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Victor Davis Hanson: Why Trump’s Iran Strike Worked
Victor Davis Hanson: Why Trump’s Iran Strike Worked
President Donald Trump and his national security team meet in the Situation Room of the White House on June 21, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Daniel Torok)
The surviving command may wish to redirect public ire from themselves onto the theocrats. That may be the only way to end this evil regime and the ruin it has brought everything it has touched.
By Victor Davis Hanson
06.23.25 — International
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The Free Press
The Free Press
Victor Davis Hanson: Why Trump’s Iran Strike Worked

It is difficult to imagine any other Republican or Democratic president taking such a risk to hit Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. The Middle East is understandably viewed as the graveyard of presidential misadventures, where an administration’s good polls crash and sometimes do not revive.

Jimmy Carter’s reelection hopes blew up after the failed 1980 rescue mission. Iran-Contra almost sabotaged Ronald Reagan. Even the successful 1991 Gulf War ended poorly with the survival of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, the ensuing endless “no fly zones”—and a repudiated George H.W. Bush in 1992.

George W. Bush lost control of his presidency with the devolution of the 2003 Iraq War. Joe Biden’s polls never recovered from the skedaddle from Kabul, Afghanistan.

But President Donald Trump’s limited and defined agenda—and unpredictability—was a different operation and may avoid such a fate.

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Victor Davis Hanson
Victor Davis Hanson is the author of hundreds of articles, book reviews, and newspaper editorials on Greek, agrarian, and military history. He has written or edited 24 books, including The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won.
Tags:
Donald Trump
Russia
Iran
Israel
Middle East
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