Latest / FDD Morning Brief / Testing the waters of Hormuz | feat. Behnam Ben Taleblu

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Testing the waters of Hormuz | feat. Behnam Ben Taleblu · FDD Morning Brief

• 0:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Good morning, it's Monday, July 20th, the multi front war in the Middle East is now 1,000 and 17 days old.
• 0:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm your host Jonathan Chancellor, welcome back to the FTD morning brief.
• 0:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Terrible news over the weekend, two American service members were killed in Iranian strikes and a third is still missing.
• 0:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: The regime continues to strike its neighbors in the Persian Gulf region in the United States continues to conduct punishing reprisals, nine nights in a row and counting, including a nuclear facility struck overnight.
• 0:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: I honestly don't know how much longer the regime can sustain this, but here we are, more than a week into the complete collapse of that shaky ceasefire, bit literally nobody believe would ever hold.
• 0:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: But the thing that I'm watching right now is the
• 1:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is a strategic decision undertaken by the regime to both target American bases and strike in a regime that is hugely important strategically for the United States and decidedly ambivalent about the American presence there.
• 1:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: Remember, Jordan is roughly 85% Palestinian.
• 1:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: and the country believes that the peace treaty that it struck with Israel needs to be ripped up.
• 1:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: So when they get attacked by the Iranians, some Jordanians think it's justified, even as they get bombed.
• 1:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: In fact, if you read the Jerusalem post this morning, there are reports suggesting that Jordanian intelligence assisted the regime and it's attack on U.S. forces in the country.
• 1:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: That seems crazy.
• 1:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: It seems super far-fetched.
• 1:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: is it?
• 1:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what to think anymore.
• 1:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: Watch this space folks.
• 1:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Jordan is not exactly stable, politically or economically, and I worry that the regime has singled out a weak link in the U.S. defense architecture in the Middle East.
• 1:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: The Iranians may know what they're doing.
• 2:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Joseph island the president of Lebanon arrived in Washington for consultations this week and I must say I'm pumped for this.
• 2:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: I hope the White House is too.
• 2:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: I want to rise after multiple rounds of bilateral talks between Lebanon and Israel.
• 2:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: The first five rounds happened right here in the swamp, but there was another round last week in Rome and there is progress.
• 2:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: Lebanon and Israel are not exactly peace partners, but they see his Bala as a mutual threat.
• 2:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: They see Iran as a mutual threat.
• 2:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: a correctly see this moment as a generational opportunity to restore Lebanon's sovereignty, including in one pilot zone as of today.
• 2:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: Several big questions, Lumbo, for one, has the government of Lebanon eject his baller without the Israeli military doing all the dirty work?
• 2:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think that's the big question.
• 2:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: And for mayor, one other question.
• 2:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: and the rather weak Lebanese government hold together as the pressure builds.
• 2:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: None of this is likely to be settled by the time a woman leaves town, but there's only one way for this to work, a woman needs to be empowered.
• 3:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: That begins with big photo ops and platforming, the Lebanese president in ways not seen in the past.
• 3:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: This guy needs to look like he is too big to fail, folks.
• 3:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: which is funny to say about the president of Tiny Lebanon, I won't simply must succeed because if he succeeds, so does Lebanon, so does Israel, Iran fails, so does his baller.
• 3:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: And if that happens, we witness nothing less than a dawn of a new era in the Middle East.
• 3:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now, for your headlines, headline one Israel has remained on the sidelines of the war against against Iran, even as the United States has returned to the air campaign over the last week or so with the U.S. Air Force striking Iranian assets night after night, but these rallies were forced to activate their air defenses on Saturday night as an Iranian missile hurled toward Akaba, the southern Jordanian city that is nestled right next to the southern Israeli city of A.D.
• 3:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: Mironians have refrain from attacking Israel so far.
• 4:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think they know that if Israel is attacked, these rallies will immediately drop the gloves and launch a series of punishing strikes.
• 4:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: These rallies are not messing around here folks.
• 4:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: Their officials continue to stress this as they bear their teeth and snarl at the regime for now anyway, it appears that the Iranian regime is listening.
• 4:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: headline two, two Iranians were hanged over the weekend for anti-government protests and activities.
• 4:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: The two men, according to reports, were found guilty of and checked this out.
• 4:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: Quote, time police officers to a road sign with ropes, injuring them with stones, dousing them with gasoline, and setting them on fire.
