The Ben Shapiro Show - "NO MORE WARS" Isn't A Solution. Victory Is.

00:00:00.000 Laura Ingram says the American people are done with war.

00:00:03.000 Won't fight it, won't fund it, won't support it, and that this new isolationism is going to win.

00:00:07.000 And it might win, but that kind of thinking is dramatically wrong.

00:00:11.000 It's the kind of wrong that destroys countries, that destroys America.

00:00:15.000 Listen, I get why people feel the way they do.

00:00:18.000 I feel that way.

00:00:19.000 I get it.

00:00:19.000 Okay, gas prices are high.

00:00:21.000 Families are stretched thin.

00:00:22.000 Folks are looking at the grocery bill and their rent and they're thinking, why on earth are we spending blood and treasure halfway around the world and not even getting to the end point?

00:00:30.000 But this is why it's actually imperative that America wins and wins quickly.

00:00:33.000 See, There are three options on offer here.

00:00:36.000 One, we win.

00:00:38.000 We do what we have to do in order to achieve our goals.

00:00:40.000 Two, we fight antiseptically and the war goes on pretty much forever.

00:00:44.000 Three, we go full isolationist and pacifist and then we continue to fight forever wars forever because that's what happens.

00:00:51.000 The choice is right there in front of us, which means there's really only one choice.

00:00:54.000 Victory.

00:00:55.000 This is the Ben Shapiro show.

00:01:04.000 So last night, Laura Ingram, the Fox News host, I like Laura, but Laura put up a post on X that was referring back to an article by a writer for National Review named Michael Brennan Doherty.

00:01:15.000 And the article is basically a celebration of the fact that the Iran war has been, quote unquote, restrained by the people.

00:01:21.000 And Michael Brennan Doherty writes Trump's ambitions are being checked by the American voter.

00:01:24.000 The war is now unpopular and hemmed in, not by Congress or constitutional checks, but by the people themselves.

00:01:31.000 When Trump tells us that his favorite option is to take out Karg Island, but that he's not sure America has the stomach for it, He's admitting the sovereign he fears most is not Iran's supreme leader, but the American voter.

00:01:39.000 The Iran war is restrained not by Congress, but by an American people who will tolerate a quick punitive spectacle, not an attempt to land Marines on a foreign oil depot while under fire.

00:01:48.000 And Laura Ingram followed that up with a tweet that's not really a quote from the piece.

00:01:52.000 It's kind of posed that way, but she says, quote, key point.

00:01:56.000 The American people are done with war.

00:01:57.000 They will not support war.

00:01:59.000 They will not voluntarily pay for war.

00:02:01.000 They will not make sacrifices to support war.

00:02:03.000 They will not encourage their kids and grandkids to fight in wars.

00:02:06.000 They won't fold for politicians who promise war and they will punish politicians who get them into war.

00:02:10.000 It's not Trump who's making America more isolationist.

00:02:12.000 It's the American people, and they are going to win this fight.

00:02:16.000 Okay, so maybe they win that fight, if that is how the American people are now operating. 0.97

00:02:22.000 If they do, it's horrible because it's a foolish sentiment. 0.99

00:02:25.000 It's foolish and dangerous. 0.89

00:02:26.000 The idea we'll never fund, we'll never fight, we'll never allow anyone to declare a war, we'll never get into a war. 0.95

00:02:32.000 You may as well say that you will never allow the sun to rise because the reality is that the world will come to you.

00:02:39.000 But I want to get more into the sentiment that's feeding this foolish point of view because, again, I get it.

00:02:44.000 The American people right now are looking at the situation in the Middle East and they don't know what's going on.

00:02:48.000 And I mean, frankly, kind of why should they?

00:02:52.000 And some parts of the administration say the Strait of Hormuz is already open.

00:02:55.000 We keep hearing that, that it's open already, which is not true.

00:02:58.000 We know that the flow out of the Strait of Hormuz is not consistent.

00:03:01.000 We know there are a lot of ships that are still waiting in the Strait.

