A U.S. General Explains Why the Iran Strait of Hormuz Threat Is a Bluff

Transcript

General Arsh, start with you. What is going on with the Strait? What is going on with oil supply? What is going on with macro markets as a result? Yeah, bear in mind the Strait of Hormuz, um we're not physically closed. Iran does not have the capacity to do that, especially now. Look, their navy's at the bottom of the Gulf. They don't have an air force. Their missile inventory, ballistic missile inventory has been attrited considerably. Their ability to mine the Strait of Hormuz, and and by frame of reference, 20 miles, but only two of those miles are uh are passable for the tanker traffic.

Um so, Iran threatens a lot and has said forever they could they've got the capacity to shut the Strait of Hormuz. They don't. The United States Navy, frankly, is the only element that I'm aware of that could really do that. So, what Iran is doing right now, um they are threatening, and they can disrupt traffic, and they have. We're seeing that right now. The threat of closure um has has uh affected the backlog that we see. We have the capacity, um and we would use both air as well, you know, maritime as well as air to assure a safe passage.

That could be done. But, those are policy decisions. Look, military folks don't make those decisions. They just turn around when asked, and they have they either say yes or they say no, or I can get to yes, give me some time or give me some additional capabilities. So, the Strait of Hormuz are open. You know, also bear in mind, we have done some significant damage in Iran to its oil infrastructure, but Kharg Island has been off-limits. Why? Because it's going to continue to pump, and it's going to continue to either fill up tankers or it's going to fill up storage cap uh capacity ashore. Those are conscious decisions that are being made. We are right now in the fight where we've transitioned from I I would say the, you know, the simultaneity of attack, the

opportunity to decapitate the regime, which happened incredibly rapidly. That then kicked off the campaign we've seen over the course of the week. We are now into what I would call the grind. You've got to work your way mechanistically through the air tasking order. Inside baseball, we have an ATO, one to end list of targets. We're going to service those targets. HVTs, high-value tar HVTs, uh high-value targets. In fact um Khamenei's son, Mojtaba, has just risen to the top of the HVT list. I mean, he's going to have a crosshairs on him the first time they've got it they get an opportunity.

Um so, I think it's more a a determination of industry as to whether they're willing to accept the risk, the insurance challenges that are certainly attendant to that. I would imagine that the flow is going to um begin here anytime now. I can demur to Chris as a as a >> [laughter] >> as a former uh Marine Corps, yet albeit Naval Academy graduate, um what we do and what we have done in the past is you can line up three destroyers, and you can hand those tankers off to each one of the destroyers. The destroyers have the capacity to return fire, pinpoint return fire, to provide the coverage.

So, I would anticipate that this will open up here within the next day or so, and it should. Chris, what do you think? No, look, I think this has been a spectacular naval combined arms uh effort. The naval force our our navy has just proven itself again and again. Um been very impressed there. Um I'm looking closely at the Isle of Kharg. Now, you mentioned that, General, controls 90% of Iranian exports. Uh it's been a part of war plans. I mean, I mean, we it's not something that we overlooked. Everything that we're doing in and around it is, you know, been thought of and planned for. Um but but I feel like one of the objectives here is, you know, with this administration, it's it's the Venezuela

playbook. Right? So, what is the opportunity that we have now? Like Um Khamenei's son, um he was injured. He uh was seriously injured. We There've been reports. He's not really legitimate. He doesn't have He's not an Ayatollah. Um he's really angry right now because he just lost his wife, uh his sister. Um so, that was a real, like I would say, middle finger to the Trump administration that they appointed him. And so, what I think the administration is doing right now is it's looking to repeat the Venezuela playbook. They're looking for somebody with access to force, whether that's a a senior general, someone in the IRGC, to step up and say, "Listen, I'm in control. I'm going to be sympathetic to

the West. The oil's going to pump. You know, [clears throat] administration, we're going to make sure that you get your fair share of it." Um which has actually been a part of Iranian history, if you if you look back, um and one of the reasons we um put worked with the UK to put the Shah in the first place was was around uh the previous leader's seizure and nationalization of oil. So, you know, geopolitics geopolitics continue to um cycle. What I'm looking for is is someone to step up uh and say, "I'm in control. Let's have a Let's have a chat." But, But, you know, Chris, you know, you Chris, that's going to be um extreme First of all, extremely hard to do. I think the president's going to walk away from unconditional surrender.

That doesn't happen. And without being flippant, who do you surrender to? Um uh Khamenei's son is a creature of the IRGC. So, the IRGC stands to increase its role. In fact, I it wouldn't surprise me if in the next couple of years it's There is no There's not going to be a popular uprising. There is not going to be anybody who's going to be in that position as either the supreme leader or fill in the blank, prime minister, president, whatever you want to call it, in Iran that's going to be acceptable acceptable to this administration. So, that You have to balance all of that. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if in 2 years what we have is an increase of a secular type rule, and it may be through

the IRGC, and less of a clerical or is it a leader in in Tehran may not wear a turban. It's going to be IRGC, and it's going to be that much more secular, and it's going to continue to be brutal. The point is, I think that anything other than nukes, ballistic missiles, and proxies are those are the red lines. Anything else beyond that is what I would describe as unnecessarily punitive. So, what has taken place so far, we can continue to service targets, and you're going to have to look at the Iranian people and say, "Did we do enough?"

Ball's in your court. Do you like Do you like this outcome? Um Khamenei's son is truly going to be embraced, and is going to be very much um a tool of uh you know, a He He will respond very responsively and very directly to what the IRGC is is looking to try to achieve. And there will be no fissures in the IRGC structure. And if there were in Artesh, that's the conventional military, don't know that that would even be significant, and certainly no break in the MOIS. So, where will the opportunities come to have, you know, a platform upon which you can kind of have a successful change in regime? Bear in

mind, in 1979, the reason the, you know, the Ayatollah came back from Paris in 1979 because the Shah was he was losing credibility for a whole bunch of reasons. Uprisings were very present. But, what happened? The conventional air force flipped and was supporting the uprising. So, there was a platform to achieve additional momentum. Khomeini came back, and it worked. He then had to embrace this conventional military, a conventional military who'd been protecting the Shah. The Shah's now gone.

He had to create out of this this whole cloth somebody who's going to protect the revolution, and then somebody else who's going to protect the country. So, you end up with Artesh, the country, IRGC, the revolution. So, if the revolution today is now less important, you now have an opportunity. So, that's kind of what we're looking at going forward. This is a longer horizon than this year, or maybe even into next year.