• 4:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's the end of the quote.
• 4:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: This all happened purportedly in the city of Isfahan,
• 4:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: The regime has, for years, killed its domestic opponents, though, and the fear that is gripped this regime has reached a new level, and I expect this to continue for the foreseeable, but don't expect there to be any proof provided when these regime killings occur.
• 5:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: The judiciary does not need due process to do its work.
• 5:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: headline three, the Wall Street Journal reports pretty much what we already knew, namely that the ceasefire between the Islamic Republic and the United States enabled the regime to get a bunch of its oil out under the open markets, specifically according to this report, the regime was actually able to get $6 billion of its oil sold, putting much needed hard currency back into the regime's empty coffers.
• 5:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: I know the president had his reasons for striking the ceasefire with the
• 5:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: But it really only gave the regime a lifeline.
• 5:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: And now I think it's safe to say, we were granting that decision to lift the blockade.
• 5:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: The only thing I have to say now, Mr. President, let's finish the job.
• 5:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: And headline four, congrats to the people of Spain for their World Cup victory yesterday over Argentina.
• 5:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: But let me just say, blame the here.
• 5:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: This does not make the government of Spain any less load some or vomitous.
• 5:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: Here's looking at you Pedro Sanchez.
• 6:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: We don't talk about you much on this program, but as much as your soccer players or winners, I think we can pretty much all agree on this program that you are a loser and a spinless toad.
• 6:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, wow, that feels so much better.
• 6:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: Does not feel better for you?
• 6:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think so.
• 6:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
• 6:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: All right.
• 6:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's time for the main event.
• 6:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're bringing on one of FTD's best and brightest Iran scholars.
• 6:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I am talking about Vietnam, Ben Talibu.
• 6:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: Also known to me anyway as the notorious BDT.
• 6:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: Benham has forgotten more about Iran than I've ever learned.
• 6:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's fluent in farcee.
• 6:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: He follows the regime.
• 6:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: He travels to Europe and talks to the Europeans about the regime and he learns about their perspectives.
• 6:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: He follows the regime's weapons.
• 6:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: He follows their statements.
• 6:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: He tracks
• 6:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: today, he's going to give us an update on just how close the regime may be to collapse.
• 6:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, without further, further, blowvading for me, let's bring back them onto the show.
• 7:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome back to the FKD morning brief you repeat offender Mr. BBT.
• 7:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Good morning, John.
• 7:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Great to be a repeat offender.
• 7:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Good morning to you and the listeners.
• 7:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: All right.
• 7:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: Good to have you.
• 7:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: All right.
• 7:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: All right.
• 7:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: I got to ask you just as a place to start.
• 7:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: The regime is getting its
• 7:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: on the part of the United States just like hammering things that are valuable to the regime.
• 7:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is a regime that has already been just, I mean, I don't want to say pulverize, but maybe pretty close.
• 7:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: It don't look particularly good here and yet they keep fighting, right?
• 7:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: So is this really dumb?
• 7:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: Are they just continuing to fight because they don't know what else to do?
• 7:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: Or do you see a
• 7:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I see evidence of everything that you just mentioned, they are getting hit, not necessarily losing everything that they need to fight back with because the regime still does have a pretty robust arsenal of drones and missiles and that's basically what it's using to punch back with whether it's against.
• 8:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Jordan, which you mentioned in the intro, which is a very interesting development or many of the oil producers, the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, so I think it does have a strategy broadly the strategy is incremental escalation towards scorched earth and it's not scorched earth on its territory.
• 8:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's scorched earth of the Arab world because American Iran thinks that America has or the West has, I should say, a soft underbelly on land just as it does at sea and that soft underbelly at sea, as you know, is the straight of Formus.
• 8:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: On land, it's basically Arab infrastructure in countries housing US bases, and so the incremental escalation from ports to bridges, even desalination plants and then much more recently, bases US bases, where there are actually, you know, foreign forces even co-located, forcing Americans to actually have to move material around bases, leave some bases entirely all together.
• 9:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is a strategy of incremental escalation designed to get Donald Trump to throw in the towel by raising the cost to the other side.
• 9:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: So my fear here actually is that they can be exceptionally weak but exceptionally lethal and actually be able to drive a political end state that they really know that they want, which is the region on fire.
• 9:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Israel encircled America out and them alive.
