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Of any purchase of $100 or more. That's promo code Brian. Our point is we're going to take frustration with moves, open it up, and keep it open. And that means we're staying in control. That's just a fact.
Are we going to have a lot of help in keeping that open? Are we going to have... Ships to escort vessels and make certain they're safe passage? Yes, we're going to have plenty of help. And how long are we going to do that?
As long as it's needed. Yes, and that is General Jack Keene. Knows the strategy inside and out and sees it being executed and needs a few more weeks. One person who knows and thinks he has a way of reopening the strait of Fermuz while we're continuing to degrade Iran at a dizzying rate is John Spencer, chairman of the War Studies Department of Madison Policy Studies and Executive Director of the Urban Warfare Institute.
So, John, how important is it to open up that straight and how would you do it?
So it's vital, although I think it shouldn't be as vital as it is. I mean, history has taught us. that this is Iran's main card to play and they've played it. It's vital because it controls twenty percent of the world's oil, liquid gas. I mean, it's just critical, especially for the Gulf states.
It's also critical for China, who gets a big portion of oil. ninety percent of Iran's oil goes straight to China at a dirt cheap price. How you would um you know, the enemy always gets to vote. Of course, we have history. Um at the end of the Iran Iraq war in the late late nineteen eighties, we did Operation Ernest Will, and we escorted ships through the strait for about fourteen months.
How you do it, of course, you have to reduce the risk. Right now, you see them setting the conditions, right? The United States and Israel. I mean, Israel just took out their Navy commander and their intelligence chief. Those are very important strikes, but also striking any capability for Iran to put effects on the strait.
Now, you could seize the islands, and a lot of people are talking about that. Lark Island and a couple other islands that would give you a better positional ability to dominate that strait. You could also put effects on the other side of the strait. It's only a 20-mile-wide expanse of terrain, and the shipping lanes are only two miles wide. But there's more than one way, and what you don't want is what you don't want to Iran thinking they know how you're going to try to do it.
Right.
So you could speculate openly, but that is something you would put as a priority. We got two thousand chips looking to get through there right now. They let nine through. And when this is done, John, they can never be in control of this again. As long as there's drone technology where people can get you through the sky, I wonder how you actually guarantee that.
Yeah. No, so one of the ways, and I wrote about this in the The Washington Post is that we've faced this problem in other parts of the world. And those Gulf countries that rely solely on the strait, like Qatar, like Iraq, but also Saudi, the UAE, and others, who we've done trillion-dollar economic deals right now, I believe it's time to start opening those pipes. The UAE and Saudi Arabia both have pipes that bypass the strait, and you could expand those to where the strait becomes less strategic for anybody who's in charge because we really don't know who's in charge in Iran right now. But you're right.
We need to make sure this never happens again. The United States doesn't have to. Undo this threat to the global economy for the rest of the world. And I agree with General Keene that we're going to have a bunch of countries, I believe, really soon helping once the risk is reduced to escort ships through there. But you got to expand the land pipes, right?
You can take the pipes from Saudi Arabia and others and expand them so that you can take the oil out to the Red Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, other parts of, so you're not relying on this one strait, which is the second most important strait in the world. Yes. And I know that it looks like Saudi has redirected some of their oil flow through the Red Sea, and it's about at seven million barrels a day, and I think maybe eight, and they want to get up to fifteen. That's what they had. Yeah, that would make a big difference.
I mean, right now we're relying on about 20 million barrels per day. The Saudi pipe was expanded to about 7 million barrels. But I think it should be the other countries as well. And it's a great opportunity for them as well. Not only do these pipes cut down on the strait, but also form diplomatic relationships, right?
The Abraham Accords have held.
So I would love to see a Saudi Arabian pipe going through Israel out into the Mediterranean. I think that would also be beneficial.
