Today, a consequential fault line in the Middle East runs not just between Riyadh and Tehran but between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi — two capitals that share a region, a border, and a security patron, but little else in terms of strategic vision. Understanding this rivalry is no longer optional for serious American statecraft. It is a geopolitical condition that Washington will likely be navigating for years to come.

The Saudi–Emirati rivalry, which exploded into public view last December, is characterized by a deep divergence over what a post-American, or at least less American, Middle East should look like, who should lead it, and on what terms. The two states have been drifting apart for years, but fractures have now surfaced across every major regional issue: Yemen, the Horn of Africa, energy markets, relations with Israel, and the competition for economic dominance through diversification.

In 2015, Saudi Arabia and the UAE entered Yemen’s civil war as partners in a coalition against the Houthis. They left it, for all practical purposes, as rivals. The UAE backed the Southern Transitional Council, a separatist group that opposed the Saudi-supported goal of restoring Yemen’s internationally recognized government in Sanaa. The result was a war within a war, in which forces trained and armed by the UAE occasionally clashed with Saudi-backed units. The truce frameworks that followed never fully resolved the underlying question: Whose Yemen is it?

Across the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa, meanwhile, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have been projecting power and competing for port access, the right to establish military bases, and political influence in Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea, and Djibouti. The stakes are high. Control of Red Sea choke points and Horn of Africa logistics corridors is central to both countries’ long-term security strategies. Riyadh and Abu Dhabi are not coordinating; they are racing for dominance.

Energy policy has become another area of strategic competition. The UAE’s departure earlier this month from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) — which it joined to help regulate the international oil market — made that clear. Abu Dhabi’s decision was overdetermined: frustration with production quotas, confidence in its own production capacity, and a desire for strategic autonomy contributed to it. But at its core, it was a rejection of Saudi Arabia’s domination of OPEC. Riyadh, which has staked its Vision 2030 project on the assumption that it can manage global oil prices through cartel discipline, correctly interpreted the decision as a direct challenge. The two countries are now, in effect, energy competitors with fundamentally different market strategies.

The countries diverge most significantly over Israel. The UAE signed the Abraham Accords in 2020 and has steadily deepened its economic and security ties with Jerusalem. During the war with Iran, the relationship has crossed a threshold that would have been unthinkable even a year ago: Israel deployed an Iron Dome battery and military personnel to operate it on Emirati soil. This was the first time the system had ever been used outside Israel or the United States, and the first confirmed deployment of Israeli troops to an Arab Gulf state. Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, has conditioned normalization with Israel on concessions from Jerusalem and the United States that have so far proved undeliverable, instead investing its diplomatic energy in building a trilateral defense framework with Turkey and Pakistan. The UAE bet early on integration with Israel as a pillar of its security architecture, while Saudi Arabia is building a security framework that does not require Israel.

None of this means that the two countries are enemies. They share vital security interests, particularly regarding Iran, despite their radically divergent visions. They cooperate on counterterrorism. Their economies are intertwined. Saudi nationals are among the UAE’s largest sources of investment and tourism. But strategic rivalry and economic interdependence often coexist — just ask France and Germany — and the rivalry will define the policy challenges Washington faces in the Gulf.

American policymakers will be tempted to pick a side, but they should resist. The United States has deep and important interests in both countries, such as security cooperation, energy stability, counterterrorism, counterproliferation, and the regional balance of power. Choosing between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi would be strategically mistaken and practically impossible. Both relationships are essential to American foreign policy.

But that does not mean we can afford to ignore the matter. The Saudi–UAE rivalry will not be resolved by a summit or a phone call. It will shape the internal dynamics of every multilateral framework in the region, from the Gulf Cooperation Council to OPEC+ to the Abraham Accords themselves. Above all, American policymakers must recognize that the future of both relationships, and Washington’s leverage within each, rests on how the war with Iran concludes.

The post-Iran regional order will determine how Riyadh and Abu Dhabi compete, cooperate, and calculate their respective needs for American partnership. If we get the Iran endgame wrong, managing the Saudi–UAE rivalry will become an exercise in diminishing returns. If we get it right, the United States will retain the strategic position to shape a Gulf that works with American interests rather than around them. The first step toward a serious Gulf policy is admitting that our two most important Arab partners are playing very different games — and that managing the distance between them may be a defining feature of American strategy in the Middle East for the foreseeable future.

Hussein Aboubakr Mansour is a Fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA). 

Originally published in National Review.

The post Are Washington’s Most Important Gulf Allies on a Collision Course? appeared first on JINSA.

IF THERE IS ONE STORY FROM THE PAST WEEK that best represents the brave new world we are entering as the Trump administration continues its dismantling of the much derided “liberal international order” that was underpinned by U.S. military power, our system of alliances, and rules-based free trade, it wasn’t the will-they-won’t-they back-and-forth about the Strait of Hormuz ceasefire agreement, nor the thousands of pages of government documents about UFOs the administration released, presumably to distract from the Hormuz business. Instead, it was that Turkey, on May 5, unveiled an intercontinental ballistic missile in Istanbul at the 2026 SAHA defense and aerospace exhibition.

The body of the prototype missile on display this week interestingly bears the signature of Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the modern secular Turkish republic, and the tughra (a calligraphic seal or signature) of Sultan Bayezid I, also know as Bayezid “the Thunderbolt,” who in the early fifteenth century reduced the population of Anatolia to Ottoman vassalage, besieged Constantinople only to be defeated in a rearguard action by Tamarlane, and spent the end of his days as a prisoner. The “Yıldırımhan” or “Lightning” missile—which is designed to carry conventional warheads—symbolizes the fusion of Turkish nationalism and its Ottoman Islamic past, much as the ruling AK Party has attempted to do over its quarter century of rule. Not to put too fine a point on things, an AI video produced to tout the missile (which has yet to be tested) appeared to show it “hitting nuclear facilities and other targets that appeared to be in the U.S.,” according to the Financial Times. It was not totally reassuring that Turkish Defense Minister Yaşar Güler insisted the missile was meant for deterrence and appeared unaware of the AI video.

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Amb. Eric Edelman is a JINSA Distinguished Scholar and former U.S. Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. From 2003–2005, Amb. Edelman served as the U.S. Ambassador to Turkey.

Read the full article in the The Bulwark.

The post Turkey’s New Missile Is a Symbol of Global Chaos appeared first on JINSA.

The US naval blockade of Iran is a good policy, but its potential effectiveness appears overstated and its purpose misguided. Rather than back down from efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz (as the Trump administration appears to be doing), the United States needs to double down on creating real leverage against Iran. That means maintaining the blockade, rejecting any further negotiations with Iran, and taking actions to make regime collapse more likely.

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Michael Makovsky, PhD, is President and CEO of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA).
Blaise Misztal is Vice President for Policy at JINSA.

Read the full article in the The National Interest.

The post The U.S. Blockade of Iran Is a Means, Not an End appeared first on JINSA.

PANELISTS

Mehdi Parpanchi

Executive Director, Iran International; Former Lead Correspondent, BBC Persian

Dr. Ray Takeyh

Iran Policy Project Advisor, JINSA; Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations

The discussion was moderated by JINSA Vice President for Policy Blaise Misztal.

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TRANSCRIPT

Transcript has been lightly edited for flow and clarity.

Blaise Misztal:
To discuss the state of the Iranian regime, whether it is fractured or cohesive, what its decision-making looks like, and what that means for negotiations with the U.S. and the continuation of the war, I’m delighted to be joined by two panelists who know Iran better than anyone else: Mehdi Parpanchi, Executive Director of Iran International, one of the best sources for understanding what is happening in Iran today, and Dr. Ray Takeyh, JINSA Iran Policy Project Member and Hasib J. Sabbagh Senior Fellow for Middle East Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Thank you for joining today.

We’ve been hearing a lot from President Trump in recent days that the regime is fractured, with questions about who is actually running the country. The New York Times had a big article saying that the Supreme Leader, Khamenei, is alive and ruling through a cabinet or a committee and multiple decision-makers who give people a stake. We heard that the speaker of parliament, who is also supposed to be the negotiator, has been taken aside. What does that mean for the U.S. ability to negotiate with Iran? Trump is saying that the regime might be too fractured to decide. So it is very interesting to hear from you what is happening in Iran and what that means.

Mehdi, I’d like to start with you. Can you tell us the news on the Supreme Leader and how he rules Iran?

Mehdi Parpanchi:
Khamenei, when he became the leader, didn’t have proper religious credentials. It took him about four or five years before he established his authority inside the Islamic Republic. The threshold for his son is even worse. We don’t know if he is injured; we have no answers. But let’s say that Mojtaba is alive. The fact that he is hidden because they are concerned he might be a target means that a leader who is not in touch with the command does not have the opportunity to establish his authority. Even if the succession happens, it would have taken Mojtaba time until he could establish his authority. But he is hidden; no one has heard from him publicly. We can assume that the command level does not have meetings with him to avoid revealing his hiding place. So in this situation, he does not have much authority.

Khamenei was a person who managed all the conflicts and differences between parliament, the government, the president, etc. There are differences in the group. They are all fighting for the same goal, but there are differences in the tactics to get there. Without having someone to resolve them — the final say that Khamenei had — they do not have this figure anymore. Mojtaba has no authority, and these differences and conflicts remain. Imagine a company in which many people have shares, but the majority shareholder does not exist. They do not have somebody who really rules.

Blaise Misztal:
Certainly, we can describe the communication with Mojtaba as being similar to how Osama bin Laden received information at the end of his life: many people transferring handwritten notes back and forth, passing them without being detected.

Ray, do you have more insights on Mojtaba? Is he alive? How in control is he? Or who is running the country?

Dr. Ray Takeyh:
Not more than Mehdi’s reasonable assessment. We are in a situation that is quite extraordinary. There are so many layers of dysfunctionality. We have many people in new roles, which has created difficulties in the system. We do not have the Supreme Leader to impose his decisions on the system. Even if he is physically intact, he does not have the political authority to essentially marshal these coalitions in the right direction. Now they have to make decisions that are very difficult to make under the best of circumstances, but they are doing so at a time when there is a war that continues in some respect in the Gulf. You also have older domestic problems that not only remain unresolved but have been exacerbated by this conflict.

So the management of this country at this time is rather challenging — probably the most challenging management system since the 1980s. The difference is that, in the 1980s, the revolution still had legitimacy, and the Supreme Leader was someone with charismatic authority that was largely uncontested and had some degree of popular approbation. None of those factors are present today.

They seem to be making decisions somehow, but how exactly that is happening, I am not entirely sure I can add any more detail to what has already been suggested.

Blaise Misztal:
Mehdi, you talked about different factions within the regime, and you said it is not moderates versus hardliners. Are these institutional factions? Is it the IRGC versus the clerical establishment? Or is it something else? Are there factions within the security establishment, for example? Do you have a sense?

Mehdi Parpanchi:
I do not think we have any significant clerics around right now, unlike what we had in the early days of the Islamic Republic, when there were many clerics who really had control. Nowadays, who is Iran? Let’s talk about, for instance, Ahmad Alamolhoda, who has control of Mashhad in a way, and also Astan Quds. He used to have power, but not nowadays.

What we are talking about is really IRGC commanders holding all these important posts. And let’s remember that Ali Larijani, who was killed as the head of the Supreme National Security Council, was himself an IRGC commander. So when we say IRGC, it is not a new thing. The Islamic Republic has always really been run by the IRGC. Among those who are now at the top, I guess, except Pezeshkian, who, as far as I remember, has never been a member of the IRGC — although he had affiliations with them — the rest are pretty much all from the IRGC.

But like I said, with any group of people, you name it — five or six people: when you talk to them, they may all be going to the same place, but they will have different ideas in terms of the best way to get there. So yes, the differences are real.

For instance, when you compare Ghalibaf with Jalili, there are real differences between them. There was an episode that happened only two or three years ago, during the most recent presidential election. There were real feuds between Ghalibaf and Jalili. I do not want to go into the details, but even Hassan Nasrallah tried to convince one of them to pull out of the competition. They did not accept it. Ali Khamenei himself sent a message to convince one of them to withdraw from the contest, and neither accepted.

It was not only about themselves; their base also mattered. At the street level, there were real fights between the two camps. So these differences are real, but as I said, it is not about hardliners against moderates. So yes, it is really the IRGC. No one else.