• 9:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if we have one for every single one of these and states that they want, where we are 100% down.
• 9:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Every day, the U.S. waffles between deal and war, we have nine nights of consecutive strikes, but it's unclear what we're using to drive that towards just this morning.
• 9:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's allegations of potential, another round of mediation via the same two mediators that you and your viewers at listeners love so much.
• 9:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: All right, well, I want to break this down a little bit because you've you put a lot on the table.
• 9:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: First, I mean, let's just talk about the military strength of this regime, because on the one hand, no army, no real army anyway, right, no navy, no air force and yet they've got lots of cheap drones.
• 10:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: They've got lots of missiles and rockets.
• 10:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's what they're able to use.
• 10:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: I would argue that these are weapons of the week, but I mean, would we say that there are a week military given the amount of damage that they can do?
• 10:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, there is a paradox here, is there not?
• 10:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Precisely, it's a paradox.
• 10:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: A weapons of the week, when it's precisely why a week or smaller states, even non-state actors, have befuddled the US and Israel in this part of the world for so many years.
• 10:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's about that dangerous combination of limited capability, but high levels of resolve.
• 10:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you know, this is a regime that also has high levels of confidence, post-40 day war, post-67 day ceasefire and post-2 and a half week MOU.
• 10:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it believes it's gotten the best in every single round.
• 10:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think the empirics tell a very different story.
• 10:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's why I think all the paradoxes are less capable, more confident, quite weak, but still quite lethal.
• 11:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's important for, you know, policy makers, both in America and Israel across the
• 11:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: to get what is driving both sides of these paradoxes, who are the men and what are the munitions and precisely you mentioned the munitions.
• 11:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know Iran may not be able to produce en masse industrially more of these missiles thanks to the 40-day war.
• 11:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: But it is digging out quite a bit of this arsenal.
• 11:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's got a dispersed and it's gotten in some mountainous sites that still have not been destroyed.
• 11:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: They've been shuttered, but they've been redugged out by U.S. and is really bombing in the course of the 40-day war.
• 11:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's why you see launches and places as diverse as from the north west to the even the center in the course of this non-seize fire ceasefire.
• 11:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 11:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
• 11:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: What about this nuclear site in the south that we're reading about this morning?
• 11:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: What's the significant to this?
• 11:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: I saw there was an IAEA condemnation that it was a civilian site.
• 12:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: Are there civilian nuclear facilities that are like off limits for the United States?
• 12:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: What was the strategy here?
• 12:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I do believe it would be politically not wise and also strategically a waste for the U.S. to target anything that is associated with the regime civil nuclear infrastructure.
• 12:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's the Bush air power plant and any of the facilities around Bush air because now they're trying to build more.
• 12:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: a light water reactors in the same area, but I believe the site you were referring to is actually a much older site with the same kind of story to history of Iran's nuclear program that's called Darfur Vim was actually created a way back before the revolution was supposed to have friendship that had got paused with the revolution the war.
• 12:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: was supposed to get Chinese help.
• 12:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: That was a big win for the Clinton administration to get the Chinese out.
• 12:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: The Iranians have been trying to create, I think, a heavy water production plan to above not mistaken or heavy water, a reactor in the same area of Darfur Vee.
• 12:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: I believe this was struck recently.
• 12:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't have, you know,
• 13:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: specific evidence as to, you know, what is the functionality of the reactor, what is the state of construction in the area?
• 13:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: But suffice to say that this is a regime that's been trying to create the fig leaf of needing civil nuclear power, you know, producing one or two of these plants and then having to go on the back and say, okay, now that I have the plants, I need to get the enrichment for the plants.
• 13:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I don't think it would have been wise just because
• 13:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: where you have plants in the love more zones, CC, Ukraine, and Russia, for example.
• 13:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's many more targets across the Islamic public that should be hit, and a construction side that is at a nuclear plant that is neither foreign relations nor even producing energy.
• 13:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then if anything, we should be getting the IAA to get back into Iran ASAP, not with a charge, but for free to do the job and give them the full support for their mandate, which is to visit every single nuclear side, including the ones that were hit.
• 13:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, but here me out, we have this in-pass, right, where the Trump administration, they're getting stymied, they're getting frustrated, the regime's not buckling, they're not waving the white flag.
• 14:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Even as we pound their military, what we would call legitimate targets according to the laws of war and the rules based international order and all the things
• 14:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: tie the hands of the administration, right?