So, what is stopping us from escorting ships now? Right now, what's stopping us from escorting ships is just the ability for Iran to put effects on the strait, whether that's through the drone, a missile, some of the autonomous ships or boats that they have, mines. The United States has done an amazing job at destroying a lot of that, but it takes time, as General Keene also was saying earlier. I think we kind of are used to our 30-second clips on the internet, but war doesn't go as quickly as people want it to go. It goes at the pace of the objective, and this objective is big.
And too many past administrations have seen Iran building this capability to continue to threaten and threaten and threaten this strait, but also arming the Houthis to be able to straight to threaten the Red Sea. I mean, this is ridiculous, but it takes time.
So, what needs to happen is a continued deterioration of the capability to put any effect Whether it's a drone, whether it's a missile, whether it's a boat, on the strait, and then have armed escorts for now until you're assured that the behavior of whoever comes after all the people that are being killed recognizes that they're no longer going to have this course of tool at their disposal. John, do you think? Do you think it's a problem right now with the Iranians thinking the longer they hold out, the more politically unsteady the President is because they're seeing the political divide we have? Absolutely, that's a huge problem. I mean, war is a contest of will.
That is one of their strongest strategies is just to make this look like an issue that the United States can't continue, that our resolve for this objective, to make the world safer, to make the United States safer, to secure a global naval passage, which is historical to what we do as well. They think that they can outweigh and cause this political division to make it bigger. And I was glad to see the Senate not Try to make an action towards the President and to stop this operation because I believe it's making the world safer. John, as I watch this play out and I see the way they're rocketing the Gulf states and going after Israel the way they're doing and the cluster bombs that followed and the intermediate range missiles we saw last weekend, I think it underlines the urgency to take this action. I mean, they were they were actually more remorseless and more well armed than than most thought.
Absolutely. I mean, they shot what's near an intercontinental ballistic missile at Diego Sarguilla, at our base. I mean, the 4,000-kilometer, they are doing nothing but solidifying why the president had to take this action. Not only are they attacking Israel, of course, and they're attacking more hotels in Israel, but all of the Gulf states now recognize that what they believe, what we're trying to work through diplomatically, that Iran is this great threat to peace in the region and in the world. And if you're in Europe, now that they've demonstrated the capability to put missiles on European capitals, you would think that they too would join in this assured operation that you have to continue until you get the job done because the threat.
was growing on many fronts.
So, when you think about the Houthis to say, we're ready when the Iranians want us to get involved and essentially shut down the Red Sea. What are your thoughts about that if they get in? It could be could happen today. Yes, I mean, the Houthis were a problem as they attacked Israel and international shipping. We put a coalition together during that time, and we prevented that by doing the same thing, taking away their capability.
Israel wiped out their entire leadership in one strike at one point last year or in twenty twenty four. Yeah, I think they're gonna they're gonna find out. Um but it's another threat. And this is the problem that past administrations let amass. It's not like we didn't know that this pirate regime, this terrorist regime in Yemen, was building this large ability to threaten that straight.
So John, the other thing is relocating weapons out of Ukraine, earmarked for Ukraine or in Ukraine and bringing them over to the Gulf. Are we really that short that we got to make those decisions? I don't think so. I don't have the intelligence to know, especially with those high-end interceptors. I know that the president met with all the primes, the defense industries that create those, and they're going to quadruple their production.
I saw that report. I'm not sure about it. I doubt we're in that position, but I really don't have the intelligence, Brian. This is Ainslie Earhart. Thank you for joining me for the 52-episode podcast series, The Life of Jesus.
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Yeah, I would hope because Ukraine is actually making progress. They've picked up 100 square miles. They've gotten a long-distance rocket themselves. They've blown up, I think, a huge oil complex inside Russia.
So I would hate to see the pug being pulled down. Absolutely. I mean, this is. I mean, especially with Europe and getting the European countries to continue to contribute even more towards the defense of Europe, I think that's important. But you're right.
What Ukraine has done in the last two months is more than Russia was able to do in the past year, and that's significant. I do. I b they're fighting they are the second biggest army in Europe. Do you want to lose that army and let the Russians absorb it? We should we really have to think this through.
