00:00Bob McNally of Rapid and Energy Group writing,
00:03Fade speculation on a near-term U.S.-Iran ceasefire.
00:06U.S. force posture points to escalation.
00:08Bob joins us now for more.
00:10Bob, welcome. Let's start with that line. It's an important line.
00:12What is it about the force posture of the U.S. that points to escalation?
00:16Great to be with you, John.
00:17So, yeah, we're flowing.
00:19We have one marine expeditionary units arrived, another one's on the way,
00:2282nd Airborne, and other forces are moving in.
00:26We think we're likely to see some form of ground operation.
00:32I'll doubt we'll go into Karg Island.
00:34Most of the military folks I talk with just don't understand the utility of that.
00:39However, there are smaller islands that are more defensible.
00:42They're used by Iran to interdict shipping.
00:45Perhaps it's those.
00:46But I think some form of U.S. ground force insertion is coming.
00:51But, Bob, when we talk about the president saying things like,
00:54I want to take the oil in Iran, inevitably that would mean some sort of operation with Karg Island, no?
01:01You know, it doesn't have to.
01:02I don't understand.
01:03I mean, back in 2012, I wrote an FT op-ed and I said, just put a quarantine up.
01:07You just stop all the ships in the Gulf of Oman coming out of Karg Island.
01:11Karg Island is like five miles from the coast.
01:13We could take it, but then we'd be under constant bombardment from drones and artillery and missiles and things.
01:19So, again, I'm not a military guy, but the military guys and gals I know don't really see the need
01:26to occupy Karg Island.
01:28We can still choke off Iran's exports.
01:31We can do that, but we can do it far away on the water.
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