Blaise Misztal:
Are these just personal competitions for power, stature, and influence, with different individuals trying to come out on top? Or are there actual policy, political, or ideological differences among them?

Mehdi Parpanchi:
The first one maybe explains it better. Ray mentioned this earlier: in the early years of the Islamic Revolution, if you go back 30 or 40 years, the Islamic Republic was a mass movement. Right now, it is not a mass movement. What we are talking about is, at most, maybe 10 or 15 percent of the population supporting it. And even out of that 15 percent, not everybody is ideological. Most people support it because of their own interests, basically.

So that can easily shift. If the center of power moves somewhere else, those interests will also shift, and those people will no longer be supporters of the Islamic Republic. So really, you are looking at some 50 or 60 people who have been running the country for the past 47 years, from the early days of the revolution until now.

When you look at the number of people who got killed in this war, and also in the 12-day war, you get to about 55 or 60 people. All of them are IRGC commanders. They are all military, basically top-echelon commanders. From the political side, only Ali Khamenei and Ali Larijani were killed. The rest of the political structure still remains.

So the Islamic Republic that you are facing today is exactly the same as it was five months ago, with Ali Khamenei and Ali Larijani gone. Nothing has changed.

Blaise Misztal:
Dr. Takeyh, would you agree with that — that nothing has changed? The narrative, at least in Washington, seems to be that the U.S. killed Khamenei, which allowed the IRGC to take over, and now we have a more hardline regime than we had before February 28. Is that the right way to understand it?

Dr. Ray Takeyh:
Well, I think some of what is said about who is in charge in Iran in America has to do with our own political polarization. For Democrats, who are uniformly opposed to this war, they brandish the idea that the hardliners have taken over and the regime is more dogmatic. For the Republicans who would like to support the president, they insist, in some cases, that there is potentially more pragmatic leadership. And the president himself has suggested that a regime change has already taken place.

Those are American debates. They are about Americans justifying their respective positions.

Blaise Misztal:
But now reveal the truth to us, Ray.

Dr. Ray Takeyh:
Basically, we do not know what the truth is. There is much about this country that we do not know at this point, and we do not even have the limited access that we had before, with the internet outages and so on. Now, Iran International and news agencies such as that have correspondents on the ground, and they have different ways of getting news stories. But it is very difficult for an analyst to have a precise — or even imprecise — understanding.

I will say a couple of things. It is not unusual in time of war for military leadership to assume a larger stake in national debates. So the idea that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is more central today is not unusual.

I do think that the Islamic Republic, which I tend to view as an ideological organism, will always have the indispensable marriage between muscle and memory. The muscle is provided by the Revolutionary Guards, and the sanction they require is provided by some aspect of the clerical community. That is a symbiotic relationship that is necessary for the longevity of both, and the balance of power between them may shift. What we would call, in America, civil-military relations may actually shift back and forth.

But this conglomeration of actors will remain wedded together because they understand that one cannot function without the other. Right now, obviously, the Revolutionary Guard Corps is the last line of defense. It is the last line of defense against external enemies and the last line of defense against internal dissent. So that essentially makes it a much more powerful actor as Iran tries to sort itself out.

That, in a ballpark sense, is how I would describe it. As I said, too often when Iran is discussed in America, Americans make it about themselves, and I think you see some aspect of that in our current debate, such as it is.

Blaise Misztal:
So I guess the question is: if there are disagreements within the regime, is it just a question of them trying to navigate this complicated policy and decision-making process that has been disrupted by the war? Or is it something that could actually result in infighting, friction, or weakening of the regime because of the competition and jockeying for power between different personalities and different elements?

Where does this go in terms of how the regime is now able to pull itself back together? The president has said that the regime is fracturing. Does that mean it is actually going to fall apart in some way, or does it just have to reconcile these competing interests and personalities?

Dr. Ray Takeyh:
I would just say that factionalism has been endemic to the Islamic Republic since 1979. Too often, from Jimmy Carter all the way seemingly to Donald Trump, American presidents have seen that factionalism as a means of gaining leverage inside Iranian politics. Almost never has that come to bear.

First of all, those factional divisions — every institution has divisions within it — are something American presidents think they can exploit to advance U.S. strategic objectives. The demarcations between hardliners and moderates, pragmatists and recalcitrant actors, have been around for a long time. Actually, the Islamic Republic has usually used that demarcation to its advantage by having credible voices of reason that the Americans can speak to.

One thing we can say is that the position the regime has taken in the negotiations, really since the June war, has been the same. They have reportedly offered some kind of suspension for three to five years. They have maintained that they have a right to enrich and that this right will not be relinquished. That was the position before the June war. It was the position after the June war. It was their position before March, and it is their position today, as far as we know.

So there is constancy in their approach. Of course, the issue of the Gulf has been added as an additional point of contention and leverage that both sides seem to think they have in a time of conflict.

My impression of the Islamic Republic’s political elites is that they come together. Once the conflict is over, fingers will be pointed about who was at fault and how that can be sorted out. But in this time, I suspect they are going to stick together to deal with the situation, which is quite urgent.

Blaise Misztal:
Mehdi, your thoughts?

Mehdi Parpanchi:
I agree with Ray. Going back a little bit to what you said about whether the recent war made the Islamic Republic even more hardline or even more dogmatic — to be honest, I do not understand that notion.

You may remember that movie where somebody was showing off the loudspeaker he had and saying that it goes up to 10, and how loud that is. Then the other guy says, “Can it go up to 11?” Maybe just a little bit more.

A hardliner is a hardliner. How can it be even more hardline? Remember this regime, less than four months ago, killed thousands of people — tens of thousands of people — within 48 hours. So how much more hardline can it get, really? How much more dogmatic can it be?

About the negotiations: they have been going on for more than two decades, and we have seen what happened — negotiation after negotiation. Think about the last year. There were negotiations. It got nowhere. Then the 12-day war. Another round of negotiations. Then the 39- or 40-day war. Now again, they are doing more negotiations.

We had those wars because negotiations failed, and now you are going to have more of the same negotiations to reach where, we do not know.

So the question is really this: yes, the war has weakened the Islamic Republic. There is absolutely no doubt about it. Whoever says otherwise just does not want to see the reality. It has been degraded massively in every single aspect. If we want to evaluate the Islamic Republic, it is weaker — massively weaker. But has it changed? I do not think it has. Is it more hardline? I do not think it is, because you cannot be more hardline than what you already are. When someone is pregnant, that person cannot be more pregnant. Pregnancy is pregnancy.

In terms of the nuclear program, it is damaged massively. We know that. I do not know what is happening in Fordow or in the other mountains. We do not know what is going on there. But parts of the nuclear cycle — let’s say the yellowcake facilities — because you need a cycle to be able to spin those centrifuges, much of that cycle is basically decimated, massively damaged. So that cycle has stopped.

Does it mean Iran will forget about its nuclear ambitions? I do not think so. As long as the Islamic Republic is there, those ambitions will remain. Iran’s nuclear program was pregnant with a nuclear bomb. The war, I do not think, has stopped or ended that pregnancy. The delivery will be longer, of course, but the baby is still there. Whenever the war stops, if things go back to where they were, Iran will continue that. I am sometimes amazed to hear that the administration and the Iranian team are discussing 15 years of suspension, 20 years, 25 years. That does not make sense to me, to be honest with you. It can be 200 years, but the reality will be only two years, only three years. The moment President Trump leaves office, Iran will go back to what it was doing.

In terms of the proxies, they can agree, “Okay, we will not support them.” But the reality on the ground is that the proxies are embedded in the IRGC. The IRGC is an FTO — a terrorist organization according to the U.S. State Department. What do you want to do with the IRGC? Those proxies are embedded in the IRGC. They are part of the IRGC.

Look at what is going on in Tehran right now. Hashd al-Shaabi is in the streets of Tehran. They have patrol stations with their own flags and their own people. Iranian people see that these are Hashd. Iranian proxies are now controlling Iranian cities, and that tells us a lot about the situation in Iran. If they had enough Iranian security guards, they would not import their proxies from Iraq.

But that is another discussion. What I am trying to say is that I really do not understand what kind of deal the administration wants to get with Iran. Because on proxies, no matter what they say, no matter what you sign on paper, at the end of the day, it is going to last as long as President Trump is in office. The moment he leaves, everything will go back to where it was — or let’s put it this way: Iran will try to rebuild whatever remains.

So what really matters is, when President Trump leaves office, what remains on the ground?

Blaise Misztal:
I want to get to the negotiations in just a second, but let me follow up with you. You said the regime is weaker now. Is there a chance that the different factions you talked about earlier — that their fighting is going to weaken it even more? Or in the end, will they all stick together for the sake of keeping the regime alive to the best of their ability?

Mehdi Parpanchi:
There is a saying in Farsi: they may eat each other’s flesh, but they will not throw away the bones. When you see fighting between, let’s say, two brothers, you should never take it seriously, or you should never think that you can intervene and use it for your own benefit. The moment you do, they are not really going to allow you to benefit from that feud, because that is internal.

So that internal infighting, I believe, will continue. As Ray said, it has been there from day one, and it will continue as long as the Islamic Republic is there.

But from the point of view of the U.S., Israel, or many other countries in the region — all of them are really damaged. All those Gulf countries, most of them were thinking they could live with the Islamic Republic. They could understand the problems, but they also thought they could have a kind of coexistence. I think that delusion is done.

They have seen what the real Islamic Republic is, the real face of the Islamic Republic that Iranian people already knew, but that the outside world perhaps did not know as much. Everybody now is facing this reality.

As I said, as long as the Islamic Republic is there — I know people do not like when you say “essentialism,” because it does not have a positive connotation. People may say you cannot think about political systems as having an essence that will never change. But in the case of the Islamic Republic, the truth of the matter is that yes, it has an essence, and it is not going to change.

Blaise Misztal:
Ray, what are the implications of that for the administration’s attempts to negotiate with the Iranians? You said the regime keeps making the same demands. They have not changed since before or after the war. Is that just a function of the inability to make decisions and decide on new negotiating positions? Or is it this ideological steadfastness, as Mehdi was just saying? Should we not expect them to make concessions now if they were not willing to make them before?

Dr. Ray Takeyh:
I would argue that is the case. The administration needs to figure out what its own requirements are. Reportedly, Vice President Vance offered a 20-year suspension of nuclear enrichment activities. President Trump has rejected that at least twice since then. So what is the administration’s position? Is it suspension of enrichment for a period of time, or is it permanent abandonment of enrichment? We have to sort that out, because at least there are two stated American positions on the table, and they are very different.

If you do not have a permanent ban on enrichment, then Iran is entitled to have some enrichment processing activities and apparatus. Then we get into all that JCPOA stuff. Then you enter the nuclear arms-control bazaar, and the haggling starts about which rotor goes into which centrifuge in which year — that whole JCPOA cycle. Is it prescribing enrichment activities? Then that is a different thing. So the Americans have to sort that out.

But the Iranian nuclear position at this point is, in some ways, secondary to what is taking place in the Gulf. As you can see, their latest position, as far as we know, is that no negotiations can take place unless the blockade is lifted. And there are conditions that they would agree to regarding lifting the blockade. Namely, they want a greater management role in the Persian Gulf waterways. I also think they are quite serious about charging tolls, and those charges would be discriminatory. Russian and Chinese ships probably would not have to pay, and Europeans and others would.

So I think that to get to the nuclear issue, you first have to deal with the Gulf issue — if, in fact, the sequencing the Iranians have presented is their latest position: first the Gulf, then the conversation about the nuclear issue. Thus far, as I understand it, the administration has quite sensibly rejected that.

So the entrance of the Persian Gulf into this discussion has actually made it more complicated, because the Iranian government, as far as I can tell — and to the extent that we have access to its deliberations — believes it has very significant leverage over the international community by obstructing maritime trade. They are not going to relinquish that objective in a permanent way, and they are not going to relinquish it cheaply.

So that is a whole different complication before we even get to the nuclear issue, and it makes an agreement impossible. We are in a kind of stalemated position where both parties, the United States and Iran, believe they can impose economic pain on the other side to the extent that one of them will acquiesce.

There is no question that the United States can impose more economic pressure on Iran, but the Iranian case is that they can endure that pressure more than the Americans can. I do not know if that is true, but that is essentially where we are in this rather unusual, if not peculiar, stalemate.