00:03:04.000 Other parts of the administration are going on podcasts and saying that the Strait can't be opened under any circumstances because there are too many IRGC associated goat farmers who can hide behind a rock and fire drones at shipping. 0.51

00:03:15.000 So we can never open it under any circumstances. 0.72

00:03:17.000 Again, part of the same administration.

00:03:19.000 And then.

00:03:19.000 There's President Trump who says sometimes that we shouldn't care about the Strait at all.

00:03:23.000 Which, again, there's some accuracy to this, but here was the president yesterday.

00:03:28.000 Millions of barrels of oil is going to Houston and Louisiana, coming to you indirectly after it's refined.

00:03:36.000 They're refining it there.

00:03:38.000 But millions and millions of barrels of oil.

00:03:40.000 And also, Venezuela is doing better than they've ever done before, too.

00:03:44.000 The big oil companies are going in and they're signing up.

00:03:48.000 We have Chris Wright working on it, Doug Bergam.

00:03:51.000 Working on it.

00:03:52.000 Scott is working on them, and it's been incredible, actually.

00:03:56.000 What it's got serious oil.

00:03:57.000 In fact, if you combine us and Venezuela, we have about 62% of the world's oil market.

00:04:04.000 So we don't need straits, we don't need anything. 0.90

00:04:09.000 We don't need the Harmo Street, but we do it because we have to do it because we cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. 0.95

00:04:17.000 Okay, so again, the president is saying that we shouldn't care about the strait. 0.91

00:04:22.000 So then Americans are saying, so why should we care about the strait?

00:04:24.000 What are we even doing there?

00:04:26.000 Why don't we just hit the nuclear facilities and go home?

00:04:28.000 So, again, all this is discombobulated.

00:04:30.000 The strait is open.

00:04:31.000 No, the strait can never be open.

00:04:33.000 We should care about the strait.

00:04:34.000 It's important.

00:04:35.000 No, we should never care about the strait.

00:04:36.000 It's discombobulated.

00:04:37.000 It doesn't feel like it moves us toward victory.

00:04:39.000 And then things get more complicated because it turns out that in reality, Iran is in very serious trouble.

00:04:44.000 In reality, Iran's economy is flat on its back.

00:04:47.000 In reality, there are rifts inside the Iranian governing structure.

00:04:50.000 In reality, Iran has no capacity to ship its oil out, they have no capacity to shoot down things that are flying over their country. 0.99

00:04:59.000 And this is why they've been activating their friends, the Houthis. 0.77

00:05:01.000 Well, the Houthis are about to get involved in this conflict as well.

00:05:04.000 They're shooting on Saudi ships.

00:05:05.000 We'll get to that in just one moment.

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00:06:14.000 So, yesterday, the Houthis, who are the terrorist group in Yemen, Yemen is located along the Red Sea and the Babamandib Strait, they decided that they were going to get active in this conflict.

00:06:28.000 According to the Wall Street Journal and Reuters, the Saudi Arabian state news agency SPA, saying an official source at the General Transport Authority said an attack caused a fire on the bow of the tanker and Cilia, but all crew members were safe.

00:06:40.000 SPA did not say who had targeted the vessel.

00:06:43.000 The Houthis put out a statement saying that they had attacked two Saudi tankers, the Ancilia and the Leila, saying that the vessels had violated a naval blockade imposed by the Houthis on Saudi Arabia in the Red Sea.

00:06:54.000 The Houthis said they had targeted the tankers with a number of ballistic and cruise missiles as well as drones.

00:06:58.000 Now, again, you'll remember a few years ago, the president wanted to go hard after the Houthis, and he was talked out of going harder after the Houthis by other members of his administration.

00:07:06.000 Well, now the president is putting out a statement A year ago, the United States of America attacked very powerfully the Houthis. 0.88

00:07:13.000 for their interference with commerce and trade by shooting at ships. 0.99

00:07:16.000 Since that time and during our conflict with Iran, they've acted very responsibly. 0.98

00:07:19.000 I mean, not kind of really. 0.77

00:07:22.000 I mean, they've been firing the occasional missile at Israel and then Israel's been pounding them.

00:07:26.000 Unfortunately, now they are starting up again, shooting at two Saudi Arabian ships last night.