• 14:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: So if they're hitting civilian infrastructure now, I mean, do you think that this is something that the administration should be doing?
• 14:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I know I'm not asking you to condone war crimes here, but I am, I think, asking you if the regime will not surrender and will not see that it is losing
• 14:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: Under the current circumstances, does the administration have a choice?
• 14:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think the administration certainly has a choice, but more importantly, the administration needs a strategy that needs to articulate what it wants versus what it will settle for.
• 15:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: The one challenge with the administration is it's actual benefit.
• 15:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's so flexible.
• 15:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: It'll go from diplomacy to sanctions to covert action to war.
• 15:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: It'll rinse and repeat.
• 15:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's good that it's all options on the table, but it's bad that it's all breath and no depth with respect to those options.
• 15:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, when it comes to striking bridges and tunnels, you know, even the French resistance in World War II, when after bridges, you know, one doesn't condone that, but one sees how sometimes if you're creating a no-fly zone or trying to choke off a certain area.
• 15:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: you want to prevent the transport or prevent material from being able to come to a certain area.
• 15:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: So if the US, for example, is trying to prevent almost gun province, which is near the straight-of-war moves from being able to be re-supplied after munitions, depose, and anti-ship cruise missiles, and missile bases, and IRGC bases, and coastal defenses in that area are hit.
• 15:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: it might make sense to actually choke off and prevent roads, bridges and tunnels from being able to go and supply that area.
• 16:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: But that likely in the short term is going to impact the regime tactically, not strategically, strategically.
• 16:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: You need to push away from the table, think a bit more on the intel side, think a bit more on the covert side, taking a bridge or a tunnel away from them isn't going to make them cry on cold, but actually not having a political leadership actually
• 16:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: for regime elites, many nights still you've had, you know, IRGC forces and pro, you know, pro regime sympathizers in the streets.
• 16:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: They need to know that that will be costly and dangerous to continue to have those shows of force on the streets.
• 16:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: So you get the one group that they fear the most, which is the population.
• 16:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, they believe they can limp along.
• 16:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: uh... with a war against his real war against america is they'll tear of it but they can't limple on with a fight against their own people so i think it's about actually adding in the covert side the intel side not having to respond to every single tit for a tad and when you do make it decisive you know make sure that we're still defying them make sure that there's a clear co-haired military rationale for everything that the u.s. is doing
• 17:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: but add in that political element.
• 17:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: So long as you do not add in the political element, you are managing the problem.
• 17:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: And when you run the clock on problems, then be you manage.
• 17:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: As these release learned with the multiple rounds of mowing the grass, turns out the weaker problem is managing you.
• 17:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: All right.
• 17:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: I want to get to the people of Iran in a minute because I do continue.
• 17:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: We talk about it a lot.
• 17:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: I want to talk about their role in all of this because I think it's important.
• 17:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I also just want to ask you, because I want to round out what I think is a weak position by the regime, even as they continue to find ways to do damage to Western interests.
• 17:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: Let's talk about the finances for a minute.
• 17:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, there was this report from the Wall Street Journal that they were able to bring in $6 billion.
• 17:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: $6 billion is a lot of money, but for a country, the size of a run with the kind of budget that it needs in order to function, to drop in the bucket.
• 17:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Right.
• 17:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: So they're running on fumes right now.
• 17:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: How bad is it for them?
• 17:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: And can they sustain the financial pressure because the sanctions are ramping back up.
• 18:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: You've got the blockade.
• 18:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: They're not going to be able to sell that oil the way that they were over the last month or so.
• 18:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: You get a sense.
• 18:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is not sustainable.
• 18:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: Is it?
• 18:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's not sustainable, but they're hoping that we blink first.
• 18:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: And if past is prologue with us putting on the blockade, getting the good results, but then stepping away from it once the Ryan's began to respond, I think that's their gamble.
• 18:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think that's their strategy.
• 18:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Everything they're doing is high-risk, high-reward.
• 18:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is not a normal leadership.
• 18:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is not a normal regime.
• 18:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: They are still in bunker mentality right now.
• 18:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: They can still stretch those dollars.
• 18:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're not looking to rebuild nationally.
• 18:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're looking to rebuild selectively.
• 18:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is build back better, particularly when it comes to the threats that they can again,
• 18:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: to US forces and interests in the region.