Blaise Misztal:
Dr. Takeyh, sticking with you: if the reports that Ghalibaf has stepped down or been removed from his position on the negotiating team are true, does that reveal anything to us about either the internal deliberations of the Iranians or whether they are or are not willing to shift or negotiate?

Dr. Ray Takeyh:
What I have seen, given the limited purview we have into the Iranian press, is a lot of discussion of unity and praise for Ghalibaf. I think the parliament passed a resolution — 291 votes or so — expressing confidence in Ghalibaf’s leadership and the Iranian negotiating team. Whenever those sorts of expressions of solidarity are aired, that usually means there is something else going on.

Ghalibaf was never a figure who, in my view, was trusted by Ali Khamenei. He was too slippery, too corrupt, too enamored of Western things. He was never the kind of figure really trusted by him. Saeed Jalili was more trusted, but everybody thought he was too nuts for the job.

So you have this contest between one guy whose corruption and mendacity are notorious, and another guy who has integrity — Saeed Jalili — but is just too bonkers. Who will come out of this? I honestly do not know.

Blaise Misztal:
Does it have implications for the negotiations or the positions Iran might be willing to accept? Or is it just internal political struggle?

Dr. Ray Takeyh:
I am not sure if it changes the Iranian negotiating position, but Ghalibaf is one of those Iranians who has the capacity to tranquilize the Western mind. Not as smooth as Javad Zarif, but he would reach out to the Americans. I imagine there has been some back-channeling between Ghalibaf and the Americans, the J.D. Vance camp. That is kind of what they do. Ali Larijani used to do that. That does not mean their position has changed, but they present those positions with the cloak of pragmatism in order to give Americans, who want a way out of their predicament, a way out of their predicament.

Blaise Misztal:
Mehdi, I want to turn back to you. But first, let me encourage the audience to get involved. If you have questions you want to pose to Ray or Mehdi, please feel free to submit them using the Q&A function in Zoom, and then I will read them out.

Mehdi, I wanted to pick up on something Ray said — that we are sort of in this economic game of chicken, waiting to see which side is suffering more economic harm or is willing to endure the pain longer. Do you have a sense of how much, if at all, the blockade is imposing pain on the regime in Tehran, and how long they might be willing or able to endure that pain?

Mehdi Parpanchi:
It depends on the reserve capacity, if that makes sense. The oil is pumping out, and you have to put it somewhere. You need to sell it. If you cannot, then you need to store it somewhere.

Our very good friend Eiad Malachi had his numbers, and I am increasingly believing that his estimate — or educated guess — is accurate, give or take maybe one week or two. The economic pressure on the Islamic Republic and on the Iranian people is immense.

What we see in terms of prices is that the price hike is 50 or 60 percent in some items, mostly staples. Food is up 230 or 300 percent. It is massive, and it is putting pressure on the people and also on the system itself.

But you need to be aware that when you talk about the economy, the meaning is not the same for, let’s say, an American and an Iranian official. I will give you an example. Ali Khamenei never used the word “development” in a positive way. When you look at his speeches — and there are hundreds and thousands of them — he never uses the word toseeh in Farsi, or “development,” in a positive way. He always talks about it from a negative point of view because he sees it as a Western concept that the Islamic Republic should not adopt and should be against.

Instead, he introduced another concept that he called the Islamic-Iranian model of progress, if you like, and he used it against development. I think it was maybe in 2003 that they made it a policy, a strategic policy document, which was communicated to all branches of government, institutions, and everyone.

What was the aim? Khamenei was basically thinking that this model of progress, or economic progress, would turn Iran into a model of a new Islamic civilization — tamaddun-e novin-e Islami. What does that tell you? It tells you that this regime — I mean, the Supreme Leader, who was Ayatollah Khamenei, is dead now, but his son is even dumber in terms of subscribing to the same ideology — and everybody else, Ghalibaf, Jalili, yes, there are differences among them, but at the end of the day, they all want to get to that end.

So when you talk about the economy, you are using the same word, but it does not mean the same thing for them. What I am trying to get to is this: the blockade, in terms of the economy, yes, is going to harm the Islamic Republic and damage it. But do they care? Not really.

What they are waiting for is that the midterm election is coming, fuel prices are going up in the U.S., and they are hoping that the share prices will go down. They are hoping that the damage in the U.S. will push the president to change his position. At what price to Iran’s economy? Who cares? It does not matter.

So I do not really think this pressure will make them blink, if you are waiting for the blockade to change their position. I am not sure it will.

Blaise Misztal:
What about the effect on the Iranian people, who, as you mentioned, had already taken to the streets to protest the regime and economic conditions at the beginning of the year? Thus far in the conflict, President Trump has been telling them to stay home. But with the ceasefire, and if prices keep going up, does that create greater pressure — a greater desire by the people to take to the streets again? Or are they just going to have to suffer while the regime continues to oppress them?

Dr. Ray Takeyh:
I would say Mehdi has reporters, correspondents, and sources of information that can answer this question more authoritatively.

What we saw previously after the June war is that there is always an aftershock. I think we will see a similar aftershock because, as I mentioned, all the problems of the Islamic Republic have been aggravated by this war and its conduct.

The economic situation — the depletion of the economy — is not getting better. The oil wells that are not being used may actually be out of commission in a way that they cannot be resurrected. The income disparity, of course, is great. The place is running out of water. The ecological disasters are quite substantial. So all those problems remain, along with the problem of lack of political representation, and so forth.

The key test for the Islamic Republic will be two things. Number one: can it come out of this conflict with a narrative of success? If they can get some kind of agreement on the Gulf where they have greater influence and then go back to protracted negotiations, that constitutes a success.

The second thing is that how it comes out of this war will affect how it deals with internal dissent, and probably the power and strength of that internal dissent. It demonstrated in January that it is capable of killing large numbers of people. Does it still have the capacity to do that? That is going to be the foremost test for the Islamic Republic.

But it will confront the next demonstrations with a very different elite. It may be a different category of people. Now, I think the category of people that have been placed broadly in the Revolutionary Guards are quite capable of dealing with the situation in terms of their intentions. Whether they have the ability to do so remains to be seen. But that is going to be the test.

Blaise Misztal:
Mehdi, I would be curious to hear your thoughts. Let me also ask, based on what Ray just said: we have largely been talking about the elite in the regime, but there is also a question about the cohesiveness of the regime lower down the ranks — particularly the people they rely on to stay in power and to pull the trigger when they are told to do so against their fellow countrymen in the streets.

Are those lower ranks of the IRGC and the Basij still willing to commit to this regime? Is their commitment ideological? Is it more instrumental, because being part of the regime is how you get ahead in life? And is that going to erode if there is economic pain and an inability to provide financial benefits? I do not know if you have any insights, but I would be curious to hear your thoughts.

Mehdi Parpanchi:
About defection, or whether parts of the IRGC or Basij will basically stop defending the system: I do not think they will, as long as the mixed messaging is going on.

The first two weeks of the war, I think, were very successful in terms of really frightening the system. The Islamic Republic itself and its supporters were frightened, because everybody was thinking that this was going to be regime change. Khamenei was gone. That was a massive shock.

But after March 17 — the messaging changed. Before that, what we were hearing from President Trump, Netanyahu, CENTCOM, and everyone else was the sense that they were preparing the ground for people to be safe so that people could come out again.

But from March 17, or maybe March 18, everything changed, because President Trump started talking about how regime change had already happened and a new regime was in place, and we were talking with them.

So from that moment, the psychology of the war changed. One, it empowered the IRGC and the Islamic Republic, because the message they got was that Trump was looking for an exit route. Basically, they did not manage to win the war, so they were looking somewhere for an exit door.

And two, if you were waiting for defections, defections happen when people believe that the future does not belong to the Islamic Republic — that the current system has absolutely no chance. Then it is time for me to change sides.

But when you start talking to the Islamic Republic, you are not sending the message that the future does not belong to the Islamic Republic. So that mixed messaging from the president, I think, was a mistake. He was doing it for one reason: to control the markets here in the West, or in the U.S. He had his own agenda, and it was working in terms of controlling the oil price and the share market.

But the message it was sending to Iran was: do not defect, because the Islamic Republic will stay in place. I am talking to them. And in terms of the population — going back to your previous question — will there be a massive uprising? I think there was a very good chance for it. But now people are kind of disappointed.

Look at this from the point of view of the Iranian people: the regime killed tens of thousands of people, and now the U.S. government is talking to them. That is the kind of message it sends to the street. We see many people on social media saying, “We do not trust this anymore.” Because if there is a message to come out, what if we go again, we get killed, and then the U.S. government continues talking to them again?

So these are the side effects of the policy that the U.S. government, or President Trump, has been pursuing.

Blaise Misztal:
What would it take, Mehdi, to rebuild that confidence among the Iranian people — that they would have the support and backing of the U.S. to give them the trust they need to go back out into the streets when the time is right? Is it just rhetoric? Is it consistent messaging from the U.S.? Or at this point is something more needed?

Mehdi Parpanchi:
If you have a meeting with me, based on how persuasive you are, you may manage to change my mind. But when you are talking about public opinion, you are talking about millions of people. That sentiment cannot be changed like this.

If there was a moment, it was there, but unfortunately they did not use it. Israel was actually insisting on that. If you go back to Chaharshanbe Suri, people were expecting that there would be a call for protest, but President Trump stopped it. Netanyahu wanted to do it. President Trump explicitly stopped it. It was unused. I guess a week later or so, some reporters also reported that it happened.

So this is fact: that opportunity was missed. I am not saying that it will not come back again, and I am not saying that if they had called for a protest, it would definitely have been successful. Nobody knows. But at the end of the day, that was an opportunity to be taken.

The bigger story is not that particular day. The bigger story is that the narrative of the war until March 17 was: we are preparing the ground for the Iranian people to come out. In other words, there was an air raid, and then the expectation was that the Iranian people on the ground would change it.

After March 17, the narrative changed: this war is only to pressure the current regime to change its behavior. That was a big change, and in my opinion, it was a mistake. Because this regime — go back through the past two decades, and good luck if you manage to change its behavior.

Blaise Misztal:
Dr. Takeyh, any thoughts on the lower ranks of the regime, or the willingness of the Iranian people to turn out?

Dr. Ray Takeyh:
A lot of the success of any internal protest movement, any popular insurrection, lies in the regime faltering. And it has many different ways of faltering, and they tend to be related: losing a war abroad; fractures within the system; beginning to see the whole edifice going wobbly — an edifice that I suspect is already hollowed out — and that essentially produces a convulsive movement.

It is very difficult, as I always say, to predict a revolution. It is very difficult to understand a movement even when you are living through it. But one of the things we have to see is whether the combined pressures of external stress and internal dissent are capable of fracturing at least the lower ranks, or some aspect of them, whereby they no longer feel they can discharge their activities with impunity.

That happened in 1979, when the regime sort of collapsed from the top. We still do not know precisely what percentage of the royalist army was left, but enough was left to discharge its function if it was properly disciplined.

But anyway, the Islamic Republic has one advantage over the monarchy: namely, it understands that people hate its guts. That is actually a good thing. They are self-aware enough to know that everybody hates them, and that causes them to be paranoid, suspicious, and prepared. But that does not mean they cannot be overwhelmed.

I do not believe in the notion that the Islamic Republic is perennially indestructible. I do think we will get to the post-Islamic Republic. Once we do so, much of the analysis and assessment that came before will be reconsidered, reexamined, and hopefully discarded.

Blaise Misztal:
Well, I certainly hope you are right. Ray, Mehdi, thank you very much for your time and your insights this morning. Thank you to our audience, everyone who tuned in. Wishing everyone a good day, and I look forward to seeing you on the next JINSA webinar. Thank you very much.

The post Transcript: Webinar – Is the Iranian Regime Fracturing? appeared first on JINSA.

PANELISTS

IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror

Distinguished Fellow, JINSA; Former Head, Israel’s National Security Council

Ambassador Eric Edelman

Distinguished Scholar, JINSA; Former U.S. Under Secretary of Defense for Policy

Gen. Frank F. McKenzie Jr., USMC (ret.)

Hertog Distinguished Fellow, JINSA; Former Commander, U.S. Central Command; Former Director for Strategic Plans and Policy, Pentagon

The discussion was moderated by JINSA Vice President for Policy Blaise Misztal.

—

TRANSCRIPT

Transcript has been lightly edited for flow and clarity.