00:07:30.000 Please let this truth serve to represent that if they do this again, the United States will hold Iran responsible in that the Houthis are a surrogate and or proxy of Iran and major military punishment will be inflicted upon Iran and of course the Houthis themselves. 0.67

00:07:40.000 I'm very disappointed with in that they have until now acted very professionally and smart.

00:07:44.000 Thank you for their attention to this matter. 0.54

00:07:46.000 So that's the president seeming to Tell the Houthis, warning them off of this, you know, kind of wheedling them to stop.

00:07:51.000 Now, again, I get why people are confused and upset.

00:07:55.000 It feels like things are stalemated, that they're getting broader and more difficult.

00:07:59.000 Why?

00:08:00.000 Well, because what the American people want is victory.

00:08:03.000 There's this bizarre notion in foreign policy that the American people are deeply worried about the immediate cost of war to the enemy.

00:08:12.000 That the American people, that we can't handle the ugliness of war for even a day, that every conflict has to be totally antiseptic.

00:08:20.000 And here I'm not even talking about the American willingness to undergo casualties.

00:08:24.000 No one in America wants American casualties.

00:08:26.000 It's tragedy and a horror.

00:08:28.000 We do understand that war does come along with casualties, and we are willing to undergo those casualties in pursuit of an end and a victory for America. 0.71

00:08:37.000 But as far as the idea that, for example, America, we can't hit Karga Island because the Iranian people would then be deprived of oil resources.

00:08:45.000 The American people are, I should say, not particularly concerned about that.

00:08:50.000 We are far more concerned with why we're there not winning, right?

00:08:55.000 You have to balance these options.

00:08:57.000 We would like to be antiseptic and we would like to win, but victory wins over antiseptic every time.

00:09:01.000 If antiseptic wins over victory, then you will get neither victory nor antiseptic.

00:09:06.000 That is how this works.

00:09:08.000 In reality, always and forever, there are only three real possibilities.

00:09:14.000 And those possibilities stack up to only one choice.

00:09:18.000 The first possibility is you go fast and you go hard and we win.

00:09:22.000 That means that we bomb their nuclear facilities into dust. 0.98

00:09:24.000 We bomb Karg, we bomb South Pars. 1.00

00:09:27.000 We put the regime on its last legs. 0.99

00:09:28.000 We destroy their oil fields and their capacity for refineries.

00:09:32.000 We force open the strait.

00:09:33.000 The president wanted to do this.

00:09:34.000 You remember, he tried to do this for one day.

00:09:36.000 Operation Freedom in this strait.

00:09:41.000 Project Freedom in the strait.

00:09:42.000 It was one day, one day.

00:09:44.000 And then the Saudis said, no. 0.99

00:09:45.000 Okay, well, we got to tell them, shove it. 1.00

00:09:47.000 We're going to do it anyway.

00:09:48.000 Okay, we could do that.

00:09:50.000 Allies like UAE and Saudi should help us militarily.

00:09:53.000 They should provide us.

00:09:54.000 They have standing militaries.

00:09:55.000 They should provide us for soldiers, not our boots, for use on the north shore of Hormuz and on Kesham Island and Kharg Islands.

00:10:03.000 Now, listen, this may be uglier and it may be costlier, but it's faster and we win. 0.89

00:10:07.000 Because here's the thing war is bad.

00:10:09.000 It is hell.

00:10:10.000 It is awful.

00:10:11.000 It always has been.

00:10:12.000 It always will be.

00:10:14.000 War is the infliction of pain on the enemy to the point where they no longer want to undergo that pain while you are able to withstand pain.

00:10:22.000 That's what war is it is a test of willpower and a test of pain willingness.

00:10:28.000 But war is also and forever a necessary tool in the American arsenal.

00:10:32.000 It always has been. 0.95

00:10:33.000 It always will be.

00:10:34.000 So, you ought to win, and you ought to win as fast as possible.

00:10:38.000 This seems to be what the Secretary of State Marco Rubio is trotting out as the policy at an Asian summit in Manila.

00:10:47.000 Guys, I saw Arachi, their foreign minister, who the other day said something about their policies an eye for an eye.

00:10:54.000 The president's policy is a head for an eye.

