00:00Sean Bell is a retired Air Vice Marshal and Military Analyst.
00:04Sean, welcome back, good to see you.
00:05I think the military term is a sit-rep.
00:07All these weeks in, where are we?
00:12Yeah, good afternoon, Jamie.
00:13I mean, the brief sit-rep would be the American military operation
00:17appears to be going relatively smoothly,
00:19but whether America is any closer to achieving its strategic objectives,
00:23that feels a long way off.
00:26And the worry, I think, is that with the reports of these U.S. Marine Corps
00:29personnel arriving in the region, you know,
00:31with the Boxer and the Tripoli aircraft sort of carriers, mini-carriers,
00:36that's a significant, a formidable capability.
00:39But as soon as you start putting boots on the ground,
00:41suddenly we're into the prospects of body bags going home
00:45and a much longer campaign.
00:47That doesn't feel like something President Trump wants to get involved with.
00:50We were just reporting earlier on, Mr. Trump saying he wants to take Iran's oil.
00:55Just how feasible militarily is that?
01:00Well, yes, I mean, they're talking about Karg Island,
01:03that island that's just off the coast of Iran,
01:05where most of Iran's oil exports go from.
01:08As a military operation, I don't think that would be too difficult for America to do.
01:14The challenge is that, of course, there's no hardened facilities there
01:17for the American soldiers when they land to hide or to gain protection.
01:21And that would make them incredibly vulnerable while they're there.
01:24It's also not entirely clear how that helps the strategic objectives,
01:29because the Straits of Hormuz, some 200 miles south, is where the real problem lies.
01:34And I suspect it's Kashm Island, which is just off the coast of the Straits of Hormuz.
01:40It's quite a big island.
01:41It's about 100 miles long and about 25 miles wide.
01:44That will be one that would be my strategic focus for,
01:48because you could make life very difficult then for Iran to still control the Straits.
01:52The downside is there's about 120,000 civilians live there.
01:55It will be a major operation.
01:57Three and a half thousand American military personnel arriving in the region.
02:02Do you think this is a genuine preparation for ground operations,
02:06or is it more of a signal for Tehran?
02:12Well, Jamie, you and I have been around some of these operations and the wars for some time.
02:17And if you look at the relative numbers,
02:19America, I think, ended up with close to 300,000 for the invasion of Iraq.
02:23And that's a country much smaller than Iran.
02:25And facing the U.S. forces would be a force of IRGC,
02:30probably over a million men and women under arms.
02:33So the numbers that the U.S. is talking about are just not credible
02:37if you're looking at a ground operation that's sustainable.
02:40I think far more likely is that, as you suggest,
02:43President Trump, he loves to do a deal.
02:45You can only do a deal if you have leverage.
02:47Just by these troop movements, it might sow the seeds of doubt in the Iranian leadership
02:52that America might just be serious and therefore give President Trump
02:56a bit more influence in the forthcoming negotiations.
02:59And when you hear of pressure at home on President Trump and pressure from allies,
03:06how much does that play in to the military voices around the president?
03:13Well, it's a fundamental question, Jamie, because I spent a lifetime in the military.
03:18And before we went on these sorts of operations,
03:20you'd make very clear to the political classes what your choices were,
03:25but also what the risks were.
03:27I had war-gamed this with the British military over the years,
03:32and I played Iran in part of those war games.
03:34And it never ends well.
03:35You know, militarily, you have no issue with dominating the Iranians,
03:39but they always end up controlling the straits.
03:41So you'd have to assume, based on that,
03:43because the American military are not stupid,
03:46they will have war-gamed this.
03:47The advice of the president was, this is predictable.
03:49So the only person who's really seemed surprised at this is President Trump.
03:53He's got himself into this mess,
03:55and he's now proving it's easier to start a war than it is to end one.
03:59Sean, good to see you.
04:00We'll talk again in coming weeks, I'm sure.
04:01Sean Bell, the retired air vice-marshal and military analyst.
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