00:00Let's get a bit more analysis now with security and foreign policy expert Peter Trubowicz.
00:05Peter, thanks for taking the time to speak to us.
00:07Here we have Donald Trump calling on his allies to send warships into the Strait of Hormuz to try and
00:11secure transit.
00:12Are any countries taking him up on this so far?
00:18Good to be with you, Jeannie.
00:19Well, no country has come out publicly and said that it's going to support this effort.
00:28I mean, Britain and France have basically equivocated, saying they're assessing possible action, but they certainly haven't committed to doing
00:37anything before the fighting halts.
00:40And many others, as your report indicates, China not being an ally, but being one of a number of countries
00:48that has either simply sidestepped it or flatly rejected it, as Germany did.
00:54And Japan and Australia have indicated that they're also unlikely to send vessels.
01:00Now, in the meantime, Donald Trump has said that he'll soon be announcing some countries who will soon be helping
01:05with the Strait of Hormuz.
01:06Do we have any idea which countries he's talking about here?
01:11It's unclear.
01:12It's unclear.
01:12And so, you know, he said he had a very good call with Macron.
01:16It was an eight out of 10, I think, is what he said.
01:20And that, you know, that he thought there was some I took that to mean that Trump believed that there
01:26was some movement on on France's part.
01:30I mean, frankly, yesterday in the interview that Trump did with the Financial Times, he was all over the place
01:36on this, where he said he wanted the allies to pitch in.
01:40Then he said it didn't matter whether they pitched in.
01:42Then he said it would be very bad for NATO if they didn't pitch in.
01:45And so, you know, I think the problem for Trump right now is that he's he's really, you know, he
01:54doesn't have a game plan, a clear game plan for ending the war.
01:58And he's basically trying to shift the dynamic by broadening the scope of the conflict by effectively bringing in, if
02:06he can, America's European and Asia, Asian allies,
02:09not as participants in the war, but to counter basically Iran's strategy of weaponizing the strait.
02:18And the idea here is that Iran is less likely to attack America's allies than America itself.
02:27But I don't think that's very reassuring for America's allies.
02:30You know, you mentioned this idea of Iran weaponizing the strait, this example of what they're calling this asymmetrical warfare.
02:36Did Iran's capabilities in the strait of Hormuz take the White House by surprise?
02:42Well, it sure doesn't look like they they plan for for that.
02:47I think they, you know, the fact that they are scrambling the way that they are,
02:55the fact that the administration is pulling forces, equipment, missiles from South Korea, from kind of the Asian theater to
03:08to this theater,
03:09and also considering deploying moving the Marines from from from Asia to the theater suggests to me that they simply
03:19did not think through this part of it.
03:22And, you know, that what, you know, have a plan be so often strategy doesn't go as planned and and
03:32that they don't have a clear solution to this problem.
03:35I think they were also very surprised, quite apart from this, that Iran attacked its neighbors, leaving, you know, kind
03:43of Israel aside.
03:45I don't think this was baked in to U.S. planet.
03:49Trump himself said he was surprised by that, that they went after the UAE and Kuwait and and others.
03:57And so, you know, we've basically got two sides that are it's a classic move.
04:02If you're in trouble, you try to broaden the scope of conflict.
04:06And that's what Iran did by bringing in by by attacking its neighbors in the region.
04:13And Trump, in a sense, is trying to do the same thing to counter by bringing America's allies in off
04:20the sidelines,
04:21at least in the form of, you know, providing protection and mind sweeping and so forth in Hormuz.
04:28And he just doesn't seem to be getting much traction right now.
04:32The problem is, just if I can, you know, for a European leader, you've got to kind of assess, OK,
04:38what will Trump do if we don't do it?
04:40Might mean less support, U.S. support for Ukraine.
04:44It might mean higher U.S. tariffs.
04:47But they've got to balance that against getting dragged into a war that they didn't welcome.
04:52And to begin with, the public thinks are misguided.
04:55And frankly, they don't have that much military capacity to alter securing the straits.
05:01So it's, you know, complicated calculation.
05:05Right. And in addition to all of that, I mean, here you have oil prices now hovering around $100 a
05:09barrel, up something like 40 to 50 percent.
05:12Iran's strategy really based on economic pressure on the U.S.
05:16Is that pressure going to be enough?
05:19Well, I think, you know, we're going to see.
05:22I mean, I'm not saying that I think, you know, Iran has its own vulnerabilities here.
05:29I mean, if Trump goes after Karg, you know, and truly tries to level Karg, I mean, Iran doesn't have
05:39the capacity to deliver oil at that point.
05:42Right. But I think if that happens, I think the the reason he's hesitated up to this point is you
05:48would expect the Iranians to start hitting Saudi facilities and Kuwaiti facilities and and so on.
05:56And then you got like a real, you know, then you got a real problem.
05:59The price of oil at 100, you know, 100 bucks would seem like a bargain, I think, probably at that
06:07point.
06:08All right. I'm not laughing about it.
06:09I mean, this is like serious, right, where this is potentially headed.
06:14All right, Peter, thank you so much for that.
06:15That's security and foreign policy expert Peter Trubowitz.
06:18Thank you so much.
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