00:10:56.000 I mean, honestly, that's what it's going to be.

00:10:59.000 I mean, they will pay a very heavy price for the things they're doing.

00:11:02.000 They're already paying a very heavy price.

00:11:03.000 You guys don't know it because you don't cover it. 0.76

00:11:04.000 You're not in Iran.

00:11:05.000 You're not in the street.

00:11:06.000 They don't have a free media.

00:11:07.000 But they're going to continue to pay a very heavy price.

00:11:10.000 Their industrial base has been decimated.

00:11:11.000 Their defense industrial base has been decimated.

00:11:14.000 They're losing launchers.

00:11:15.000 They're losing radars every single night.

00:11:17.000 Okay, so again, this is right.

00:11:23.000 It's not an eye for an eye, it's an eye for a head.

00:11:25.000 Now, I think that doesn't even go far enough.

00:11:28.000 I think that what we actually ought to do is say an eye for everything. 0.99

00:11:31.000 Like you touch a ship in the Strait of Hormuz, and we kill the head of the IRGC, we kill Khalibov, we kill your entire leadership class. 0.99

00:11:39.000 Again. 0.99

00:11:40.000 We destroy South Pars and we destroy Kharg. 1.00

00:11:42.000 One drone and that's what happens. 1.00

00:11:44.000 That is the way you win in the middle.

00:11:45.000 By the way, that's the way you win generally.

00:11:48.000 It is not proportionate in a statistical sense.

00:11:51.000 It is proportionate to the goal you seek to achieve, which is the Strait of Hormuz open, no nuclear program, no ballistic missile development, and no support of terror abroad.

00:12:00.000 Those are the goals.

00:12:01.000 Those always were the goals.

00:12:02.000 They will always be the goals.

00:12:04.000 That's option one, actual victory.

00:12:04.000 Okay.

00:12:06.000 Option two, go antiseptic.

00:12:08.000 This, as we've been discussing, is the strategy of gradual escalation.

00:12:11.000 We tried it in Vietnam. 0.99

00:12:13.000 This is, we have to be as clean as possible.

00:12:15.000 It's the strategy of an eye for an eye or tit for tat, or you hit a ship and we hit a bridge.

00:12:20.000 The president put out a statement that was kind of along these lines the other day when he suggested that any time Iran shoots a ship, we are going to hit one bridge or power plant, including those located next to or in the capital city of Tehran.

00:12:32.000 What we actually should do, and then we should do it, is if you hit a ship or shoot at a ship in the Strait of Hormuz, all of them go away. 1.00

00:12:38.000 Because here's the thing about the Iranians they're perfectly willing to put out their own eye if it means you lose an eye. 1.00

00:12:45.000 An eye for an eye is a thing they like to do. 1.00

00:12:49.000 He put out a tweet suggesting it's time to evacuate Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE, and probably Oman.

00:12:49.000 Right?

00:12:57.000 Because the idea is that then they look what they're doing.

00:12:59.000 What they're doing is we're saying Trump is saying an eye for an eye, and he's saying an eye for everything. 0.61

00:13:04.000 Why is Iran doing that?

00:13:06.000 Iran doesn't have the military capacity to do all of that. 0.93

00:13:09.000 We do.

00:13:10.000 Why is he making that threat?

00:13:12.000 Because he knows that threat works. 0.96

00:13:15.000 And it turns out that antiseptic and proportional, in the statistical sense, is very, very bad and foolish foreign policy.

00:13:24.000 What you're relegated to if you end up with this sort of tit for tat strategy is a hope that eventually they just sort of collapse randomly from within.

00:13:33.000 Listen, I never thought the administration would end up with this option.

00:13:35.000 I didn't.

00:13:37.000 That's because historically, this is not a thing that President Trump liked.

00:13:40.000 He didn't like forever wars, these tit for tat, low level wars.

00:13:44.000 He liked the big, spectacular strike that was then over.

00:13:47.000 He liked the let's kidnap Maduro and then we're done with the operation. 0.99

00:13:50.000 He liked the let's kill Kassem Soleimani and then he's dead. 0.99

00:13:53.000 Or let's hit the nuclear facilities. 0.98

00:13:57.000 In Iran, and then let's leave in Operation Midnight Hammer last year.

