00:00The problems the Houthis are causing at the moment, can you identify how great they're becoming?
00:05When you look at asymmetric threats, it's probably one of the biggest things that Iran has really been able to
00:10exploit, right?
00:11They cannot compete with the United States from a conventional military perspective.
00:15So the Houthis are being able to actually create a lot of problems here because they're the wild card.
00:20They're able to put pressure on Saudi Arabia and to Bab al-Mendeb while Iran puts pressure on Hormuz.
00:25And not to mention the fact that Iran, at the same time, we've mentioned it, I've called it the three
00:29-headed hydra before.
00:31What it allows Iran to do is kind of point in a different direction and go, oh, well, that's not
00:34us.
00:35It gives a little bit of plausible deniability, even though everybody in the world realizes that the Houthis are the
00:40ones that are doing this underneath Iranian direction.
00:42Now, which part of the direction, whether it's the IRGC or whether it's part of the National Supreme Council or
00:47whether or not it's the president, is the reason they're able to play this game right now.
00:50What could the U.S. military do in terms of making sure that the Red Sea maintains a viable passageway,
00:56especially the Bab al-Mendeb Strait?
00:59I think the best thing they can do is, I hate calling it divide their forces, but being able to
01:04create additional distributed maritime operations for Fifth Fleet as part of US.netcom, that would be part of what they
01:10can do.
01:11Obviously, then you're also looking for help from the Gulf states as well.
01:16As you mentioned a little bit ago, too, though, part of the problem that you're running into right now is
01:19the Gulf states are lacking consensus, even on the diplomatic off-ramp for the Strait of Hormuz.
01:25So when trying to look at and saying, hey, how much can you get the Gulf states to come in
01:29and help from an allied military perspective, it also starts to create some of the problems there.
01:34UAE has for a long time right now asked for a U.N. Security Council resolution to actually enter in
01:40to be more aggressive in part of this, but they have not been very successful there.
01:44Things were getting better at one point with more crude coming out of the Strait of Hormuz, and now it
01:49seems to be worse.
01:50And earlier this morning, Iran updated its list of noncompliant vessels.
01:54It's talking about more restrictions on future passages, the fact that it could be fines, detention or confiscation.
02:01How much does Oman have power over what Iran is doing right now?
02:05Shouldn't they try to be mediating and open up this waterway more?
02:09I think they are, but I think they're also trying to make sure that the Gulf states are kind of
02:13aligned in this, because that's why they keep calling it lacking consensus.
02:16Because if Oman goes forward and does this without the Gulf states playing into this, you now have an area
02:22where Oman is trying to institutionalize what Iran can do without some of the agreement from some of these Gulf
02:29states.
02:29So I think one of the reasons—Oman has incredible power, and they could push forward, but they do recognize the
02:35long-term play here is to make sure that the Gulf states are good with what Oman is pushing forward
02:40with, so that you're not just seeing Iran.
02:42Every time that Iran doesn't like what's going on in the world, they decide to get the Houthis involved, or
02:47they decide to shoot something across the Strait of Hormuz and, once again, stop global traffic.
02:50How do you view Oman in all of this? President Trump is talking about Oman. If they get in the
02:55way, the U.S. will bomb them.
02:57There are questions about their involvement in terms of trying to take a cut in the fees that potentially could
03:03get charged to traverse the Strait of Hormuz. What's your understanding?
03:08I look at that as incredibly risky, right?
03:10Right. So national—the leverage of the national power that the military looks at, you know, we studied a lot, is
03:16diplomatic, information, military, and economics.
03:18So you have to look across the board on all four of those fronts and say, what am I actually
03:22creating a problem for?
03:24So if you start going in there and bombing somebody that is considered a Gulf state ally and somebody that
03:29has power and assertion over this area,
03:31it's going to affect not only on the information but the economic side of the house as well.
03:36So how you pull one of those levers will have interconnected tissue with everything else that's going on.
03:41So the U.S. has to be very careful in terms of how they do that.
03:45It's a strategic geographic point of entry for us as well.
03:48We have U.S. forces that are critical in that area as well that you do not want to make
03:53Oman an enemy in this area.
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