{"id":12135,"date":"2020-01-09T12:33:26","date_gmt":"2020-01-09T20:33:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=12135"},"modified":"2020-01-09T12:34:35","modified_gmt":"2020-01-09T20:34:35","slug":"irans-options-in-a-showdown-with-america-are-all-bad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/irans-options-in-a-showdown-with-america-are-all-bad\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran\u2019s Options in a Showdown with America Are All Bad"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After losing its top strategist, military commander, and arch-terrorist, Qasem Soleimani, the Iranian theocracy is weighing responses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One, Iran can quiet down and cease military provocations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After attacking tankers off its coast, destroying an oil refinery in Saudi Arabia, shooting down a U.S. drone, and being responsible for the killing and wounding of Americans in Iraq, Iran could now keep quiet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It might accept that its strategy of escalation has failed to lead to any quantifiable advantage. Trump did not prove a passive \u201cTwitter tiger,\u201d as his critics mocked. Instead, he upped the stakes to Iran\u2019s disadvantage and existential danger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The chances, however, for such a logical and passive readjustment by Iran are nil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Iran believes that Trump\u2019s beefed-up sanctions have all but destroyed its economy and could now extend to secondary boycotts of nations trading with Iran. U.S. sanctions have also squeezed Iranian expeditionary efforts to forge a permanent hegemony and a Shiite crescent extending to the Mediterranean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/2020\/01\/iran-options-in-showdown-with-america-all-bad\/\">Read the full article here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review After losing its top strategist, military commander, and arch-terrorist, Qasem Soleimani, the Iranian theocracy is weighing responses. One, Iran can quiet down and cease military provocations. After attacking tankers off its coast, destroying an oil refinery in Saudi Arabia, shooting down a U.S. drone, and being responsible for the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-39J","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4001,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/give-iran-some-rope\/","url_meta":{"origin":12135,"position":0},"title":"Give Iran Some Rope","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 8, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"What is to be done about a nuclear Iran? by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services The debate in the U.S. over how to contend with Iran as it pursues nuclear weapons goes like this: Many conservatives worry that the Bush administration \u2014 stung by the backlash over Iraq and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;May 2006&quot;","block_context":{"text":"May 2006","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2006\/may-2006\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":949,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/iranian-threat-heats-up\/","url_meta":{"origin":12135,"position":1},"title":"Iranian Threat Heats Up","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 26, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton FrontPage Magazine Iran announced Sunday that it was cutting off crude oil sales to France and England, a mostly symbolic act given that Iran provides England less than 1% of its crude, and France claims that it \u201cpractically stopped importing Iranian oil,\u201d according to the head\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Iran&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Iran","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/iran\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1090,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/iran-on-the-brink\/","url_meta":{"origin":12135,"position":2},"title":"Iran on the Brink","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 11, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton Defining Ideas Just in the last few months, events have hastened to a crisis in Iran\u2019s long confrontation with the West. The ongoing civil war in Syria looks more and more likely to end with the ouster of strongman Bashar al-Assad, one of Tehran\u2019s most stalwart\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Iran&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Iran","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/iran\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":984,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-final-countdown-israel-vs-iran\/","url_meta":{"origin":12135,"position":3},"title":"The Final Countdown: Israel vs. Iran","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 8, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton FrontPage Magazine The 33-year farce of Western appeasement of Iran may be reaching its denouement. For the last few months, the pace of events have quickened as the West sanctions and threatens, and Iran blusters about closing the Strait of Hormuz, cutting off oil to Europe,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Israel&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Israel","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/israel\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9679,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/9679-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":12135,"position":4},"title":"From An Angry Reader: Victor\u2026","author":"Megan Ring","date":"December 19, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"From An Angry Reader: Victor \u00a0Your gloating and myopic column pillorying President Obama's foreign policy legacy was simple minded and juvenile. Why write something so stupidly one sided????? \u00a0When Obama came into office we were losing 100 service people per month in a stupid war and as he leaves office,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Angry Reader&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Angry Reader","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/angry-reader\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3468,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/all-mixed-up-over-iran\/","url_meta":{"origin":12135,"position":5},"title":"All Mixed-up Over Iran","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 17, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Last week's U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) states, with \"high confidence,\" that Iran quit trying to get a nuclear bomb in late 2003. That's exactly the opposite of what the NIE reported just two years ago, when it claimed Iran's ruling mullahs were\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;December 2007&quot;","block_context":{"text":"December 2007","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2007\/december-2007\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12135"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12135"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12136,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12135\/revisions\/12136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}