00:14:01.000 But it seems as though one of the things that happened here is that the president wanted originally to go very hard, and he was talked out of it by Turkey and Saudi Arabia and by some of his own advisors.

00:14:10.000 And then he kind of got stuck in this let's tit for tat, gradual escalation, gradual de escalation routine.

00:14:16.000 And now we're stuck here.

00:14:18.000 It turns out the quickest path to a forever war is to not use overwhelming force.

00:14:22.000 And then you get to option three.

00:14:22.000 Okay.

00:14:25.000 Option three is the one that Laura Ingram is trotting out. 1.00

00:14:28.000 Give up on war. 1.00

00:14:30.000 Give up on military optionality.

00:14:32.000 Give up global power. 0.55

00:14:35.000 Recede within your own borders.

00:14:37.000 So, again, let me read what Laura wrote there.

00:14:39.000 Quote The American people are done with war.

00:14:41.000 They will not support war.

00:14:42.000 Sounds like Dennis Kucinich.

00:14:46.000 They will not voluntarily pay for war.

00:14:47.000 They will not make sacrifices to support war.

00:14:49.000 They will not encourage their kids and grandkids to fight in wars.

00:14:52.000 They won't vote for politicians who promise war, and they will punish politicians who get them into war.

00:14:56.000 It's not Trump who's making America more isolationist, it's the American people.

00:14:59.000 Folks, in a second, we'll get to the pacifism, isolationism.

00:15:02.000 We've tried this before historically.

00:15:04.000 It doesn't go particularly well.

00:15:05.000 Speaking of things that don't go well, if you do not actually keep control of your time, things go extremely poorly for you.

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00:16:15.000 Okay, so this ideology, this strategy, this sort of isolationist pacifism has been tried before.

00:16:24.000 It is legitimately one of the great failures in all of world history.

00:16:28.000 So after World War one, when the Allies had imposed a peace on Germany, the Allies then refused to actually hold Germany to that peace. 0.89

00:16:36.000 You can make the case that the Treaty of Versailles was too strenuous in its desire for reparations from the Germans. 0.79

00:16:42.000 Solid historical case for that. 0.98

00:16:44.000 But there is no question that if France had stood up to Germany, if the Brits had stood up to Germany, if America had stood up to Germany in the interwar period, World War II never happened.

00:16:55.000 Instead, Great Britain, France, and the United States all attempted to pursue a pacifist and isolationist strategy.

00:17:02.000 And this led to only the worst and most costly war in all of human history.

00:17:07.000 And again, you don't have to speculate that this is what they were trying to do.

00:17:10.000 They openly said they were trying to do this.

00:17:11.000 In 1928, The United States Secretary of State and the French Foreign Minister designed the so called Kellogg Briand Pact.

00:17:18.000 It outlawed war as an instrument of policy.

00:17:21.000 The other signatories to that agreement, again, outlawing war France, the US, the UK, also Germany, Italy, and Japan.

00:17:30.000 You may notice that it didn't work out well.

00:17:34.000 And again, it was not unique to the United States.

00:17:36.000 This was the sentiment across the West.

00:17:38.000 It is the theme of Churchill's Gathering Storm, the first volume of his World War II history.

00:17:43.000 In 1933, the students at Oxford University famously voted in favor of the so called King and Country Resolution.

00:17:49.000 That resolution said that the students would, quote, under no circumstances fight for King and Country.

00:17:56.000 Right?

00:17:56.000 That sounds exact.

00:17:57.000 That is almost word for word what Laura is saying.

00:17:59.000 We're not going to support war.

00:18:00.000 We won't fight wars.

00:18:02.000 We won't vote for wars.

00:18:03.000 We won't back politicians who are even putting on the table the possibility of war.

00:18:09.000 And then all these countries followed that policy.

00:18:11.000 Over the course of the 1930s, the United States slashed our military to the bone.

00:18:15.000 By the time World War II broke out, the United States had the 19th largest military on planet Earth.

