Shiite insurgents to slaughter and maim thousands of Americans in Iraq and to the Taliban to do the same in Afghanistan.
At the first sign of popular protests, the regime never hesitated to gun down thousands of unarmed protesters. And, of course, they were abject hypocrites—hating the West, damning the Great Satan—and sending their pampered children to universities in America. The apparat proved quite earthly in its desire for money, estates, foreign travel, and the good life.
Their general strategies were never hard to follow.
One, the theocrats’ prior familiarity with Americans under the Shah and in exile in Europe bred an irrational fixation with and hatred of the West in general that made them useful proxies for the grand designs of communist and then later oligarchic Russia, and later ascendant communist China.
Iranian realpolitik alliances with secular communists were based on the quid pro quo of granting Russia and China access to the Gulf, selling oil to China, and buying arms from both.
Two, they were endlessly chagrined that the Persian Shiites had been overshadowed by more populous Sunni Arab neighbors that supposedly lacked their own historical sophistication and more legitimate claims of embodying and speaking for global Islam.
So they would correct that historical travesty by doing their best to mobilize their clients and proxies to bully, isolate, and weaken Arab autocracies, especially those that are pro-Western.
Three, their planned eventual destruction of Israel would ensure that theocratic and Shiite Iran regained its lost prestige and honor by finally accomplishing what the Sunni world had failed to do. By arming murderous clients in Lebanon, Gaza, Syria, the West Bank, and Yemen, they fashioned a global network of death that compromised European foreign policy toward the Middle East and terrified Western leaders and many of their Arab neighbors.
Fourth and finally, they sought to diminish the role of the United States in the Muslim world, drive it from the Middle East, and wage a virtual 47-year opportunistic war against American citizens and soldiers, with help from their terrorist surrogates.
Iran’s zenith in power and prestige came during Obama’s presidency (2009–17), and the so-called “Iran Deal” that they believed would guarantee them eventual nuclear power status.
But far more importantly, their massive acquisitions of air, land, and sea weapons and the empowering of terrorists, coupled with their passive-aggressive claims to victimhood, both scared and enticed President Obama into dropping sanctions. Soon, he was apologizing for supposed past sins and nocturnally sending them millions of dollars in Danegeld.
But worse by far, Obama thought he had squared the circle of neutralizing the supposed Middle Eastern Iranian juggernaut by envisioning it as an empathetic victim—and eventual friend if not ally.
Iran was to be rebooted as the Persian and Shiite righteously aggrieved underdog—bullied unfairly by Western imperialists and their surrogate corrupt Arab petro-kingdom clients for its asceticism and courage in fighting the West since its own birth in 1979.
Obama would remedy this “injustice” by bolstering Iran as a counterweight to not just the Sunni Arab world but to Israel itself. The reset would include an American détente with the murderous pro-Iranian Assad regime in Syria, the supposedly benign neglect of Hezbollah’s takeover of Lebanon, and the championing of the “Palestinians,” which de facto had insidiously become indistinct from Hamas terrorists.
Such creative tension between the Iranian Shiite crescent and a diminished Arab world would be adjudicated from time to time by Obama himself, whose America would go from oppressor to ally of the oppressed.
So by 2017, Iran, for some reason, was considered all-powerful in the Middle East with its missiles, soon-to-be nuclear status, and Hamas, Hezbollah, and Houthi killers who would murder Westerners and Israelis year after year. For the last seven American presidents, the very thought of challenging Iran militarily had been considered taboo, all the more so after the American misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq.
No one, perhaps not even the Israelis, actually calibrated the true status of Iranian arms or diplomacy. Despite its huge advantages in population, Iran could not defeat Iraq and was reduced to sending 10-year-olds as human pawns to clear minefields. It never directly confronted Israel but always used surrogates to murder Jews, either abroad, as in the slaughter in Argentina, or through its “ring of fire” terrorist cliques that surrounded the borders of the Jewish state.
In sum, no one apparently realized—with the exception of Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu—that beneath its rough, ugly shell, theocratic Iran was rotten and decayed inside. Its corruption and the hatred of its own people ensured that even its huge revenues and sophisticated Chinese and Russian weapons could never translate into a modern, lethal military.
And in summer 2025, the Israelis and Americans first proved that Iran was indeed hollow.
Its Arab partner in Syria imploded in weeks. The supposedly goose-stepping Hezbollah shock troops were decimated.
The scary subterranean Hamas may have proved deadly in surprise attacks against unarmed women, children, and the aged, but they were nearly obliterated by the IDF.
The Houthis mimicked Iran’s madness as they sent drones and missiles to shut down the Red Sea and hit Israel. But the U.S. and Israel finally taught them that while the Houthis had no power to harm their enemies’ interior, their Western opponents easily could destroy their airports, ports, power generation, and modern economy in days, and would happily do so if the terror continued.