But the other thing that's come out, I've watched a lot of international television since I'm up so early, don't want to see the repeats. I cannot believe the UK how unarmed they are. I mean, they literally have almost no ships. They have to borrow a German ship in order to help us out in the Gulf. The Germans haven't been allowed to arm for 60, 70 years.
They're just arming up now for the first time. Spain, we're only giving 1.4% of our GDP to the military. I don't care what the U.S. thinks.
So, I mean, we added two quality members of NATO, but man, they got to, this is their wake-up call. Absolutely. And we've seen other countries kind of do the opposite. Countries like Poland, Estonia, and others quadrupling their investment and really making themselves strong as countries. But I've been saddened as well to see what the UK has become, despite what their investment is per country.
And what President Trump to make all the NATO countries do what they're supposed to do with the 2% and now probably 5% of the GDP will make the world a safer place. But I hate to see what the UK military has become for sure. All right, lastly, when they talk about this, there's a complex 500 miles from the sea. It is containing a lot of the missiles that they're able to move out. It's built into the side of a mountain.
And it looks like we've taken a bunch of shots at it, but unable to blow it up. Do you do you know what they're uh referring to? I mean, there's a couple of sites actually. There's Pickaxe Mountains in Iran, which is one of the other nuclear sites, but they also have deep buried sites. Oh, this is called Yazd.
Y-A-Z-D. Yeah, the same. Again, I like to do a broader view. Even Israel showed in multiple operations over the last two and a half years that just because it's deep buried doesn't mean you can't get at it. There's more than one way, and I won't talk about how you do that.
But, like, for instance, when they went into Syria and put 100 special forces and went inside of it, blew it up from inside. I don't want to get people all riled up about boots on the ground or not boots on the ground. But yeah, I mean, some of these Iran has been preparing. They have been going deeper and deeper. But we also have tools that nobody's seen.
The president and the CENTCOM commander have hinted at those. But you never know. Right.
There's two missions: open up the strait, and the other is get to uranium. Do you think that's? I know you don't want to give away tactics, especially you, with your, with the, you know, people listen to what you say on the other side, but. To get people on the ground, get heavy equipment in there to do some work while protecting them while they do that work. I think it seems to be a priority of the president.
to get that uranium out. Absolutely. Might have served. I know a lot of good people that could get that mission done. And it's all about doing it safely, Brian.
We're not going to put our soldiers at a great risk. We're going to reduce the risk. But I think the president, especially with this 10-day reprieve that they gave, whoever they're in contact with, is hoping for that coercion, right, to get them to convince that they have to give it up. There's more than one way to do that, but you can do it by force as well. There's a report, too, that the Pakistanis asked us to tell the Israelis.
Not to take out the foreign minister and the speaker because we had their coordinates. And we're about to do that, but they said these are the only two guys we can talk to. How real is that? Is how unique is that situation? Yeah, it's not too unique.
I mean, this is why people that study a war, there are many actors involved. I mean, even Pakistan's agreements to help Saudi Arabia. You, of course, want a dialogue with certain people. I don't know how true that that basically that position or that request was. Only time we'll tell Brian is who comes out as left in the regime to do the talking over the next few days.
And I've been looking online as much as possible, watching these Middle Eastern p places and broadcasts. And a lot of people are saying there's massive defections amongst the army. The besiegers are extremely depleted. And there's an optimism that things are changing on the ground. We just don't have the eyes, reporters, and journalists there for obvious reasons to see it.
John, what do you think? Yes, absolutely. And there's a reason for that, right? They're still controlling the Internet, and I think that will soon go away as well. They're controlling any message that goes out, although we did see the IRGC lower the age of recruitment to twelve.
That's not something you do when you're cohesive and you're doing well. But you're right, the defectors, the cohesion of whether it's the, I saw something about the teams that go out on these mobile missile launchers aren't wanting to do that anymore. And that's smart. I give them credit for that. Yeah.
Yeah. When you go, when you're drafting 12-year-olds, I'm pretty sure that's not a positive sign. John Spencer, thanks so much. Thanks, Brian.