00:18:20.000 We were stacked behind Portugal. 0.52

00:18:22.000 One of the reasons that World War II took so long and killed so many people is that once the United States even got involved after December 7th, 1941, it took us fully three years to rearm and then four years to win. 0.71

00:18:37.000 If we had had that weaponry at the ready, would Pearl Harbor ever have happened?

00:18:41.000 Isolationism and pacifism is a deadly combination because it turns out the world is a deadly place.

00:18:45.000 Our enemies are not going to do any of that stuff.

00:18:48.000 There's also this very ahistorical notion that American foreign policy was once truly isolationist and pacifist.

00:18:53.000 And it's nonsense.

00:18:54.000 It's just nonsense.

00:18:55.000 If you look at the history of America's wars, America has been involved in conflict all over the globe almost since its founding.

00:19:03.000 We were fighting wars with the Barbary pirates under Thomas Jefferson.

00:19:07.000 And if you're talking about wars outside America's exact borders, that was happening since the founding, since we were fighting the Indian wars west of the Appalachians immediately.

00:19:18.000 Remember, America wasn't always the United States of America, it wasn't always the entire continent.

00:19:22.000 It was a relatively narrow strip of land along the eastern seaboard.

00:19:27.000 American interests, our national interests, have always extended beyond pure physical threat.

00:19:32.000 I know there are people who are like, well, unless we get physically hit, we cannot get involved in conflict. 1.00

00:19:36.000 That is stupid. 1.00

00:19:37.000 That's stupid. 1.00

00:19:38.000 We have interests that require us to defend them. 1.00

00:19:40.000 And sometimes, hopefully, as rarely as possible, that requires military force. 1.00

00:19:45.000 But to pretend otherwise is to be stupid. 0.98

00:19:49.000 Our interests include things like economics and commerce. 0.99

00:19:51.000 This has always been true.

00:19:53.000 The American Revolution was fought over economics and commerce. 0.86

00:19:57.000 It was fought largely over the blocking of trade routes.

00:20:01.000 There are lots of reasons that America might get involved in a foreign conflict.

00:20:04.000 Hopefully, it starts with diplomacy and ends with diplomacy.

00:20:06.000 Sometimes it doesn't.

00:20:07.000 But our interests include everything from trade routes to resource access, they include everything from the foreign occupation of allied countries to military buildups among our enemies.

00:20:18.000 We have lots of interests all over the world.

00:20:20.000 All countries do.

00:20:22.000 Under the rubric that Laura set out in that tweet, America has literally never fought a justifiable war, including the revolution.

00:20:30.000 And here's the thing there's this bizarre counterfactual that's promoted by isolationists and pacifists.

00:20:35.000 The bizarre counterfactual is that America would still be a global power.

00:20:38.000 You'd still be living the same lifestyle in the same country today without all the history intervening.

00:20:43.000 If we'd never fought the revolution or the Civil War or World War I or World War II or Vietnam or the Iraq War or any of this stuff, America would still look exactly the same.

00:20:52.000 That is literally the least likely counterfactual. 0.54

00:20:55.000 The least likely counterfactual.

00:20:57.000 The reality is that if America had taken up the cause of the isolationist clique, America would likely be an economic backwater or even a colony of Europe.

00:21:08.000 Because why would we have fought a revolution?

00:21:10.000 I want to hear from the isolationists and pacifists why the American Revolution was justified.

00:21:15.000 Truly, we are citizens of the British Empire at the time.

00:21:20.000 In just one second, we're going to get into the actual text of the bill.

00:21:22.000 I know we're doing the thing.

00:21:24.000 We're doing the thing.

00:21:24.000 We're actually looking at the evidence.

00:21:26.000 This is one of the reasons why we here at Daily Wire have developed a shockingly large fan base.

00:21:30.000 It's fun to go to events and see people wearing fax hats or Daily Wire shirts or carrying around the fashionably wonderful Tumblr.

00:21:38.000 Well, that.

00:21:39.000 Is only possible because we have a great store, and our store works on Shopify.

00:21:42.000 It makes buying our merch incredibly simple for our audience.

00:21:45.000 Whether somebody is picking up one of my books or a fax hat or that leftist tier Tumblr, Shopify makes checkout fast and easy.