So here we are, in March 2026, watching the systematic destruction of the entire five-decade façade of a supposedly invincible Iranian military, the systematic elimination of its theocratic leaders, and the dismantling of the Iranian military and Revolutionary Guard terrorists.
The regime has no military ability to ensure its survival. Instead, its rope-a-dope strategy assumes that the U.S. will be attuned to domestic criticism, the looming midterms, the price of gas, and pressure from allies to end the war before the global economy sinks into recession.
We are left somewhat confused. Why did prior presidents not hold Iran accountable for its killing, thus nourishing the myth of Iranian invincibility? Why did Israel not respond earlier to Iran itself rather than just its terrorist clients?
And what now are the surviving theocrats thinking? What is their strategy of survival?
The remnants of the theocracy intend to ride out the bombings and, at some point in extremis, expect an armistice from “negotiations.” Their ultimate strategy is to wait out the tenures of both Trump and Netanyahu and hope for another sympathetic president like Obama, or a non compos mentis Biden, or someone ideologically akin to Mamdani or AOC.
When Trump and Netanyahu are out of office, they dream of using their oil to rearm and resume their role as Chinese and Russian proxies, eventually getting the bomb, and the second time around, perhaps using it.
Theocratic Iran, in its fantasies, still believes that if it ever destroyed Israel with a bomb or two, the world, especially given the recrudescence of Western antisemitism, would be appalled—for a day or two.
Then it would resume business with it. And with a dozen or so deterrent nuclear-tipped missiles, the Iranian ritual boilerplate of crazed pronouncements would follow of supposedly welcoming a nuclear pathway to an eternal virginal Paradise.
And thus, we would go full circle back again to a “crazy” Iran, its murderous clients, and its unhinged—but effective—threats.
DJT wasn’t going to wait until the smoking gun was a mushroom cloud. Every president since 1978 has said (& known) Iran was a bad actor. None has been willing to risk the political capital to do anything about it. I am reminded of all the wise people who argued against bombing Afghanistan after 9/11 because they didn’t want to do anything that might “upset the terrorists” Good thing DJT is to dumb to listen to the experts. And the media & the twitter mob. FA&FO
Ron Kean, you set forth the whole dilemma. It is my understanding that Islam is the only major religion NOT to experience a reformation in terms of being more accepting of other religions & ways of life. Victor diplomatically addressed this issue in a podcast one year ago or so.
My Omanian banker friend referred to earlier saId there’s nothing wrong with the religion, only 1 percent being radical Islamists. Yet, that 1 percent of 2 billion Muslims worldwide equates to 20 million extremists. How are we to deal with these people waging their jihadist, death cult agenda on the rest of us?
To me, Islam remains a medieval religion that’s incompatible with western civilization. Either we collectively seek a reconciliation of some sort or continue to bomb them into submission, since average Muslims don’t seem to want to address the problem, perhaps out of fear of retribution.
Old Airborne Dog made a statement about Islam in Indonesia. He saw Muslims that didn’t fit a generalization I made. He has the impression that Muslims could be accepting and wished somebody could figure out why it worked there then apply that reason to the whole. That way maybe Jew, Christian and Muslim would all get along. He said to believe martyrdom was the great motivator in Islam was ignorant and the Indonesian example might become the rule rather than the exception.
The 200,000,000 Muslims that live in Indonesia sound like a lot. But compared to a total population of 2 billion today, it’s a strangely small percentage and might represent the exception that makes the rule. The rule I believe is that war and martyrdom as behaviors toward the infidel are more consistent with their religion today as ever. To love death makes them doubly hard to fight. My opinion to him is as outdated as past wars between Catholics and Protestants.
After the the 30 Years War the two sides put down their swords. They even accepted Jews into the fold with some Jews joining in a Deistic outlook. Islam never joined. Islam considered then as now non-Muslims live in a Land of War. It’s a religious war and jihadi martyrdom to Muslims brings the highest reward in the next life. This is why Hamas and Hezbollah today are fine with the death, destruction and suffering of their people and won’t quit. The question now is will Iranian Islam quit?
Tangentially related, any wisdom out there regarding AIPAC? I’ve read they are under great scrutiny for undue influence over American policy and some have said it should be registered as a foreign lobbying group. My current understanding is that AIPAC is 100% funded by Americans. True?
To add to prior post, U.S. should not only seize the assets of a country that we liberate or conquer to reimburse ourselves for the military actions, but also take equity positions in any industries that we help rebuild.
A major mistake after WWII with the Marshall Plan & most favorable trade agreements with Europe & Japan was not acquiring an ownership interest in their companies, such as Mercedes-Benz, Siemens, Toyota, Mitsubishi. Had we done so, U.S. would be a very wealthy country today!
