00:00After three weeks of bombing by U.S. and Israeli warplanes, President Donald Trump says Iran's
00:05capability to make and use ballistic missiles has been completely obliterated, and the threat
00:11against shipping in the Strait of Hormuz has been degraded.
00:15But is it?
00:16Really?
00:17Less than 24 hours after Trump claimed that Iran's capabilities had been obliterated,
00:23Iran retaliated with a pair of unsuccessful ballistic missile strikes against the key
00:29airbase Diego Garcia, located in the Chagos Islands.
00:33It's where the U.S. keeps most of the heavy bombers that have been used in the three-week
00:38war against Iran.
00:39The strikes were unsuccessful, but the fact that Iran could get close to Diego Garcia calls
00:47into question whether the U.S. really has obliterated Iran's capabilities, as the president has claimed.
00:53The White House hasn't responded to Iran's attempt to attack Diego Garcia, and the president
00:59himself has been silent on the matter, even though he's been playing golf here in Palm
01:04Beach right behind me, and he's managed to put out at least one truth social post complaining
01:09about the now five-week-long shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security.
01:14As Iran continues to threaten shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, the U.K. has finally allowed
01:20America to use air bases for defensive purposes in protecting the strait.
01:25But the president is complaining that that's too little too late, and he continues to complain
01:31as well about the U.K. and other countries that have not stepped up to donate naval assets
01:37to protect shipping in the strait, which is a key choke point through which about a fifth
01:42of the world's oil passes every single year.
01:45At this point, there is a massive backlog of tankers in the strait waiting to pass through,
01:51and amid the continuing attacks on oil and gas facilities by Iran, many Middle Eastern oil-producing
01:59countries have shut down production, causing a massive spike in oil prices worldwide.
02:04The U.S. has relaxed sanctions on Iranian oil, which has the paradoxical effect of letting
02:11Iran continue to fund its defenses in this war that the U.S. and Israel started.
02:17And the president continues to say that protecting the strait should be the responsibility of other
02:24countries, not the U.S., and he suggests that it should be easy.
02:29For The Independent in West Palm Beach, Florida, this is Andrew Feinberg.
02:33You are a large part of the U.S. and Israel.
02:33You are a large part of the U.S. and Israel.
02:36You
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