Bill Ackman Calls the Iran War ‘A Very Good One’

Billionaire hedge-funder Bill Ackman said the Iran War is “a very good one” in an interview with CNBC’s Money Movers.

“Iran has been, I think, a major funder of anti-American protests and kind of otherwise,” Ackman told reporter Sara Eisen. “I think that war is a very good one.”

“The war is a very good one?” she repeated. “It’s very unpopular, though.”

Ackman responded with uncertainty about the war’s popularity.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know which surveys to trust. Look, I think most Republicans, many, support the president, and it shouldn’t be a bipartisan issue, right? You have a nearly nuclear launch-capable Iran that we’ve set back in a very dramatic way. They’ve been a major driver of terrorism around the world, they’re a fierce enemy of the United States, they’ve threatened global shipping, energy, etc., and now the president and our military are getting that under control. It’s something that was hanging out there for many years. It’s a bit like Fannie and Freddie. The president, he doesn’t let stuff linger. It’s generational what he’s doing.”

However, Eisen commented on investors’ concerns.

“I do think investors, though, are wondering, how does it end?” she said. “When does it end?”

Ackman predicted its near conclusion.

“I think we’re almost done,” he said. “I think it’s weeks as opposed to many months, a few months as opposed to — it’s not years. This is towards the tail-end of a war.”

On whether the conflict has made Ackman think differently about investment opportunities in the Middle East, he said the Middle East has been “reset in a very positive way. It’s not been good to be a terrorist in the last couple of years. … The greatest enemies of democracy in the United States have been set back in a dramatic way.”

“I think the Abraham Accords are going to expand kind of meaningfully,” he continued. “I think Iran has shown itself not just to be an enemy of the United States and Israel, right, the first thing they did was they attacked all the other Gulf countries. I think a piece dividend emerges from this. I think we’re hopefully weeks away from a resolution that is going to be very, very favorable not just to the United States but to the globe.”

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