• 18:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Until you get to a ceasefire, you won't have the fog of war dissipate over time, not just socially when it comes to the people, but also on the budgetarian domestic governance issues.
• 19:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: If every single night there's a tit for a tad and a widening cycle of violence that looks like we're headed into another.
• 19:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: major bigger hotter around those economic forces won't be blaring in the red for the regime because the regime will simply ignore them and let the country continue to slide towards that failed state status that it was sliding towards pre-war and even pre-protests as we saw in 2025 for example.
• 19:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: So those things that actually put the economic umph are best felt and best imposed when you actually have a high degree of promise and a low degree of delivery.
• 19:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: This regime is not promising anybody anything.
• 19:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's still continues to define survival as the ultimate strategic victory, which means that economics and economic pressure is necessary, but not sufficient.
• 19:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: So what I would say is you have the blockade, you escalate the blockade, you keep it enforced longer,
• 19:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: you'd be prepared for how we run response, which is it's just like aspiration, the more you get closer to joking someone out, the more violently they fail, the more closer towards the 67 day ceasefire, the blockade was delivering, bringing you run down from about 2.1 to 1.15 million to 900,000 to 64,000 barrels a day, as you got closer to that, you got more escalation by the Iranians.
• 20:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: We have to be prepared for that, which means knowing that the region will be hit harder than it's being hit now,
• 20:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: and the U.S. has to aim make sure there's sufficient defense assets and be that it knows what to hit and what to pound any wrong to magnify the impact of the blockade rather than swirving at the first possible instance.
• 20:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, got all that, and I think I'm fully on board, but there is this other part of this, which is you can try to choke out the regime, you can try to pound the regime into submission.
• 20:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: But can you do any of this successfully without an opposition on the ground that is ready to mobilize?
• 20:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that seems to be the question that nobody still knows how to answer.
• 20:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now I know you're in touch with opposition folks and I know that there are people who are still cheering on the regime to do all of this and to up the pressure.
• 21:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: But are they organized enough to do what needs to be done to supplant this regime if and when the time comes?
• 21:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, the question is, is U.S. military strategy been designed to overthrow the regime?
• 21:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think we genuinely have to look at that.
• 21:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think perhaps in the early phases of the war, it was.
• 21:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think right now, it doesn't seem like that's the case at all.
• 21:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: We seem to be creating something of a de facto no-fly zone in the South, while continuing to defang them of their most important military capabilities.
• 21:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: That being said, not having a strategy for if the U.S. does go bigger, or if the Iranians drive Trump towards that much bigger strategy.
• 21:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: There is no excuse for that.
• 21:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: No excuse on the opposition side, but more importantly, no excuse on the foreign side as well.
• 21:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: If this is something America is real in the West believe it is in their interest, then they must forge it through steel.
• 21:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's not enough after 47 years to say Iranians are cacophonists, rangerists, fractures, whatever we can't work with them.
• 21:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think this is time that we take a page from these logical publics book.
• 22:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: If it identifies an interest, it fights kills and dies for that interest.
• 22:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Look what they've done for Lebanese Hezbollah.
• 22:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think it's high time we actually take a page from that playbook and say, hey, look, we can pretend to talk about internet freedom and security, but those bills continue to not get past since 2019.
• 22:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is a big problem.
• 22:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: We can continue to talk about covert communications, covert support, but those things don't seem to be happening in a major and
• 22:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: And if it doesn't exist, you have to will it into existence now.
• 22:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: I would say that, you know, don't look a gift horse to the mouth because this whole crisis was brought to you by the month of January where you saw Iranians for about three and a half weeks in mass protesting in ways that they have never before.
• 22:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: But protest alone as this regime has shown.
• 22:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: are necessary but not sufficient.
• 22:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, what is it that can be done on the covert side?
• 22:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: What is it that can be done on the domestic potential arms smuggling side?
• 22:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: What is that that can be done in terms of even leasing with foreign governments in the region to get Iranians in and out if they are actually looking to be able to do something more kinetic?
• 23:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: These are all questions that I think have remained unanswered because we're kind of much more in the yellow or not in the green, not in the red.
• 23:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: On some days, the US looks like it's leaning towards regime change, or other days, it's not.
• 23:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's no defection strategy still.
• 23:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: The yours truly was in Congress last year looking and talking to people about this, but ultimately, even this was not passed.
