What the Situation on the Ground in Iran Actually Looks Like

Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for the Daily Signal.  

We’re hearing more and more every day about Iran and [President Donald] Trump as the midterms now are only about 90 days away. 

There’s kind of a narrative that is emerging, left and right, that we are bogged down. I’ve heard the word Vietnam evoked. Donald Trump may have contributed to that because, although in that 150 days, we’ve been operating in the Gulf, we’ve only bombed Iran about 50 or so days, and we’ve been discussing it for 100 days. 

So the narrative has emerged that Donald Trump promises to hit them hard, they back down, and they say they want talks. They do not want talks. They want to delay, delay, delay, delay. Donald Trump then sporadically hits them. They come back to the table. 

We have no idea who we’re dealing with because the Iranian Revolutionary Islamic Guard seems to be playing the bad cop, and the moderate elected—“moderate elected”–officials, seem to put a happy face on things, and they either have no power or authority, or they’re in league with the hardcore to give them time and run out the clock. 

So, what are the relative pressures? Everybody’s getting very angry over this on, off, on, off, on, and we’re concentrating too much on what Donald Trump says.