Blaise Misztal:
Welcome to JINSA’s webinar. I’m Blaise Misztal, JINSA’s Vice President for Policy. We are here today to discuss the situation between the United States, Israel, and Iran. We were expecting the ceasefire that was announced two weeks ago to expire at the beginning of the week; instead, we’ve had a continuation of this ceasefire. We have an expert panel to discuss what it all means, where we are going, and what to expect next.

I’m pleased to be joined by Ambassador Eric Edelman, former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy; General Frank McKenzie Jr., former Commander of U.S. Central Command; and Major General Yaakov Amidror, JINSA Distinguished Fellow and former Israeli National Security Advisor.

Ambassador Edelman, let’s start with you to characterize the current situation. There was a ceasefire to allow negotiations. Negotiations are still not happening. In the meantime, the U.S. imposed a blockade, Iran claims it’s a violation of the ceasefire. Trump posted about creating a kill zone in the Persian Gulf.

What is the current situation? How should we understand where we are in the current situation?

Ambassador Edelman:
We have an unstable ceasefire. We had a pause in kinetic attacks by the U.S. and Israel against Iran. Technically, the blockade imposed by the U.S. is an act of war, hence Iran sees it as a violation of the ceasefire. The Iranians also violated the ceasefire, conducting attacks on shipping in the Gulf, which the president reacted to with the post you mentioned.

The goal of the ceasefire was to allow negotiations. The Pakistanis, as mediators, tried to bring Iran and the U.S. together to negotiate. The president postponed the end of the ceasefire indefinitely, although reports in the media said for three to five days to allow us to see if a ceasefire is possible.

But now his proposal, which was presented by the Pakistani leaders, has received no response at all from the Iranians, which raises the question of whether they are even capable of responding.
Then the president will have a fundamental decision to make: whether he goes back to kinetic military activity in order to try to coerce the Iranians to go back to the table, or whether he simply allows this ceasefire to drag on indefinitely. It might mean we would be in a no-peace, no-war scenario.

The only thing I would say, and I defer to my friend and colleague and former CENTCOM commander, General McKenzie, is that the president seems to have shown a real wariness recently about resuming kinetic military activity.

If you look at the movement of U.S. assets into the region, both seaborne and air assets, it is clear that General McKenzie’s successor, a couple of times removed, is preparing options for the president should he decide to go back to kinetic activity.

But the real question is whether the president is ready to do that in the face of what he has shown himself to be quite sensitive to, which is the reaction from the market and by American public opinion. Public opinion remains extremely negative about this war. In fact, support for the war has declined over the past eight weeks, not grown or even stayed stable. So that, I think, is where we are right now.

Blaise Misztal:
Thanks, Ambassador Edelman. I definitely do want to talk about options, especially on the military side, if the ceasefire were to fail. But first, I wanted to ask you, General McKenzie, if you could give us an operational assessment of the blockade that the United States has imposed.

We have tweets from CENTCOM giving us statistics on the number of ships it has turned back, reaching almost 30, I think, at this point. But there are also reports in the media that maybe an equal number of ships have somehow evaded the blockade.

What is your assessment of both how well the blockade is working and what its effects are, and how the United States is going about making sure that ships are not getting out of the Persian Gulf?

General McKenzie:
The problem with a blockade is one of broad-area maritime surveillance, BAMS is what it is known as. You get broad-area maritime surveillance by integrating imagery from satellites, signals intelligence from other platforms, manned aircraft and unmanned aircraft, and AIS, which is a maritime navigation system that should be used, but often is not used in the Middle East. There are a whole variety of sources that CENTCOM gets information from. They build a very comprehensive picture of what is out there.

I think the blockade is generally successful. I cannot tell you that one or two ships have not slipped through, but I suspect far fewer than are advertised have successfully slipped through. So I would assess the blockade as an operation that has largely been quite successful.

As you see, they are expanding operations into the Indian Ocean and further west. But there are a couple of things to bear in mind. A significant fraction of the U.S. Navy’s cruiser-destroyer force is now engaged in this operation, probably at least 20 CRUDES assets, as we would call them, mainly destroyers and probably a couple of cruisers. Add in the carrier, LCS ships, amphibious warships, and Marines. So this is a big endeavor. CENTCOM is fully capable of running this operation. They have the command-and-control architecture to do it. But a significant number of ships are tied up.

The second thing is that there is risk here. First, the Navy does not like to operate in narrow waters. I do not blame them. Those ships are not meant to operate with their radars over land. They can do it, but it is not the preferred method, and your warning times are very short. If you get a major attack or a cruise-missile launch from metropolitan Iran, warning may be measured in seconds.

We have seen the Navy perform very well down in the Red Sea against the Houthis with a threat like this, so I have no doubt that the Navy can defend itself if necessary. Nonetheless, the risk is high. Additionally, if you do VBSS, shorthand for visit, board, search, and seizure, there is always the opportunity for somebody on the ship to decide that this is the day they want to make a last stand. They could attack the boarding force, blow the ship up, or do a variety of things, all of which can result in casualties. Naval Forces Central Command, U.S. Fifth Fleet, the Marines, and CENTCOM are managing this, but it is a risk we should recognize.

There is also the risk of floating mines. The Iranians do not adhere to the standard law-of-war practice, which says that if you mine, you must record where the mines are. They are well beyond that, believe me. So it is possible that mines are drifting out there, or that they have deployed mines in order to create a circumstance in which a warship might hit one.

Let us be clear: a warship hitting a mine is very different from a tanker hitting a mine. On a 150,000-ton tanker, if you hit a mine on the bridge, people might look at each other and say, ‘Gosh, we just hit a mine.’ On an 11,000-ton warship, if you hit a mine, everybody knows you hit a mine. In fact, the ship is probably in danger of sinking. All of these things are being accommodated by the people working this problem right now, but the risk is high.

The last thing, and we may know more over time, is that there are two navies that Iran has: the regular Iranian Navy, and that navy is largely destroyed. Its larger warships, typically, we have cited numbers of 150 or more, have been largely decimated. But the IRGC Navy, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy, is made up of small boats. A lot of them are still left.

More significantly, we know from past practice that the IRGC Navy selects and promotes officers based on aggressiveness and ideological purity, not competence or level-headed decision-making.

We have seen this play out in several incidents over the last 20 years up in the Arabian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz, where U.S. sailors and British sailors have been taken prisoner, ships have been attacked, and drones have been shot down, an RQ-4 in July 2019, for example, without reference to higher command. There is always that risk.

The Iranian chain of command is already a little rickety. Now you have the IRGC Navy operating up there, and the principle is that they are willing to make very aggressive decisions, confident that Iran will have to back in and follow them. So this is a high-risk operation. The U.S. Navy is doing a magnificent job of it right now, but the risk is very high. I do not want to minimize that risk.

Blaise Misztal:
General, if I could stick with you for a second, you mentioned both the risk of mines and the risk of the IRGC Navy, their fast boats and other capabilities. I think President Trump, in that Truth Social post, referenced both recently.

We also heard yesterday that, at a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee, defense officials said there might be up to 20 mines that the Iranians have placed in the Strait, and that it could take up to six months to clear them. President Trump today, in that post, said, ‘We are clearing them; it would take just a couple of days,’ and also that we are going to go after the small boats and other IRGC Navy threats.

What are our options for demining and trying to deal with the IRGC Navy, and how much risk do they pose?

General McKenzie:
Here is the way to think about it: think about it in terms of four operations that CENTCOM can undertake or is undertaking. The first one I have just described to you, which is the blockade. The second is the clearance of the Strait of Hormuz. You do not have to clear the whole Strait. You have to clear a proofed passage, a key route, where ships can pass.

I heard the six-month comment, and I also heard the White House disavow that, but I think six months is a pretty conservative estimate of how long it would take to clear the Strait. It might not be six days, but I do not think it is six months to do this. I do not know what we are doing; I do not have access to information about what we are doing or not doing to clear the Strait of Hormuz. But I can tell you that, in order to do that, you are going to send vulnerable platforms into an area to sweep mines.

CENTCOM is going to want to be sure that the Iranians cannot attack our vulnerable mine-countermeasure platforms as they do their work. That means you have to go up there and strike those fast-attack boats.

You have to strike where you think short-range missiles can be launched. You are going to go after Iranian observation posts, either visual or electromagnetic. CENTCOM was in that program when the ceasefire occurred. I think they got well into that program, but there is probably more work to be done before you are completely confident about your ability to go in and do this clearance.

That is an operation that is hanging out there. What I would look for is this: if you see U.S. warships transit the Strait of Hormuz, that will be an indicator of where we are in this process. That has not yet occurred. We could be doing work right now; I just do not know the answer. Some of the precursor work has been done. So there is the clearance of the Strait. There are two other operations out there.

The third would be, if we are directed, and I believe we have now been directed, to go in and prevent counter-seizure activities. That is going to raise the risk a little bit. You are going to have to get closer up into the Strait.

Your small attack craft are either working against what mine-laying efforts are out there, or, if we decide to extend that protection to other ships going into the Gulf that Iran challenges, then you are going to be in direct confrontation with the Iranians. You are going to be in a gun battle up there. We will prevail in that gun battle, but the risk to the U.S. Navy gets higher as you do each of these steps. That is the third module that could be employed.

The fourth module, of course, would be the resumption of large-scale combat operations against Iran. CENTCOM has plans for that. We can pick those plans back up and get into that program very quickly. That would include strikes on everything across the whole gamut of the Iranian military and perhaps other targets as well, if the president directed it.

These are the four operations: the ongoing blockade; the clearance of the Strait; counter-seizure operations or directed action against ships that are challenging our mine-clearing operation; and fourth, if the ceasefire is over, a large-scale resumption of strikes against Iran. That is how I divide the four military options.

Blaise Misztal:
Thanks, General. Could you quickly follow up on that third set of activities, the counter-seizure activities? Is that principally something that has to be conducted from the water by naval vessels? Is that an aerial task? Or is it a combination, joint air-and-sea operation?

General McKenzie:
It is joint. Sometimes we get the impression that it is just the Navy up here doing this work. This is a joint operation. It is Navy-centric because those are the platforms we see, but land-based airpower has a huge role to play here.

Sea-based airpower does as well. The Marines are fully engaged, potentially raid forces if necessary, also a significant combat airpower that deploys with a marine expeditionary unit. Army attack helicopters are involved as well, as are possibly Army missiles launched from the southern end of the strait, if necessary, fired against targets up there. It is a joint operation, which is why it is a complex operation. But CENTCOM has the command and control to do it.

Blaise Misztal:
Given how much of our surface fleet is involved in this blockade and in operations around the Middle East, how long do you think we could sustain the blockade as it is currently being deployed?

General McKenzie:
Nobody in the world is better than the U.S. Navy at underway replenishment and keeping ships supplied at sea. I would think CENTCOM is working on plans to rotate ships offline. Just because there are 20 ships up there does not mean 20 ships are working all the time. You can bring them into ports; you can do a variety of things. They will want to keep that very quiet, of course, so the ships do not become targets.

A ship is much safer operating at sea than alongside in port somewhere. But they will rotate that. We can do this for an extended period of time, in my opinion. The price, though, will be paid in future maintenance costs. That is something I knew as a CENTCOM commander. When you maintain large forces in CENTCOM that are not programmed in the global force management process, there is a future bill that accrues and eventually needs to be paid. I would also add, as an observation, that the Navy needs to be much more efficient in its approach to managing its maintenance cycle.

Blaise Misztal:
Thanks. Let me pivot now to you, General Amidror, and the view from Israel. In particular, what is Israel seeing Iran doing during the ceasefire? Is Iran in any way reconstituting any of its military capabilities? How has it been used this period?

General Amidror:
First of all, it is clear that the decision is now on the American side. We are preparing ourselves to resume the war. We aren’t taking part in the blockade. Our navy isn’t built for such operations, we can help in intelligence and special forces, but no more than that. What we see in Iran today is, first, that they are trying to get out of the tunnels, which have been blocked by us and by the Americans, with as many launchers and missiles as possible.

They understand that the only capability they have, if a decision is made to resume the war, is to launch more missiles. I do not believe they have any secret cards in their hands. What we probably see is more of the same.

How much more depends on our ability, and when I say ‘our,’ I mean the Americans and the Israelis, to identify where they are hiding the launchers and missiles, and to destroy as many of them as possible at the beginning of the war, as we did in June. Israel’s main job during the ceasefire is to identify the movement of the launchers and the missiles so we will be in a better position to do what is needed if the war resumes.

