00:00We're hearing countries like South Korea saying that they are willing and perhaps able and about to get involved and
00:07come to the aid of vessels in the Strait of Hormuz.
00:10I mean, do you think other countries will join in? What do you think all of this signals?
00:14So I think other countries have been extremely skeptical up to this point of engaging in direct ways.
00:20We've certainly seen that from the Europeans, but not only from the Europeans.
00:24Again, there is a real sense that the United States, along with Israel, has brought the world into this conflict,
00:31one that was arguably not particularly well thought out and for which the objectives were not entirely clear.
00:38And so when you hear from South Korea, for example, who did in fact have a vessel seemingly hit by
00:46Iran yesterday, suggest that they might be willing to engage more directly.
00:51I would be careful to equate that with, I guess, offensive operations.
00:56The U.S. administration has tried to delineate the difference between Project Freedom as being an economic defensive operation and
01:07not a restart to offensive operations.
01:10And so if there are countries like South Korea or eventually the Europeans who agree to participate in some sort
01:19of construct in the Strait of Hormuz to reassert freedom of navigation,
01:24I suspect that they will continue to be very careful about drawing that line of not being an offensive player
01:33in this in order to avoid further ire from Iran in particular and risk, as you know, the potential for
01:40that conflict.
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