Trump seems to be thinking this way with this rare earth minerals mining agreement in Ukraine. That joint venture might also explain part of Trump’s reluctance to push Putin too far in wanting to keep that agreement in place, if/when Russia conquers Ukraine.
Iranian American here, paying higher gas prices for a few weeks is a small price to pay to ensure that your children don’t grow up under the threat of religious fanatics armed with nuclear weapons and intercontinental missiles.
if they close the strait of Hormuz long term, they are formidable.
I appreciate your commentary. It’s so good to read your words and to see you so often via the podcasts. Keep doing whatever you are doing and godspeed your recovery.
Good to see your smiling face again Victor. You look healthier in each new podcast. Listen to your medical professionals and take care of yourself as all us faithful fans need your insights. I support the president in his efforts with Iran. I wish I could predict the outcome we all hope for, however, all I do now is pray for divine intervention that this all comes to fruition. Thanks to the democratic party/MSM and all their ‘Benedict Arnolds’ (with few exceptions) we are now living in an age of rudeness, lies and manipulation totally lacking in any form of bi-partisanship. Maybe, just maybe, one day we will see the likes of Klaatu and Gort that will force the world to pursue peace, love and happiness for all v hate thy neighbor, avarice and the threat of nuclear proliferation. Unfortunately, short of my daily prayers, leads me to believe that my fatalistic outlooks will change in the near future. God Bless our military, our Veterans and for God’s sake all you left wingers who are holding up the funding for DHS departments you should be ashamed of yourselves. You truly are traitors IMHO!!!
@James H Sherrard, It’s Iran not Iraq Sheesh!!
@Richard Borgquist, The regime is supported by 5% of the population not 10%. There is no such thing as a moderate theocrat or muslim. A moderate muslim is one that wants a radical one to kill you.
Declare victory and move on. It’s already cost us tons of dollars in munitions. Gas will go up. Our economy can’t keep spending money like this. The national debt is already beyond calculation. There is no end game with zealots unless you put boots on the ground and grind on and on and on. There is no argument that we are dealing with theocratic crazies who do bad things. If you want to eliminating the cockroaches, you can’t just spray the room. Your seal off the room and bring in the fogging machine, put on your hazard gear and mask and goggles, fog the room, wait a day or two, then go in and sweep up. They don’t come back.
The Iranian regime is the sworn mortal enemy of not just America and Israel but of all of Western liberal democracy. In the necessary fight against it there is no substitute for victory.
Post my previous comment you lying stooge.
I compare Iran to the bully in elementary school that everyone is afraid of, whom no one is willing to confront because of what he might do to them, so their give him their lunch money to be left along but like all bullies he never leaves them along, he is always lurking there sending chills down the spines of the timid. Then, one day the bully pushes one of the timid a little too far in the boys restroom and the victim turns around and urinates on the bully, he can’t believe someone did that to him and he starts crying! Word gets out and suddenly the bully is no longer feared and he slinks away, goes to another school in shame. Yep, I did that to the bully and I have to wonder why previous President’s didn’t do the same thing to Iran and the mullahs. Paper tigers who should have been urinated upon long ago!
I have never understood how the 7 past presidents were afraid of the pigmy country Iran that has a GDP about the size of the state of Minnesota. It took Trump, a political outsider to understand what we were dealing with. I believe that FDR, not my favourite person, said that the only thing we had to fear was fear itself. That’s definitely true with Iran but Trump was absolutely right to destroy their military. A nuclear Iran would be catastrophic.
VDH has done a superb summary of the last 47 years with Iran. Particularly the early years. So much good material to remind those who lived it and give those not yet born food for thought and investigation. Very generous to not expose President Carter’s errors of judgment in his decisions and the people’s advice he trusted. President Trump decided long before he was POTUS that Iran could not be allowed nukes. In the end, history will tell us if when the first attack strategy would take place and how long it had been planned. Sooner rather than later, we will find what the next steps will be concerning the armed Shia loyalists vs an unarmed populace. We’ve asked good questions here. Two weeks from now we will have a better idea of what’s going on with these Iranian groups and what plan will be chosen and implemented. I wonder if in the end, the country will be spilt into new Persian, Sharia, Sunni and Kurdish nations? Will Kharg Island be taken and secured? Will they find King Kong there alive and well? Time will tell.
You must have had memory lose ? as you purposely omitted the overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh 1953. The CIA and MI6 pulled off Operation Boot and Operation Ajax to install the Shah against the Irainian people’s wishes. The Shah was wildly unpopular among the Irainian people.This Western-backed government characterized by the brutality of its SAVAK secret police executed, tortured and imprisoned thousands. They made the German Gestapo look like boy scouts. This led to the 1979 revolution.