The other area where we see the Iranians working very hard is rebuilding their air-defense systems. They cannot go back to the same capabilities they had before. Since June, they have lost the majority of them, the vast majority. They will try to preserve something that might threaten American and Israeli pilots. They were very happy when they succeeded in intercepting an F-15, but from what I understand, they did not succeed in rebuilding their air-defense system. These are isolated capabilities around launchers that they succeeded in saving from the Israeli operation in June.

The Iranians are speaking about something new they will do. I do not see them having such a surprise underground. I think they will probably focus on the countries around them, the Gulf countries, because it is easier.

Those countries do not have the capabilities to defend themselves in the same way as Israel, and the Iranians understand that they are also part of the Israeli-American alliance. They may not be taking part in the war itself, but they are still part of the American axis. The Iranians will try to put pressure on the United States and Israel by launching many rockets and drones towards Gulf facilities.

I believe that will be the big difference from the previous stage – focusing more on the Gulf instead of dividing their weapons between Israel and the Gulf. They now understand that it is very hard to overcome the defensive capabilities we have in Israel, including anti-missile systems and the air-defense batteries here.
Israel is preparing itself, we have a new list of targets. The decision will be made by the Americans and Israelis about which part of the Iranian system we now want to attack and destroy. I believe that after 24 hours, in which we – Israel and the U.S. – will destroy the air-defense systems Iran was able to rearm – the military superiority over Iran will again be achieved and will be the most important card.

Blaise Misztal:
General McKenzie, do you have a sense of how quickly the Iranians are moving, either in terms of taking out the missiles and launchers, or on the defensive side, putting their defense system back together? Another way of asking that is: how long does the ceasefire go on before Iran gets back to a more dangerous place?

General McKenzie:
I think they are probably having more success digging missiles out than they are working on air defense. A lot of those air-defense systems have to be replaced. Those are complex systems, radars have to be tuned, and you have to do a lot of work to get an air-defense system working. The good news is that I assess that we have very good operational ISR overhead, both electronic and visual.

We should have a very good picture of what they are doing. I continue to believe that while the Iranians may have been able to protect missiles by putting them into deeply bunkered storage sites, that was also an error on their part because it localized them. It allows us to focus our collection. We can see those locations, and it makes it very easy to track those systems when they come out. I am sure they are trying to do that. I would say they are probably going to have more success trying to rebuild their missile force.

But, of course, it is not only the missile; it is the tractor-erector-launcher (TEL), and there are a finite number of those. We have destroyed a number of them. They do not need TEL for every weapon system, but for the longer-range and bigger systems, they certainly do. So while they are making progress and digging some of that stuff out, I would say it has given us an opportunity to further refine our own targeting. Should we be directed to do so, we could get after that with a really high level of ferocity.

Blaise Misztal:
General Amidror, do you share that assessment, or do you have a sense of how quickly they are moving?

General Amidror:
I agree with General McKenzie. This is the area in which we are focusing our efforts. The role of the combination of Israeli intelligence and American intelligence is identifying real-time movements of the launchers, which Iran tries to move out from the tunnels after the Iranians open the tunnel exits that have been blocked by us.
The question, at the end of the day, is a race between their ability to move from one place to another and our ability to intercept the targets on the ground.

We learned a lot through the war, as did the Americans, about tracking and targeting the launchers, and probably we will be better in the future. But we have to understand that the Iranians are very smart, and the Iranian system is learning all the time and changing. Unlike our Western bureaucracies, where it is not so easy to change, they can change very fast. That is not so easy in America and in Israel. We should appreciate their ability to learn and adapt.

Blaise Misztal:
General Amidror, do you think they are capable of that sort of adaptation and disseminating lessons learned and new tactics and procedures, even given the damage that has been done to their leadership and command-and-control structures? Do you think they are adapting in real time right now?

General Amidror:
No question they will learn. They will learn, adapt and change. They are very flexible in their decisions. As I said, we should appreciate their ability to learn and adapt.

Blaise Misztal:
Is that something we might have underestimated, thinking that the decapitation strikes at the beginning of the campaign would cripple their ability to command and control more than it did?

General Amidror:
No, the campaign did cripple their command and control, for example, to organize big salvos of missiles at the same time. But it did not change the ability of the Iranians to learn and change.

Blaise Misztal:
Ambassador Edelman, let me come back to you and the diplomatic front. It seems like there has been a bit of a two-step going on, particularly with the American delegation, which was going to Pakistan on Monday, then was not going to Pakistan, then was going to Pakistan, and then did not go to Pakistan. Ultimately, President Trump extended the ceasefire, saying he is waiting for a unified proposal from the Iranians.

Is this merely an issue of disagreement between the two sides on a deal? Are there bigger logistical problems in these negotiations? What is going on, and what are your expectations about whether we are actually going to see further rounds of talks, either tomorrow or at some future point?

Ambassador Edelman:
Some of the herky-jerky nature of this negotiation is a consequence of the success that the joint force, both the United States and Israel, had in the opening days of this war. Eliminating the command and control, and particularly eliminating the supreme leader, has complicated Iranian decision-making. You get the sense that they have moved from having a robust, vigorous debate about policy at a lower level of the system, but with decisions ultimately being made by the supreme leader and then implemented by others, to a more tentative collective leadership, where the debate is continuing.

The fact that the president said the blockade was continuing, and then said that the Iranians were, in essence, capitulating to every demand he has made, I think, did not sit well with a number of the Iranian leaders. Given the fact that it is now harder for them to make decisions, blocking things is always easier. So you have a situation where a return to negotiations can be blocked, particularly because the high pace of U.S. military sustainment may be interpreted as preparation for renewed conflict.

The air bridge bringing more munitions, aircraft, and refuelers into theater could easily have been read by the Iranians as indicating that they were going to face a repetition of what happened both in June and more recently in February, when they were negotiating and then the United States launched an attack. That explains why this has become more complicated. They are not negotiating something like the JCPOA in 2015, which was a very lengthy document with a number of highly technical annexes. They appear to be negotiating some kind of interim memorandum of understanding with broad heading points that would then have to be filled out by future negotiations.

Therein lies the rub, in part because it is not clear to me that the American negotiators are all that familiar with some of the technical details here. There is potential for misunderstanding, particularly because this is not face-to-face negotiation. Part of this is being mediated by the Pakistanis, who have an interest in keeping the parties at the table.

The tendency, I think, is for them to shade a little bit what they are hearing from both sides in order to keep the parties at the table. That can lead to misunderstandings and miscommunication. We have already seen some of that – in the first round of talks, where the Iranians insisted that Lebanon was part of the ceasefire, the U.S. side said, ‘No, it is not,’ and the Pakistani media said, ‘Yes, it is.’ So you have this kind of misunderstanding when mediation is going on.

Blaise Misztal:
Ambassador, do we have clarity on what the U.S. negotiating position is? What is the deal that the Trump administration has put on the table? Do we know?

Ambassador Edelman:
All we have are fragmentary reports in the press, some of which the administration has denied and some of which appear to be better sourced than others. It does appear that they have called for a 20-year total moratorium or freeze on any enrichment activity by Iran, as well as some steps on the disposition of the 900 pounds of highly enriched uranium at 60 percent. That is what we have seen in the press.

What that does not tell you is, for instance, what would be the disposition of the more than 9,000 pounds of HEU that has been enriched at 20 percent or below level, and how that would be disposed of. That is one reason why I am stressing that the lack of technical expertise among the U.S. negotiators is a little worrisome, at least to me.

Blaise Misztal:
General Amidror, President Trump, while extending the ceasefire, said that part of the problem was that the Iranian regime is fractured. Do you have a sense of how well decision-making is working within the Iranian regime? Is it, in fact, fracturing? Are we seeing any splits between the different elements, or is it all staying fairly unified?

General Amidror:
I do not know, but I think it is not important. What is important is what the terms of the agreement will be, how we reach the agreement, how long negotiations will be, what the people say in the middle, how it will be represented by those who want and don’t want the negotiations. At the end, we need to focus on what will be the Iranian answer, whether there is one, whether that answer is enough to begin negotiations, and, most importantly, what the results of the negotiations will be. We have so many blank points in the puzzle that trying to understand what someone told someone in Tehran along the way is missing the main issue, and we just don’t know what’s happening behind closed doors.

Blaise Misztal:
And from Israel’s perspective, is there a good deal that would be acceptable?

General Amidror:
Yes. I agree with the concern about the lack of experience and knowledge on all the technical issues on the American side of the negotiations. If it is for 20 years, it will be like the Obama agreement. The sunset was the weakest point of the agreement under Obama, and it could be the weakest point of the agreement under Trump.
Similarly to the Obama agreement, no one is mentioning the 20 percent enriched uranium, and no one is mentioning the missiles, and these are very important to us.

By the way, under Obama, the lack of addressing the missiles was also part of the problem. So I hope this administration will not make the same mistakes, and I hope this administration has better negotiators.

Blaise Misztal:
I want to open it up momentarily to the audience. If you have any questions for our panelists, please feel free to submit them using the Q&A function in Zoom, and I will read them out. But first I wanted to turn back to you, General McKenzie, and maybe dive a little deeper into that fourth option that you laid out, which would be a return to kinetic operations. If you were still commander of CENTCOM and you were presenting the president with options now, what would a return to operations look like?

Would it just be a continuation of what we were doing before the ceasefire? Is there anything more that we could do this time around, either to go after more of those Iranian capabilities, missiles, drones, and fast boats, or perhaps to go after countervalue targets to gain leverage on the Iranian regime and try to get them to end this conflict?

General McKenzie:
The Iranians, of course, are not the only learning organization in this conflict, and so we have an opportunity to examine our strikes to date. I am sure CENTCOM has given a lot of reflection to that. I think we would be ready to go right back against missiles, drones, manufacturing areas, bunker areas, any decision against countervalue targets would have to come from the president. Targets that would affect Iranian ability to govern – electricity production, bridges, and things of that nature would all have to come from him.

CENTCOM has these options. The point I always make is that this is a plan that has been worked for many, many years. This is not something that we are doing from scratch. I had responsibility for this plan for three years. My successor owned it for three years. Now it is being executed. It has been refined.

We continued to look at it now. We have had several weeks of engagement to update our targets and look at how they are doing. Even though we are not striking them, we are looking at them very hard with visual, electronic, and other measures, and we have a good picture. I am sure we could go very quickly back into this, should we be directed to do it.

Blaise Misztal:
Are you concerned at all about our stockpile of munitions, either offensive weapons or defensive interceptors, and our ability to sustain another round of fighting?

General McKenzie:
I think we have the capability to take another round of fighting. Commanders are always concerned about something like that. The United States has a very good system for leveling this around the world, and the secretary of defense has the authority, with the staff, to decide how we rebalance these loads against contingencies, not only in Central Command, but in other areas across the world. I think it is a matter of a little concern in the short term. In the long term, though, we have to rebuild the defense industrial base. We have to create conditions where people are willing to build these weapon systems and projectiles, and not be afraid that the next year the orders are going to come off for some other reason. If you want to solve this problem in the long term, steps have to be taken. That is really beyond this discussion.

General Amidror:
We took into account, planning these operations throughout the years, that the ability of the Iranians to launch was much more significant than what we expected it to be. Our ability to identify, destroy, limit and make life difficult for those launchers was much more successful than expected. The number of interceptors needed to intercept the missiles was much less than we had planned for. All in all, it was between 10 and 20 percent of what we had taken into account. So the fact that we are not under any pressure on interceptors is because what we had in mind was a much bigger number of missiles being launched.

Blaise Misztal:
On that point, let me read out a question we received from John Hannah, JINSA’s Randi and Charles Wax Senior Fellow. General Amidror, maybe you can start, and then General McKenzie, I would be curious for your take as well. John asks: Is it fair to draw a preliminary conclusion that Israeli and U.S. intelligence probably underestimated the size of Iran’s missile and drone arsenals, not the size of the barrages that would be fired toward Israel necessarily, but the arsenal and what it would take to degrade it?

General Amidror:
I think we had the numbers. We succeeded in destroying a third of them; a third were blocked inside the tunnels; and they used only a third of what they had. As far as I know, our assessment was very close to the real number of launchers and missiles.

