S8 Ep669: 2. The Ineffectiveness of the U.S. Hammer Strategy Against Iran GUEST: Husain Haqqani, Bill Roggio SUMMARY: This segment critiques the U.S. "hammer" strategy, comparing it to Vietnam's failure of absolute power. Iran’s ability to endure pain and its contr
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
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🗓️ 31 March 2026
⏱️ 9 minutes
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Summary
2. The Ineffectiveness of the U.S. Hammer Strategy Against Iran GUEST: Husain Haqqani, Bill Roggio SUMMARY: This segment critiques the U.S. "hammer" strategy, comparing it to Vietnam's failure of absolute power. Iran’s ability to endure pain and its control of vital shipping lanes are seen as its true strategic "nuclear weapons.",, Ambassador Haqqani argues that dropping thousands of bombs is a simplistic notion of power that fails against asymmetric warfare, much like the U.S. experience in Vietnam. He notes that Iran's capacity to endure pain is greater than assumed and its real "nuclear weapon" is the ability to shut down the Strait of Hormuz,. Bill Roggioagrees, stating that without an active Iranianresistance or helpful adjacent countries to host one, the U.S. is further from a resolution than when the war began,,. (2)
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm John Batchel with my colleagues, |
| 0:17.7 | the San Okhani, former ambassador from Pakistan at the United States, |
| 0:21.2 | now at the Hudson Institute as a senior fellow, and Bill Rajos of the Foundation for the Defense |
| 0:27.3 | of Democracies, he keeps the long word journal. Mr. Ambassador, it is said generally, and I mean to get |
| 0:32.6 | as far back from the planet as possible, given the domination of the details of these simultaneous wars. |
| 0:39.5 | It is said that the Iranians gain by waiting and waiting and dragging this out and surviving. |
| 0:46.7 | Time is on their side. |
| 0:48.5 | It has said the Americans game, if the hammer that they continue to use, |
| 0:52.8 | I believe the president said we've hit 13,000 targets, we have 3,000 to go. If the hammer that they continue to use, I believe the president said we've hit 13,000 targets, |
| 0:55.7 | we have 3,000 to go. |
| 0:57.2 | If the hammer in some fashion pushes Iran to settle before it wants to. |
| 1:02.5 | So on the one hand, the hammer and hammering again today with a misstep, a U.S. missile hits an Iranian sports hall in school, according to an analysis. |
| 1:13.7 | And the Iran position, which is as the bizarre, if they're not going to give you the price you |
| 1:20.4 | want for your rug at first, just wait a day or two days or three days, let it settle into their |
| 1:25.8 | imaginations. That's the bizarre, and a form of |
| 1:29.1 | that looks to be underway now. So, Mr. Ambassador, in your measure, where are we? Is time |
| 1:34.8 | on Iran's side, is the hammer any more threatening now than it was the first day of the war |
| 1:40.7 | by the U.S. Good. Thank you. |
| 1:52.7 | Look, from Iran's point of view, the longer it stands and manages to stand, the better it is from its point of view. |
| 1:55.0 | The hammer can, you know, can fall on many, many, many buildings, but is it really destroying the capability that the Iranians have |
| 2:07.0 | of inflicting damage on their neighbors? |
| 2:10.5 | The neighbors are doing very well because they are protecting themselves with missile |
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