Today, we are proud to introduce a first-ever podcast version of the Hoover Daily Report. Click the play button to listen. In this issue, Niall Ferguson and coauthors write that Israel’s air attack on Iran restores Western credibility. Victor Davis Hanson argues Iran’s leaders had not yet realized their power had diminished considerably in the last few years. And Thomas Dee releases new research showing that a series of immigration enforcement raids in California’s Central Valley in January 2025 increased student absences by more than 20 percent for months afterwards.
Determining America’s Role in the World
Writing in The Free Press alongside Harry Halem and Markus Hendriks, Senior Fellow Niall Ferguson urges readers to dismiss all concerns about Israel’s surprise attack on Iran causing a wider war in the Middle East. With Iran facing Israel’s near air superiority and the top tier of their military leadership either dead or in hiding, Ferguson and his coauthors speculate on the potential downfall of the Iranian Islamic Republic as a result of the continued attack and question whether a transition to a free society is possible, drawing parallels to Iraq, Libya, and Syria, where the fall of authoritarian regimes led to civil strife. They also discuss broader geopolitical concerns, including the wider security and economic challenge posed by China to American primacy and the implications of President Trump’s trade policy. Finally, they frame Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s actions as part of his historical mission to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Read more here. (subscription required)
Writing in American Greatness, Senior Fellow Victor Davis Hanson asks what Iran’s leaders were thinking, arguing they had not adjusted to their “new 2025 status” as an isolated state more or less without proxies, with few global friends willing to assist them in the event of an assault such as last Friday’s attack by Israel. With Hamas in hiding, Hezbollah shattered, the Assad regime in Syria now banished, and the Houthis no longer shooting at US ships, Hanson argues Iran mistakenly thought it had a few years left to develop a nuclear arsenal and then hide behind it for good. “The theocracy thought it could draw out Trump’s negotiations endlessly with a series of its trademark feints, falsities, and even threats until it had enriched enough weapons-grade uranium to deter Israel, or created a massive missile force that could overcome the Israeli Iron Dome,” he writes. They thought wrong. Now, Hanson argues the only satisfactory solution is for the regime to fall. Read more here.
Reforming K-12 Education
A new study reveals that immigration raids in early 2025 resulted in a 22 percent increase in daily student absences in several central California communities that lasted at least two months. The research, conducted by Senior Fellow Thomas Dee, analyzed attendance data from five school districts in California’s Central Valley where unexpected immigration raids occurred in January 2025. It found that the enforcement actions had immediate and statistically significant consequences for school attendance. The impact was particularly pronounced among the youngest students, with pre-kindergarten children showing a 32 percent absence rate, even higher than the overall average of all K-12 students. The observed decline in school attendance raises concerns about educational disruption, increased childhood stress, and diminished learning opportunities for affected students. Read more here.
Confronting and Competing with China
On his Substack, Visiting Fellow Matthew Turpin argues the Trump administration’s declining public approval numbers and incoherent trade policies impacts its ability, alongside its allies, to deter rivals such as China from starting a new great power conflict. He writes that China has a choice to make. Does it embark on some sort of military action that could unify existing conflicts (Israel-Iran, Ukraine-Russia) into something resembling World War Three? Or does it bide its time, with the understanding that the US will continue to slide. “Does Xi Jinping move aggressively with blatant military force to impose that new geopolitical order now with the expectation that he has a fleeting opportunity, or does he exercise patience with the expectation that trends are moving in his direction already?” Read more here.
Revitalizing History
On his Substack, Senior Fellow H.R. McMaster recounts orders that drew up the very first formations of the Continental Army in 1775. That year, two companies apiece from Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia formed up and marched to help militias lay siege to British-held Boston, to be commanded by George Washington. Reflecting on the June 14 parade in Washington, DC, commemorating 250 years of the US Army, McMaster urged readers to reflect on the sacrifices soldiers have made for this country ever since. “Let us draw inspiration from the soldiers who fought to win and preserve our freedoms across the past 250 years,” he writes. “We might resolve to take up ‘the great task remaining before us’ that President Abraham Lincoln urged upon his fellow Americans at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on November 19, 1863, to pursue ‘a new birth of freedom’ and ensure ‘that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.’” Read more here.
Related Commentary