Lessons not learned in Vietnam, and now after Iraq and Afghanistan, the US is tired and fearful of a protracted war. I am fearful of the adage, “you break it, you own it.” This seems to be a fact in conflicts in the Middle East. And if you read newspapers, the United States does not do country-building well. The Middle East countries are way too tribal, and they don’t accept a change to democracy; they want a religious dictator. Yes, I feel sorry for the women having to dress like that, yes, I feel bad the government is killing 40,000 of them. But I don’t feel bad enough to send out young men to fight, and we have already spent 100 billion dollars on the 8-day way so far. My line in the sand is aerial bomb forever the uranium enrichment facilities, bomb the ballistic missile manufacturing facilities, and launch locations. And now and then, on a whim, go in and kill the new leader of the Iraqi leadership, and let them know we are watching
Interesting post by Old Airborne, in particular how to keep radical Muslims “caged up” in Iran. At some point, it should help to recognize a few political parties to counter-balance the various factions, that is, parties with a say in a democratic form of government. Tweny years ago, a friend who was head of largest bank in Oman said Middle East dictatorships – military, religious & royal families – would eventually be gone.
Indonesia by far has the greatest percentage of the world’s Muslim population. Iran, is down in about eighth place, with about 1/3 the size of Muslims within it’s population. The last time I was sent to Indonesia on a TAV, they recognized about seven or eight religions aside from Islam.
One thing Indonesia with the largest Muslim population in the world DOESN’T have is a problem with Salafist-Wahaabist hajjis attempting a campaign of murderous terrorist attacks on Christians and other religious factions in Indonesia, against politicians who aren’t on board with their Caliphate, etc.
And they aren’t exporting hajji terrorism to the rest of the world from Indonesia.
Perhaps we should be trying to figure out how Indonesia keeps the Salafist-Wahaabist sect caged up.
Just blindly assuming “Because Muslims say they love death and martyrdom it’s tough to defeat them” is a level of ignorance similar to claiming there’s no difference between Catholics and evangelical Christians – and it isn’t going come up with a strategy to diminish the Caliphate.
The US and Israel must continue to eliminate the successive ranks of Iranian theocracy. The same thing applies to the Basij and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. The current regime there relies on the twin firing pistons of fanaticism and venality/corruption. Once the ideologues (and their fanatical momentum) have been expunged, the more venal elements of the Iranian regime will seek a way out.
Great to hear your podcasts again and especially read your postings here. Best wishes and prayers for your continued recovery.
Russia seemed to be the first in modern times to take on militant Islam (am I being redundant?). Russia leveled Grozny in much the same way Israel is leveling Gaza and Yemen. Because Muslims say they love death and martyrdom it’s tough to defeat them. They remind me of the Paul Newman character in Cool Hand Luke after his fight with the George Kennedy character.
The question remains will Yemen stop attacking Israel given all the destruction? Will Hamas stop? Will Iran stop? Can the West create another Tours and Salamis without not just destroying infrastructure but also vast quantities of people? It seems, like in probably the great majority of wars in the past, killing the most people is the most probable way to win.
But this type of thinking is strange to boomers and others who’ve grown up with peace and love or the Obama philosophy that America isn’t really great if it ever was. If anybody can change that mentality it’s Trump. I guess we just have to man up and be more than satisfied with a massive body count of the enemy. It’s probably the only way to win.
In response to Richard (the Swede):
Continue to decapitate the Shia regime
Continue to bomb the IRGC, Artesh & Basif into oblivion
Continue to arm the Persian citizenry, to include 3 million Christians
Surgically remove enriched uranium to the States
Grant Kurds their own country in the north (to include northern Iraq & section of Syria regardless of objections, i.e., divide & conquer)
Consider new homeland for Palestinians given Iran’s immense territory and because no one wants them in their country
Meanwhile, seize control of oil industry along with Kharg Island to pay for everything per Venezuela, where not necessary to occupy country, only control its assets
Continue to freeze out Russia & China forever
Be steady & patient
P.S. Where would one find a moderate Shiite theocrat?
Regime change in Iran seems difficult.
The current regime “membership” is said to be one million.
The current population of Iran is 93 million.
Ten percent of Iran or 9.3 million is said to favor the regime.
The other 90%, roughly 83 million, of Iranians are unarmed.
So how could the 90% effect regime change?
With hand tools and weapons?
For guns: parachuted by Israel or USA, by force or stealth from the regime, 3D printers?
If this is not possible would Trump settle for a moderate theocrat?
Would a moderate theocrat be a kind leader or enforce Shia Law?
Note: The Kurdish population in Iran is 8.3 million.