Timothy Birdnow

The incomparable Victor Davis Hansen explains to us what is happening with Iran and why Trump is doing what he is doing. I agree, even if I think Trump is wasting precious time.

VDH has argued in other articles and podcasts that the U.S. has already done immesurable damage to Iran and can do absolutely amazing damage in future should President Trump choose - and he'll choose if Iran reneges on the deal.

He's right, of course.

What VDH is attempting to convey is the polemic by Richard Nixon "don't play your hole card because then you don't have it". Nixon rightly understood that the hole card is held and not to be played except when there are no other options - it's the ace up your sleeve. If Trump bombs Iran now and Iran does not fold then Trump cannot bomb them anymore and the public will tire of it. He bombed them enough to soften them up but is keeping a major aerial campaign as his hole card, to be used if and only if Iran breaks the deal.

And as Saul Alinsky said "sometimes the fear of a thing is worse than the thing itself". By NOT bombing Iran into the stone age the rulers there are forever on pins-and-needles in fear of the next shoe dropping. It is a powerful psychological tool.

Hansen thinks Trump knows what he is doing and I have great faith in Hansen.

Which is at odds with the National Review, which turned Trump-hater and which I made the rather stupid mistake of visiting online the other day. It was an endless screed of Trump bashing and doom-and-gloomerism. They WANT Trump to fail and if it hurts the U.S. that is a price they are willing to pay. NRO jas gpne the way of the carrier pigeon or other such antiquated things (Zeppelins, telegraphs); it sold itself to the Establishment in the GOP decades ago and now has nothing original or useful to say. It just keeps complaining about Trump. And while William F. Buckley probably wouldn't have liked Trump (Buckley was a snob of sorts) he did support Rush Limbaugh when he was coming up - and Rush was a big Trump supporter because Rush came from Middle America and knew that Trump supported Middle America's values and aspirations. Rush was himself "crass" and "uncouth" but Buckley took him under his wing anyway. I wonder if he would have embraced Trump after initial opposition? I did because Trump is, despite being a bit of a jackass, the only guy who actually is capable of advancing our agenda and is faithful to us by and large. No politician is truly faithful but Trump at least tries to be. Can't ask for much more than that. There are the few who ARE faithful but who can't move the ball, and the unfaithful who can, but Trump has both qualities at once. Like him or not he stands on our side.

NRO can't understand that. Neither can the American Spectator these days, which is why they too are no longer the force they once were. Back in the nineties they made their name resisting Bill Clinton. Now they pine for the days of Clinton and flip the bird to the one man who is fighting to stop the even worse leftists.

And he's doing it at his own peril and at his own expense.

It really is sad to watch petty egos and small mindedness divide the Conservative movement and allow the Left to triumph, but so many are willing to do so.

At any rate I was reading National Review and one commentor on an article about how Trump lost the war with Iran said "when VDH says the war is lost then I'll believe the war is lost". He was soooo right. Mr. Hansen says things are going according to plan and we can bring the wrath of the Most High down on them at any time we choose. I'll believe him over NRO or TAS or any of the others who want to return to the way it used to be where they can write their white papers and bemoan the decline of America into the sewer.

Posted by: Dana Mathewson at June 25, 2026 12:54 AM (8kMOw)

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at June 25, 2026 08:23 AM (oflqW)

Posted by: Dana Mathewson at June 26, 2026 12:17 AM (/xiww)

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