General McKenzie:
It is a very reasonable question, but I would like to wait a little while on that. I do think we may have underestimated drones a little bit. They are much harder. If I were to give ground on anything, I might say they had more drones than we thought. But drones are such an explosive new thing in warfare that we are still dealing with it. I think our responses have been very good, but I would tend to give more weight to that side of the argument than to missiles.

Blaise Misztal:
Maybe sticking with that point, let me push a little further. General McKenzie, John asks: Do you think we underestimated the Iranian response toward our Gulf Arab partners, or that we were underprepared to protect those partners and their assets?

General McKenzie:
I think we were as prepared as we could be, given the limited resources we have. I do not think we could have done a lot more than we did, given the finite number of resources available. I do think that ultimately, the Iranian decision to attack the Gulf allies, and particularly to go after civilian targets, countervalue targets, is going to prove to be a strategic disaster for them. In fact, I would put it on the scale of Hitler’s decision to declare war on the United States in December after Pearl Harbor.

After Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt had no trouble marshaling the American people against the Japanese threat, but there was still broad division in the United States, not widely remembered today, about going to war against Germany. Hitler declared war on the United States and took the problem out of Roosevelt’s hands. In many ways, the Iranian decision to strike our partners in the Gulf made it a lot easier for them to cooperate with us, to go from icy neutrality to something far more helpful.

I do not think that process is over yet. Whatever short-term gain the Iranians achieved, and I understand why they did it; they did it to increase pressure on the United States from our Gulf allies, saying ‘Please make it stop’, it has not been that clear-cut. Ultimately, it will work against them strategically in the long term, in my opinion.

General Amidror:
I agree that it was maybe one of the most important decisions of the Iranians, but I think it is too early to judge the result. It very much depends on how the Gulf countries understand the lessons after the war. One scenario is that the lesson of the Gulf countries is that Israel and America are strong and determined, that they can trust them, and that they cannot trust the Iranians, and the Iranians showed them the real enemy in the Middle East.

Another scenario is that they conclude in the Gulf that the Americans and Israelis speak very highly, but at the end of the day they stop and do not complete the job, and that the Gulf countries will remain there with Iran while the Americans go back far away to Washington and the Israelis go back to their own place, then they may conclude that these two actors cannot be trusted. That would be another Middle East.

The result would be that the Gulf countries decide to compromise with the Iranians because the Iranians are more determined, because the Iranians are there, because they are not going anywhere, and because they have to find a way to live with the Iranians rather than trust the Americans and Israelis. So yes, it was a very important decision by the Iranians. But we do not yet understand the consequences. It will depend greatly on the lessons the Gulf countries draw.

Ambassador Edelman:
I just wanted to put some of this discussion of estimates of Iranian missile capability before the war and now into context. First, because most of their missiles are mobile, going after them is extremely difficult. In the first Gulf War back in the 1990s, we did not do very well, as some of the major studies after that war demonstrated. Bomb-damage assessment is always, in my experience, and I defer to the two generals on the platform here, an art, not a science.

Most pilots come back and say, ‘Yes, I hit the target.’ But that does not really tell you whether the target was destroyed, damaged, or something else. That takes time and analysis by the intelligence community. We have gotten a lot better at it since the 1990s, and really what has been accomplished is amazing. But people should not be surprised if postwar assessments say we did not do quite as well as we thought we did, because that is just the nature of the beast.

Blaise Misztal:
General McKenzie, maybe I can come back to you quickly on the point you raised about the momentous decision Iran made to attack civilian infrastructure and our Gulf Arab partners. We have heard that, in fact, that has spurred some of them, particularly the Emirates, to offer to get involved in offensive operations. Is that something the United States should consider in order to augment our military power? Do they have anything to offer in this fight?

General McKenzie:
As you know, the UAE, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, all of the Gulf states, have very effective fighter aircraft. I would say this is not something we are just thinking of right now, and I will leave it there. They have a role to play here. We talked about that when I was the CENTCOM commander. If we had a situation where we had to defend the Arabian Peninsula, we are not just now coming to considerations of how to employ them today. This is the result of a lot of thinking over a number of years. Depending on their appetite for it, yes, there are things they can do, and I am sure we would be happy to incorporate them into those things.

Blaise Misztal:
Ambassador, a question for you on the diplomatic side from Charles Wax: How can we trust any agreement that the Iranians make, considering their long history of lying and cheating?

Ambassador Edelman:
Very good question. The answer has to be that if there is an agreement, and I agree with General Amidror’s comments about the deficiencies of the JCPOA, which we have discussed at JINSA for years, it cannot just be an agreement that the United States reaches with Iran. It has to be backed up by very intrusive inspections by the IAEA, unimpeded by any kind of cat-and-mouse games that the Iranians might want to play. There would need to be, in my view, some understanding that if they were to cheat or retreat, as they have in the past, there would be pretty commensurate and immediate consequences militarily.

Blaise Misztal:
Sticking with you, Ambassador, another question from John Hannah: Can you give an idea of what a realistic deal on Iranian missiles would look like, especially taking into account the fact that the main threat to our Gulf partners is short-range ballistic missiles and drones?

Ambassador Edelman:
That will actually be one of the hardest things to get to. One of the things I worry about is that it might not be addressed in this MOU being discussed right now. In my view, it is likely to be left for a longer-range negotiation, and that could end up creating the situation General Amidror just described, in terms of fears in the Gulf about being left to deal with this problem on their own.

I do not have a good answer for how you would get after that problem in an agreement. Again, you have to have some ability to verify it, whether by national technical means or by inspections. I cannot imagine Iran agreeing to inspections of its missile facilities, so it would probably have to be some kind of agreement where they allowed us, at least from overhead, to see what they are up to. But that would be very hard to do.

Blaise Misztal:
Are there any existing arms-control agreements that you think would be a sufficient basis or good model to build on here?

Ambassador Edelman:
The model would be the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. President Trump, wisely in my view, withdrew from it in 2019 because there were only two countries in the world whose intermediate-range missiles were being limited, the United States and the Russians, and we were the only ones abiding by the treaty. So the withdrawal made sense. But if you recall, the verification mechanism for that treaty was something we would have to try to replicate. I cannot believe the Iranians would agree to it.

We had a presence at the portal of the missile-production facility in Votkinsk, and we scanned, with very sophisticated equipment, every vehicle that came in and out of that facility to make sure they were not carrying missiles that were banned or regulated under the treaty. I think you need something akin to that to really be able to verify any kind of agreement on short-range or medium-range missiles.

Blaise Misztal:
To close out the hour, I wanted to ask all three of you to give your predictions, always a dangerous game, I know, about how long you expect the ceasefire to last and whether it will end with a deal, a return to war, or something else. General Amidror, I will start with you.

General Amidror:
I do not know. What I can say is that, from our point of view, it is better to have no deal than a bad deal.

Blaise Misztal:
All right. General McKenzie?

General McKenzie:
I cannot improve on that comment. I would just add that if we decide to go back to combat operations, I think the joint force is ready to go and could do whatever the president requires.

Blaise Misztal:
Ambassador Edelman, you will have the last word.

Ambassador Edelman:
On the ceasefire, I think it is likely that we may have about two weeks of ceasefire. I would not expect it to go much longer than that. As to whether it yields an agreement or not, I completely agree with General Amidror’s comment: better not to have a deal than to have a bad one.

I do not think we can exclude that we may end up in a kind of no man’s land of neither peace nor war, with the president carrying this forward for some period of time, in the hope that the blockade itself will bring the Iranians back to the table to make a deal the president finds acceptable.

Blaise Misztal:
Ambassador Edelman, General McKenzie, General Amidror, thank you so much for your time and insights this afternoon. Thank you to everyone who tuned in, and please stay tuned to JINSA.org for all of the latest analysis and updates.

The post Transcript: Webinar – What’s Next for Iran? appeared first on JINSA.

As a former deputy commander of U.S. Central Command, a Navy SEAL and a member of the National Security Council under former President George W. Bush, I spent decades helping oversee U.S. military operations across the Middle East under leaders including Jim Mattisand Lloyd Austin, both of whom later served this nation as Defense secretary. If I were advising President Donald Trump now, my message would be simple: Do not confuse a pause in hostilities with Iran — or even a limited, chaotic “opening” of the Strait of Hormuz — with a durable solution to the hostility between our nations.

The president’s position on Iran has, at times, appeared inconsistent. At times, he has suggested regime change in Iran as an objective. At others, his focus has shifted toward more limited goals, such as preventing a nuclear weapon, reopening the Strait of Hormuz or securing concessions through negotiation. Those are important objectives but they are not, by themselves, a strategy for ending the threat posed by the regime in Tehran. A lasting resolution requires a clearly defined end state.

That kind of clarity has been missing in how the United States has communicated its objectives. Statements suggesting overwhelming or immediate destruction may project strength, but they can also create ambiguity about U.S. intent. Deterrence works best when it’s consistent and tied to clear strategic objectives.

That starts with being clear about the threat. Iran’s leadership has consistently pursued nuclear capability, advanced its missile program, expanded proxy networks across the region and actively supported U.S. adversaries. Those are still their goals, and those goals are not going away. Iran will continue pursuing them regardless of temporary pauses or agreements.

For nearly five decades, U.S. policy has focused on slowing Iran’s progress rather than stopping it outright. Sanctions, limited strikes and negotiated agreements have each had moments of success. But nothing yet has altered the regime’s direction. Instead, our actions have bought more time for Iran to rebuild and continue advancing under less immediate pressure. The current ceasefire fits that pattern. It will lower tensions in the short term, but it will not resolve the underlying conflict.

That raises a more fundamental question: What is the objective? If the goal is simply to manage the threat, then another ceasefire and another round of negotiations may suffice. But if the goal is a lasting resolution, then the U.S. must be clear about what that requires. As long as the current regime remains in power, Iran will continue pursuing the same policies it has for decades. That’s why regime change is not a secondary objective; it is the only path to a durable resolution.

But that does not mean a U.S. invasion of Iran. It means pursuing a different strategy: one that applies sustained economic and operational pressure to the regime’s core institutions, including measures such as targeted economic and maritime restrictions, one that sets clear and enforceable conditions in any negotiation and creates the conditions for internal change over time.

First, any negotiation must be anchored in non-negotiable outcomes. Iran’s nuclear infrastructure must be fully dismantled. Its stockpile of highly enriched uranium must be removed. Support for proxy militias and terrorist networks must end. The free flow of commerce through critical waterways such as the Strait of Hormuz must be guaranteed.

Second, pressure must extend beyond military targets to the core structures that sustain the regime’s power. That includes the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, its financial networks and the internal security apparatus that enforces control at home.

Third, the U.S. should more clearly support Iranians. If regime change is to occur, then it will ultimately be driven from within. American policy can influence the conditions under which that change becomes possible: through information access, economic pressure and coordinated international isolation of the regime’s leadership.

The events of the past several weeks have already shifted the landscape. Iran’s leadership is under greater strain, its capabilities have been tested and its vulnerabilities are more visible than they have been in years. This is not a moment to reset the status quo on a regime that’s now operating from a weaker and more exposed position.

Trump was right to act on the threat Iran poses. But a ceasefire without a clearly defined political objective risks turning military gains into another temporary pause in a decades-long cycle. If the U.S. wants something more than a moment of calm, then it must be willing to define and pursue a different outcome.

There can be no lasting peace with the current regime in Tehran, which is why the current blockade is a step in the right direction. By applying sustained economic pressure without causing further destruction, or making sweeping financial concessions to Iran, it weakens the regime from within and moves us closer to the only outcome that can deliver lasting stability and peace.

VADM Robert Harward, USN (ret.), former Deputy Commander of U.S. Central Command, is an Iran Policy Project Advisor at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA).

Originally published in MS NOW.

The post Regime Change in Iran Remains as Necessary as Ever appeared first on JINSA.

PANELISTS

IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror
Distinguished Fellow, JINSA; Former National Security Advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

The discussion was moderated by JINSA Vice President for Policy Blaise Misztal.

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TRANSCRIPT

Transcript has been lightly edited for flow and clarity.

Blaise Misztal:

Good afternoon everyone and thank you for tuning in for JINSA’s latest webinar update on the status of Operations Epic Fury and Roaring Lion. I’m Blaise Misztal, JINSA’s Vice President for Policy, and we’ve had quite a number of developments since our last webinar, including the declaration by President Trump, about six days ago, of a ceasefire with Iran, negotiations that happened on Saturday in Pakistan between the U.S. and Iranian sides that, at the time, Vice President JD Vance said led nowhere. But now, in recent days, we’re hearing they maybe did make a lot of progress. Then, most recently, President Trump’s declaration of a blockade of all ships entering or exiting Iranian ports that began yesterday.

