Victor Davis Hanson: Trump’s Ambitious Middle East Vision | Explained

The Daily Signal Podcast

The Daily Signal

News, Government, Politics, Daily News

4.6 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 15 May 2025

⏱️ 8 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Iran Thinks They Can Outlast Trump. Can They? President Donald Trump embarked on his first major foreign trip to the Middle East this week, making stops in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The goal? Replacing “strife” with “money,” bring Iran into the fold, and drop hostilities towards Israel. An ambitious agenda, maybe too ambitious, argues Victor Davis Hanson on today’s edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words:” “And the subtext of all of these meetings were: We're going to replace strife with money. We're all gonna be profitable. And we have to bring the cause of all of this trouble, Iran, into the fold of the Middle East and drop the hostility to Israel. Notice, of course, that he didn't go to Israel, although he was trying to elicit support for the continuation of the Abraham Accords with Saudi Arabia and Qatar. “This is very ambitious but it's also very dangerous. Donald Trump thinks he can cut a deal with Iran so that they would do essentially three things: They would give up their nuclear program; they would stop the subsidies to the terrorist surrogates of the Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis; and they would liberalize their society and reenter the family of nations. I don't think that Shia theocracy feels that is their agenda.” 👉Don’t miss out on Victor’s latest videos by subscribing to The Daily Signal today. You’ll be notified every time a new piece of content drops: https://youtube.com/dailysignal?sub_confirmation=1… 👉If you can’t get enough of Victor Davis Hanson from The Daily Signal, subscribe to his official YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/victordavishanson7273… 👉He’s also the host of “The Victor Davis Hanson Show,” available wherever you prefer to watch or listen. Links to the show and exclusive content are available on his website: https://victorhanson.com The Daily Signal cannot continue to tell stories, like this one, without the support of our viewers: https://secured.dailysignal.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:30.0	Donald Trump this week had a historic tour of the Gulf monarchies in the Middle East. The
0:36.2	subtext of all of these meetings were
0:38.3	going to replace strife with money, we're all going to be profitable, and we have to bring
0:44.3	the cause of all of this trouble, Iran, into the fold of the Middle East, and dropped the hostility
0:51.3	to Israel. Notice, of course, that he didn't go to Israel,
0:54.3	although he was trying to elicit support for the continuation of the Abrams Accords.
0:59.0	But one thing that's not going on is we're not being estranged from the Arab world.
1:03.9	We're not being estranged from Israel.
1:05.7	This is not Joe Biden mouthing off about the Saudis or the Israelis.
1:09.8	It's a new type of approach.
1:11.6	This is very ambitious, but it's also very dangerous.
1:14.6	Let's see how it works in the ensuing months.
1:17.6	Hello, this is Victor Davis-Hansson for the Daily Signal.
1:32.2	Donald Trump this week had a historic tour of the Gulf monarchies in the Middle East in general.
1:40.1	He went to Saudi Arabia and he met Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia,
1:47.7	and he cut a huge deal which promised $600 million of Saudi investment in the United States
1:55.0	and well over 130 or 40 million in Saudi purchasives of American arms.
	...

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