00:21:51.000 And behind the scenes, Shopify gives businesses everything they need to grow from beautiful storefront templates to AI tools that help write product descriptions and improve product photography.

00:21:59.000 They handle inventory, payments, shipment, analytics, and so much more all in one place.

00:22:03.000 It's the same platform trusted by brands like Mattel and Gymshark, but it's just as useful if you're launching your very first business.

00:22:08.000 Start your free trial right now at shopify.comslash Shapiro.

00:22:12.000 That's Shopify.com slash Shapiro to start that free trial.

00:22:15.000 Again, you got to look for shortcuts when you are running a business.

00:22:18.000 And Shopify is one of the best shortcuts available.

00:22:21.000 It means that you can sell your stuff, it means they're going to handle everything.

00:22:24.000 Head on over to Shopify.com slash Shapiro and get started today.

00:22:28.000 America is great and powerful because we pursue our interests and we know that our interests are paramount.

00:22:33.000 That doesn't mean war is always first resort, it should always be last resort.

00:22:36.000 But sometimes war is both necessary and justified.

00:22:40.000 So saying we can have no more war ever, that's not even a foreign policy, it's just childish.

00:22:44.000 And more than childish, it's just a form of surrender.

00:22:46.000 No more war ever is about as realistic as the socialists who say no more work ever.

00:22:51.000 Sounds great in theory.

00:22:52.000 In practice, it's a total disaster.

00:22:55.000 War is horrible and cruel, and yes, sometimes necessary.

00:22:58.000 And you also can't remove the horror or cruelty from war.

00:23:01.000 It's not possible to do that and win. 0.60

00:23:04.000 Pacifism, isolationism, and even this sort of anodyne view of war is a pseudo philosophy of dolt. 0.88

00:23:12.000 Now, here's the thing it's especially egregious and foolish right now because you can at least understand sentimentally. 0.79

00:23:17.000 Why Americans would object to war in a time of, say, a draft. 0.79

00:23:22.000 We have a volunteer military.

00:23:24.000 You can understand why Americans would object to military action in Iran at a time when America was not militarily dominant.

00:23:32.000 We are militarily dominant.

00:23:34.000 America has fought legitimately dozens of conflicts since the revolution with military capacity that wasn't up to snuff.

00:23:44.000 And in some cases, almost zero odds in our favor.

00:23:46.000 And we did it because it was in our national interest.

00:23:49.000 So, the idea that America right now is supposed to lose or surrender to a third rate regime that is shooting drones at ships is not a victory.

00:24:02.000 And by the way, it opens the door to actual significantly larger threats. 0.62

00:24:06.000 Money will pour into Iran from China and Russia, they'll rearm stronger than they ever were. 0.56

00:24:11.000 China and Russia themselves will flex their muscle if you choose this path.

00:24:16.000 Americans are not pacifists.

00:24:18.000 We're not isolationists.

00:24:19.000 We just don't like to lose.

00:24:21.000 We don't like to lose, which is why I'm critical of the discombobulated messages that have been coming out from the White House and why we actually need to win.

00:24:28.000 And I think that President Trump gets this in his gut.

00:24:29.000 He feels the same way that you do or I do on this sort of stuff.

00:24:32.000 He would like to win and win fast.

00:24:35.000 We haven't done it yet, but I don't think that that's because of that's President Trump's instinct.

00:24:39.000 I think his instinct is go fast, go hard, and win.

00:24:42.000 So here is my recommendation let's actually do that.

00:24:46.000 Let us be dominant.

00:24:47.000 Let us win in decisively and overwhelming fashion.

00:24:50.000 And then we can come home.

00:24:53.000 Because Americans are very much against losing wars, but we're very much in favor of winning them.

00:24:57.000 What an amazing video you just watched.

00:24:59.000 Wasn't that amazing?

00:25:00.000 Well, you know, if you think so, head on over to dailywire.comslash subscribe to watch the full show ad free.

00:25:05.000 Check out this crazy story here.

The Ben Shapiro Show - July 23, 2026

"NO MORE WARS" Isn't A Solution. Victory Is.

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