So to discuss all of that, I’m pleased to be joined by JINSA distinguished fellow and former Israeli National Security Advisor, Major General Yaakov Amidror, and two of our U.S. Admirals, participants in JINSA’s Generals and Admirals Program. We have Vice Admiral Mark Fox, the former Deputy Commander of CENTCOM and Vice Admiral John Miller, former Commander of U.S. Naval Forces, Central Command, NAVCENT.

Thank you all for joining us so much. General Amidror, maybe I can just start with you, and going back to last Wednesday, when President Trump announced the ceasefire with Iran – supposedly lasting two weeks. We’ve heard various reporting about whether Israel was or was not consulted about the ceasefire, whether Israel was or was not caught by surprise by the announcement. Can you tell us – was Israel consulted? How is the ceasefire seen from Israel?

IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror:

Israel was not surprised, I think. At the level of Prime Minister and President, the Israelis knew about the American idea. Immediately I was asked publicly what I thought about it, and I said that the ceasefire is not important. What is important is the result of the negotiations. The ceasefire in and of itself is a pause in the war, but it doesn’t determine anything. Yes, it stopped the momentum and allowed the Iranians to take out some of their launchers and missiles, but strategically, it didn’t change anything.

What is important is the result of the negotiations, and that the Israelis, are satisfied that the American side in the negotiation was very determined that enriching uranium should be taken out, and that Iran will not have the ability to enrich in the future. From our point of view, these are very important elements in any agreement with the Iranians. That the Iranians cannot rebuild what they lost during the war – it will take a long time – and the American decision to neutralize the threat of the Iranians, to close Hormuz, saying we can live with a closed Hormuz, and this is not a threat for America, and it is now your problem, not ours, because you succeeded to export your oil during the war and now you are losing it. It is now not just that you lost your industry, control system, missiles, nuclear project, and so on and so forth – now you are facing huge economic pressure, because most of the money coming into Iran comes by selling oil. Blocking the ability of the Iranians to sell oil is economically a huge disaster for the Iranians.

How long can they stand and live without it? I don’t know. But it’s a huge problem for the Iranians. And the Americans did it without putting boots on the ground in Kharg. The idea that the Americans will free the Hormuz Strait from the Iranian threat, all that was, from my point of view, was a very unprofessional suggestion, which didn’t consider the price. Trying to conquer the Hormuz Strait is possible, but at a very, very high price.

This is the best way to do it. It’s very easy. You don’t endanger any of your assets. Yes, the American fleet will have to defend itself if the Iranians try to launch missiles into Navy vessels, but I’m sure that even 1% of all the admirals know about what they can and cannot do. It’s clear that it is much, much, much cheaper than conquering the Hormuz Strait or Kharg Island, where everyone who goes there will be under direct fire from the Iranians. So I think it was a wise step.

And now the Iranians – I think what Vice President Vance learned is that the group which met in Islamabad couldn’t make any steps. They came with the belief that they won the war and that the Americans will compromise, and what they found is a group of Americans who are not ready to compromise and don’t see the war result as the Iranians do. I think that it was a meeting in which it was clear to the Americans that they should go back and clarify at home what the situation is from the American point of view. Maybe that will change some decisions in Iran.

I’m not sure that will be the result, by the way. But it was the only way to take the opportunity to make the Iranians understand that from the American point of view, America didn’t lose the war, and America can continue with this situation many, many weeks and months if needed. Yes, there is an economic price for America and the world, but that is not something that will stop America from demanding the basic demand that should be achieved in this negotiation.

I hope that the Americans will be determined about that in the future. I’m a student of disappointed and dissatisfied negotiations by the American side – when the Iranians and Americans were in the same room, it was clear that the Americans were going to compromise to the Iranian demand. I heard it from the Europeans, who said that they had been surprised by the readiness of the Americans to capitulate. I hope that this is not the situation today, and this group of Americans will be more determined than previously.

Blaise Misztal:

Let us hope so, General, and like you, I’m anxious to hear from Admirals Fox and Miller about the blockade and all the operational issues involved with the U.S. Navy imposing that blockade. But let me stay with you – I have two questions you can answer just quickly related to the ceasefire negotiations. Another contested issue in the ceasefire appears to have been whether it applied to Israel and the war in Lebanon. I mean, the fact on the ground is that Israel has continued its operations in Lebanon, and so I suppose that’s our answer, but is your understanding that that was explicitly excluded from the ceasefire agreement by the United States?

IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror:

It was excluded, but the President asked the Prime Minister to be less aggressive, and we are less aggressive in Beirut and in Bekaa. What’s important for us in this stage is to advance our defensive capabilities and to push Hezbollah in South Lebanon so Hezbollah will not be close to the border, and we are continuing with that in full gear. We had some soldiers and officers injured today, twelve of them, some severely, but we are pushing because it is very important for us to have South Lebanon totally clean from Hezbollah forces.

Blaise Misztal:

Got it, and I’ll return to you. I definitely want to ask more questions about those operations in Lebanon, and the negotiations going on with Lebanon today later in the webinar. But one more question for you, General Amidror, about the negotiations. Reports have come out that the United States was asking Iran to cease enrichment for 20 years, not indefinitely, but for 20 years. I just wanted to get your take. Is that a position that you believe has been coordinated with Israel? Is that a position or a deal that Israel would support – if there was an agreement that Iran would cease enrichment for 20 years?

IDF MG (ret.):

I would be very much surprised if that was coordinated. If it is true, first of all – I’m not sure if it’s true.

Remember, in these negotiations and throughout the whole war, we heard many, many, many rumors and remarks, and at the end of the day they were not connected to reality. I hope this is another example. If true, it is very, very bad. In a way, it would be the Obama agreement 2.0. That was the whole idea – a sunset is not an option from our point of view, when it comes to the enriching of uranium in Iran.

Blaise Misztal:

Got it. Thank you, General. So let me turn now to the admirals to learn more about the blockade that the United States has put in place for the last 24 hours, or so. And I guess, first and foremost, maybe Admiral Fox, we hear different terms being applied. There’s blockade, there’s embargo, there’s quarantine. Can you explain the differences between those different types of actions, and what a blockade is? That which is currently being imposed by the U.S. Navy.

VADM Mark Fox, USN (ret.):

Well, a blockade is an act of war. Those are all essentially the same, with small distinctions. Remember back in the Cuban Missile Crisis, it was an embargo, not a blockade, so therefore it wasn’t an act of war when we embargoed. So those are legal distinctions with little practical difference, at least from where I sit.

The one thing that I’d point out is, we the U.S. Navy, are certainly capable of this mission. But in the one-week period of time, our ships replenish at sea, but our surface combatants need to go pier-side to reload. So there has been a significant pause of those people who have been doing all of the shooting down of drones and ballistic missiles and so forth. And one of the impacts of this particular new kind of conflict is with the drones and the extended range that’s contested our logistics – at least as I understand it, we’re doing our re-arming down in Diego Garcia. And of course, the Iranians tried to shoot a couple of intermediate-range ballistic missiles there, and they were intercepted.

So you want to have a full magazine, is another way to put it, when you’re operating in or around the Strait of Hormuz. And the other piece that I think I would highlight is I would hope and expect that we -the U.S. and our partners – have got a very, very strong surveillance and reconnaissance picture, in understanding where things are. I’ve heard some reports that there might be some mines. I’ve also read that somehow the IRGCN has been spared – I don’t believe that, but I don’t know for a fact exactly the level of damage. Anytime you’re flying Apaches and A-10s in the Iranian littoral, I think you’re going to be doing good work against IRGC and small boats, but I’ll pass it over to Fozzie for his thoughts on that.

Blaise Misztal:

So Admiral, if I could just make sure I understood, you’re suggesting that the ceasefire could present an important opportunity for our naval vessels to restock their munitions, particularly their interceptors, but the act of having to impose this blockade might interrupt their ability to return to port in order to resupply?

VADM Mark Fox, USN (ret.):

No. Any ship that’s going to be operating inside missile envelopes will be a full-up round. But this pause gave us a good opportunity to ensure that magazines are replenished in full, and we’re in a place where we can execute the task that the President’s given us.

Blaise Misztal:

Great, so Admiral Miller, let me turn to you and let me read this post on X that came out from Central Command today, which says that “More than 10,000 U.S. sailors, marines and airmen, along with over a dozen warships and dozens of aircraft, are executing the mission to blockade ships entering and departing Iranian ports. During the first 24 hours, no ships made it past the U.S. blockade, and six merchant vessels complied with directions from U.S. forces to turn around and to reenter an Iranian port on the Gulf of Oman. The blockade is being enforced impartially against vessels of all nations entering or departing Iranian ports and coastal areas, including all Iranian ports on the Arabian Gulf and Gulf of Oman. U.S. forces are supporting freedom of navigation for vessels transiting in the Strait of Hormuz to and from non-Iranian ports.”

Could you break that down operationally for us, Admiral Miller? What does that look like? Where are the U.S. Navy vessels operating in order to enforce this blockade? What sort of vessels do we know the U.S. Navy to be using, and how exactly do you stop ships from getting out?

VADM John Miller, USN (ret.):

There’s a lot to break down there, so let me try to do it. Admiral Fox is right. From a practical standpoint, there’s not a lot of difference between a blockade or quarantine or embargo, but from a standpoint of customary maritime law, there is a difference. So the first thing to remember is that the CENTCOM statement reflects the legal requirements for a blockade. And so when, when we say there’s a blockade, legally, from a maritime law standpoint, that’s what CENTCOM just laid out that they’re doing. So practically, what does that look like?

We don’t have to have ships in the Strait of Hormuz. We don’t even have to have them necessarily too far up into the Gulf of Oman to do this mission. We can have those ships in the Arabian Sea. Admiral Fox talked about and it’s a great point – what does our maritime picture look like? The common operating picture? Do we understand the maritime and civilian traffic that’s around the region and headed into the Gulf? How much do we know through AIS? How much do we know through other intelligence collections? And that’s how we’re going to parse ships that are headed into the Gulf.

We’ll have, presumably, that same sort of operational picture in the Gulf, which allows us to know which ships are coming out of Iranian ports. So, the blockade specifically prohibits ships – and that’s all ships, regardless of flag or ownership – from going into Iranian ports to conduct trade, ostensibly, mostly oil, but not exclusively. And they cannot go in, and they can’t come out from Iranian ports and then go on their way. So they can’t pick up oil at Kharg Island and go to China. They’ll be interdicted and then taken care of, I’ll talk about that in a second.

So I think we have the picture to do that. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t going to be ships transiting to and from that don’t necessarily have the blessing of the U.S. because they’re not ships that are in any way involved in this blockade. So they’re not going to or coming from an Iranian port. When we see reports that there’s Chinese ships that have come out, for example, and they’re part of the ghost fleet, and they’re typically sanctioned ships, why wouldn’t we intercept that? Well, perhaps we don’t want to confuse other activities, sanction activities, that we’re involved in with this blockade activity. And I think that clears it up.

What happens when we seize a ship? A ship is informed it can’t go through the blockade, and we have to board it and seize it. We have that capability in the Marine forces that are there. We have that same capability to do an opposed boarding with our Special Operations Forces. The Coast Guard has teams – we saw those down in Venezuela a couple of months ago – so we have the ability to do it. But once we seize a vessel, we own it, and we own it for the duration of the blockade. And by own it, I mean we’ve got to take care of the vessel, we’ve got to make sure that the crew is taken care of in accordance with international conventions and that sort of thing. So that’s a potential additional administrative burden that we might take on if we start seizing ships.

I suspect for the most part, ships are going to do the same thing that ships that think they are under a threat from Iran are doing, which is not transit into or out of the Strait until all threats are gone. And so, what this does for us, practically, is it chokes off the regime, as General Amidror talked about, and keeps them having a revenue source.

And we can do this for some time, and presumably far enough away, not out of all the envelopes – the Shahed has got a pretty good range to it – but having tac air from Tripoli, from the carriers, having Air Force tac air overhead in support of the maritime activity, is going to be going to be really important, both in terms of any potential drone attacks – the occasional, I think, will be mostly out of the cruise missile envelope but maybe not completely – and then, of course, the occasional small boat, although being outside the Gulf limits the ability of those small boats to be a threat.