• 23:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: If we don't get the meason-ploss in place, we will be yet again unprepared for when the people
• 23:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: when they actually do rise up, and we'll say, oh, that moment was squandered, and then when that moment leads to war, we'll say, well, we can't get to do anything because we're now in a shooting war.
• 23:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: No one comes out to protest in a shooting war, but during a shooting war is what you prepare for what comes next.
• 23:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: So my question is, are we preparing?
• 23:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Are we meeting is USG shaping?
• 23:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: These are big questions that are actually incumbent on America, not on non-profit analysts.
• 23:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I gotta say I don't like the fact that we don't know how to answer this this this is what bothers me the most about all of this because it just seems like you know it's only military strategy and don't know if an only military strategy or even a military and economic strategy I'm not sure it all works I don't know how it all falls into place, but I guess we're gonna hold our breath
• 24:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: and we're going to wait and we're going to find out.
• 24:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Last question, we only got a couple of minutes left here, but I know you spend a lot of time in Europe, you hop over to the other side of the pond pretty often.
• 24:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: Are the Europeans going to get off their collective doffs to help open up the Strait of Hormuz?
• 24:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's a pretty straightforward question.
• 24:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: I do think it's the responsibility of the international community.
• 24:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: If they want to see international waterways remain open, this is part of that rules-based international order
• 24:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: Why are they absent?
• 24:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I think one is there, A, they were not consulted on the start of the war.
• 24:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is not to defend them, but it's to understand the position that they're in.
• 24:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: B, they know they don't have the capability to respond once the Iranian start to fire.
• 25:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, they're assessing that if the Iranians are firing on the Americans, then certainly they'll fire on a weaker country, or weaker series of countries like the Europeans.
• 25:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think the ideal time to get them in would have been between April 8 and April 13 between the ceasefire and the start of the blockade, or from April 13 to June 14, which is during the period of the ceasefire.
• 25:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's when you wanted the Europeans in.
• 25:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's when you wanted to show a force.
• 25:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's when we needed a blind sweeping mission.
• 25:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's when basically they let their Trump arrangements in Rome get in their way and they balked.
• 25:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: And they balked and they make this an entirely political issue, when actually it's an international issue.
• 25:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's a legal issue.
• 25:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's a normative issue.
• 25:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's one that is of critical interest.
• 25:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: I just got back from the UK, for example, I think the UK gets just under 40% of its LNG from the Persian Gulf region.
• 25:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is stuff that on the price side and the supply side is really hitting these guys.
• 25:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: And particularly as we got them off of Iranian fossil fuels, they went on to Russian gas, then we got them off of Russian gas, some of them were not the Qatari gas.
• 25:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: And as Rinsan repeat, there's crises everywhere they go when it comes to their energy sector.
• 26:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: They have to fork up the resources that defend it, but also they need a partner that will help them do it.
• 26:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think the Europeans can open the straight when we can't do it.
• 26:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's up to us to militarily do it.
• 26:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the moment that that happens, they have to be right behind this with international convoys, helping even flag tankers, helping with insurance.
• 26:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't see anything being done for example on the European side to calm the insurance side.
• 26:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: even in the UK again with Lloyds.
• 26:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: There is so much more that can be doing to help calm the space and I see their passivity only leading to further aggravation for their price spikes and the U.S. having to come in in a big way militarily with no political instinct.
• 26:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm in agreement with everything that you just said, but I mean, not even weighing in at the United Nations, not even putting out like full statements by the EU condemning all of this, challenging the regime diplomatically,
• 27:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: and they are being threatened by the closure of the state of Formus.
• 27:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: I gotta say, I continue to scratch my head, but I'm very proud that you're out there doing the work.
• 27:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: Trying to get these guys back on board.
• 27:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: Keep it up, BBT.
• 27:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: We love what you're doing.
• 27:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for joining us today on the FTD morning brief.
• 27:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Pleasure, thank you, sir.
• 27:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: All right, folks, we're done.
• 27:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: Finish, complete.
• 27:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: Finito, Halas, Nigmar.
• 27:32
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• 27:37
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• 27:48
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• 27:54
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• 27:55
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• 27:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're going to do this again on Wednesday folks.
• 27:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: And you know, it's going to be fun.
• 28:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: So tune in next time.
• 28:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: As always, I'm Jonathan Shanzer signing off for FDD.