Victor Davis Hanson: They Said ‘Forever War’—Reality Says Trump Just Crushed Iran in 5 Weeks

The Daily Signal April 17, 2026
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The legacy media, the so-called anti-MAGA Right, and the Democrat grandees in Congress have two things in common: They never wanted the U.S.-Iran war to go in America’s favor. Many of the critiques of Operation Epic Fury were not historically empirical, meaning they didn’t compare the ongoing conflict with Iran to past U.S. wars, such as the bombing campaign in Serbia or even the war in Afghanistan. But the evidence—in five weeks alone, the United States, with the Israeli Air Force, wiped out most of the top echelon of the four ruling cliques in the Iranian nation—was there, argues Victor Davis Hanson on today’s edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In a Few Words”: We’ve never taken on a country of 93 million people that had the most fearsome, terrible reputation of being dangerous and unpredictable, and running the Middle East with a ring-of-fire proxies in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Gaza, Lebanon—indomitable. They had terrified seven presidents. And yet, in five weeks, we destroyed its ability to make war. 👉 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 👉More exclusive content is available on Victor’s website: https://victorhanson.com #dailysignal #victordavishanson #Iran 00:00 Media and Right-Wing Doom 01:09 Demanding Data, Not Spin 02:18 Iran Leadership in Chaos 05:52 Three-Phase War Strategy 07:29 Hormuz Gambit Backfires 10:27 Endgame and Final Warning

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