Blaise Misztal:

So, a lot to unpack there, a lot of questions that come to mind. So let me try to break it down. But thank you for all that information, Admirals. The first one is, if the difference between a blockade and a quarantine is largely a semantic one about whether one is being applied in a time of war or not, does calling this a blockade mean that the ceasefire is de facto over? Any opinions? Admiral Fox?

VADM Mark Fox, USN (ret.):

I don’t think so. The ball is now in the Iranian’s court. Do they want now to challenge our imposition of a blockade? If they do, as Admiral Miller talked about, if we interdict a ship, then we will own it. We’ll probably park it off someplace, and it’ll be basically there until the end of the conflict, or until, you know, resolutions are obtained. So, there’s a lot of things that we just don’t know right now, but the fact that we’re exercising a blockade does not mean that the ceasefire is not in effect.

Blaise Misztal:

Admiral Miller, you referred to the reports circulated that maybe two Chinese-owned ships, sanctioned ships, have made it through the Strait, which some see as an indication that the blockade isn’t effective. But if I understood your point, your point was that if those ships aren’t coming from Iranian ports, even if they are sanctioned, even if they have in the past, carried Iranian oil, if they are not currently coming from Iranian ports, they would not be subject to the blockade. Was that correct?

VADM John Miller, USN (ret.):

Yeah, that was correct. That’s the point I’m trying to make, and I believe that to be true, with the caveat, though, that these are early days, right? So there’s going to be some adjustments made to this as operationally, CENTCOM settles in and understands exactly what they should and shouldn’t be doing. But presumably, clearly, we knew about the ships. So it’s not like they ran through the blockade at night and we didn’t see them. I have to think that the reason that they weren’t interdicted is they didn’t meet the criteria set forth from CENTCOM – that’s reflected in their own statement – to be part of the ships being blockaded. So, having come from an Iranian port, I would think we’ll find out, is the reason those ships were not interdicted.

Blaise Mistzal:

Admiral Miller, you referenced the sort of similar blockade of Venezuela. In that case, it seems that we did a fair bit of chasing Venezuelan ships, catching some of them only, I think, in the Indian Ocean. Is it operationally easier to enforce this blockade and keep ships out of Iranian ports? Or could we face similar potential trouble keeping ships from getting out and having to chase them down, sort of all over the world?

VADM John Miller, USN (ret.):

Well, one of the unique things about the Strait of Hormuz and the geography that surrounds it is the fact that it naturally funnels you. If you’re outside, going in, you get funneled into the Strait. You get funneled from the Indian Ocean into the North Arabian Sea, into the Gulf of Oman, into the Strait, and then into the Arabian Gulf, or the Persian Gulf, and the same thing coming out.

So presumably, we don’t have to chase ships that have violated the blockade halfway around the planet or into the middle of the Indian Ocean. We should know if there’s a ship today that’s in an Iranian port, is that Kharg Island, for example, and it comes out, we should know long before it gets to the Strait that that it’s in violation of the blockade and then interdicted at a time and place of our choosing, I would guess, sooner rather than later, because that that keeps us from stretching our forces across too great an area.

Blaise Misztal:

And then I wanted to ask you to give us a little more clarity on how we should understand how CENTCOM describes this blockade. They say it’s being enforced impartially against vessels of all nations entering or departing Iranian ports and coastal areas. So the first question is, does that just mean civilian or commercial shipping, or does that mean any ship of any size leaving Iranian ports, whether it be an IRGC Navy fast boat or a fishing ship? What is the target set here? Do we have an idea? Admiral Fox?

VADM Mark Fox, USN (ret.):

Well, as Admiral Miller pointed out there are still some things that we’re going to be sorting through. In my mind, a ship is a vessel that actually displaces a certain amount and so forth. So I don’t think we’re necessarily applying small boat criteria to this kind of blockade. The Iranian coast is 800 nautical miles long, and so there’s a lot of littoral there, as we’ve discussed. We know when a ship enters the Gulf, we don’t know necessarily – unless they’ve declared that they’re going to go to an Iranian port – they may change, and they might, might wind up going over somewhere else, up to Iraq or over to Kuwait, or Bahrain.

So it’ll be very easy to keep tabs on vessels that were in an Iranian port and heading towards the Gulf, because, as Admiral Miller pointed out, this is naturally funneled. We’re not going to be all over the Indian Ocean, or all over the world, they’re going to have to come to us. And so, the implementation and the enforcement of the blockade, I think, will evolve over time, but if it’s an oceangoing vessel, I think the blockade criteria will be applied to it.

Blaise Misztal:

And Admiral Miller, let me ask you about another part of that sentence: “impartially enforced against vessels of all nations”. Does that set us up to potentially broaden this conflict if we do have Chinese- flagged vessels that are trying to enter or exit Iranian ports, or Russian flag vessels trying to run the blockade and we try to take action against them? Could that be a source of conflict beyond just with Iran?

VADM John Miller, USN (ret.):

That could be a source of conflict. It’s written that way, and clearly the legal minds at CENTCOM have done their homework, and they have put their fingerprints onto this document. If you look at the Newport Manual, for example – there’s a couple of manuals that cover the customary international law for blockades – it requires that the blockade be applied impartially. And this is one of the reasons why there wasn’t a blockade in Cuba – you can quarantine ships carrying war material, but if you’re going to use the term blockade, which we have done, then it applies to all vessels.

Now, could that widen the war? There’s a very real possibility that that’s the case, because one of the first questions you ask when you hear about this blockade is, well, if a Chinese flagged vessel is entering the Gulf with the intention of going to Kharg Island, are we going to interdict it? According to the CENTCOM statement, the answer to that is yes. Or if it’s coming out of Kharg island with Iranian oil, headed back to China, where their intent is very clear. They’ve gone to an Iranian port. They’ve come out of the port. They have Iranian material on them. Are we going to interdict it? And does that set up a potential conflict with China? It does, I think.

That has to have been a consideration when we put this blockade into place. It’s also a consideration, of course, for China, which watches this whole thing with a great deal of interest. They’re interested in the oil, that’s important to them. And they’re not just interested in Iranian oil, they’re interested in a lot of the oil that comes out of the Gulf. More than half of their oil comes from that part of the world. So they’ve got interest there, which gives them an interest in a free and open Strait of Hormuz. They also have an interest in a toll scheme in the Strait of Hormuz, because that satisfies some of their interests, for example, in the South China Sea, where they would like to refer to the South China Sea as Chinese territorial water, and they’d like to control that. So there’s some interesting second and third order effects that this blockade could potentially have.

Blaise Misztal:

Just staying with that, because you said something that tripped my curiosity there. You said, “if the vessel has a declared intent to go to an Iranian port.” Is one way around this blockade for ships coming into the Gulf just to not say they’re going to Iran and then once they’re inside the Gulf, since the U.S. Navy isn’t in the Gulf currently, they can just go wherever they want once they’ve been let through?

VADM John Miller, USN (ret.):

Unless Admiral Fox sees that differently, I think the short answer to that is yes, they can lie. We’re not going to the bar, we’re going out of the bowling alley, and then they go to the bar, but we’ll know that. And you know, part of what has been clear since the upbringing of hostilities is we have very good intelligence, both U.S. intelligence and incredible intelligence from the Israelis. So if it goes into an Iranian port, any ship, even though they said they were headed to Bahrain, for example, we’re going to know that, and we’re going to know when they come out.

Blaise Misztal:

So I suppose that might make it difficult for a ship to go into Iran, load up on oil and then sail back out. But if, for example, there was a ship that was delivering armaments or some sort of resupply from China, for example, we’ve heard China saying that it might ship MANPADS to Iran, it could still potentially get through just by lying about its destination, and then whether it gets out or not seems less material. So that could potentially be a loophole here.

VADM Mark Fox, USN (ret.):

International ships declare, they basically file what we in the aviation world would call a flight plan. They say, we left here, we’re going there. And so obviously you can determine whether or not someone is adhering to their plan or not. And it’ll give you the opportunity to take appropriate action. We’ll always have the opportunity if and when they leave the Gulf, and if they’ve declared to go into an Iranian port, then that would be criteria to prevent them from going in.

Blaise Misztal:

Last topic here, just sticking with the CENTCOM post, the last sentence – we have most of the post talking about the blockade. But then the last sentence says, “U.S. forces are supporting freedom of navigation for vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz to and from non-Iranian ports.” What sort of activity would be required to support freedom of navigation? Is it the same activity as sitting outside the Gulf to blockade? And have we actually seen the U.S. Navy doing that to support freedom of navigation? Admiral Fox?

VADM Mark Fox, USN (ret.):

Well, we sent a couple of guided missile destroyers into the Gulf over the weekend, which is another place where you would say, we know if there are threats or if we thought it was mined, we would not have done that. I think we have a pretty clear idea of where the threats, at least in the water, are. So obviously, to be able to ensure freedom of navigation, you’ve got to be able to respond to whatever threat occurs with the Iranian IRGC or whatever their drones and attacks might be.

This goes back to having very strong surveillance and reconnaissance posture, very strong rapid response forces that are available to prevent either IRGC small boats from trying to board or capture, so I would expect us to be in a very forward-leaning posture that would ensure that anyone that is complying with our freedom of navigation goals will be part of the umbrella which we’re going to provide. And it takes ships, and it takes airplanes, and it takes Marines. So I mean, it’ll be a very well-coordinated effort, but it’s going to take ships that are operating in and around the Strait of Hormuz.

Blaise Misztal:

So Admiral Miller, to that point, would you expect to see more U.S. Navy vessels transiting the Strait, going into the Gulf? Should the U.S. be pursuing that in order to support freedom of navigation?

VADM John Miller, USN (ret.):

Before I answer that specifically, I do want to highlight that part of the ceasefire agreement was that the Strait of Hormuz would be open and that the Iranians would not impede transit. And clearly that has not been the case. So that’s another one of the measures regarding the ceasefire that we ought to keep in mind. I think what the destroyers that Admiral Fox was referring to have done is set the conditions. I think the CENTCOM statement really specifically intended to state – as part of this blockade statement –  that what the U.S. favors is a free and open Strait of Hormuz, where traffic can transit without fear of being impeded or attacked by the Iranian regime.

And so these two destroyers are, I think, a precursor to that, and I think we’ll see additional activity. Part of what I think, practically speaking, we need to keep in mind is in order for the ships that are trapped inside the Gulf to get out, and the ships that are outside the Gulf that want to get in – that are going to the GCC, or have been part of the GCC trade activity – in order for them to go they’re going to have to be confident that it’s safe. And part of that is sort of an implicit, well, prove it’s safe. And part of doing that is by having a U.S. presence, and that’s a maritime presence, and as Admiral Fox spoke to, it’s also a pretty robust airborne presence that can interdict anything that IRGC might have left in terms of small boats or other military hardware.

Blaise Misztal:

I believe the USS George Bush aircraft carrier is on route to the Gulf or the region, along with its Carrier Strike Group. Would that give the U.S. more options for supporting freedom of navigation through the Strait, or trying to open up that waterway? Admiral Fox?

VADM Mark Fox, USN (ret.):

We’re not in a place right now where we can necessarily dictate where ships are going to go. We’re not in that place. But obviously, when you have more resources, it gives the Fleet Commander, and it gives the CENTCOM commander, and it gives the Secretary, and it gives the President more options. And so therefore, I’ve seen the reports now that Gerald R. Ford has left Crete; she’s back in the Eastern Mediterranean. So where the George H.W. Bush goes will be driven by the mission that they’re tasked with.

Blaise Misztal:

All right. Well, thank you, admirals for that, I think, exhaustive discussion of current operations in and around the Gulf. If any of our audience has further questions on that topic, I encourage you to submit them using the Q&A feature in Zoom, and I’ll read them out. But let me turn momentarily back to General Amidror to talk about Lebanon, because I believe Israeli and Lebanese sides were supposed to be meeting here in DC to negotiate a potential agreement. So let me ask you, General Amidror, what is Israel looking to get? What sort of deal would it consider to be a good deal with Lebanon that would end the fighting there?

IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror:

I think that first of all, the meeting ended successfully. I mean, both sides came out alive and continued to their embassies. And I think that it’s a premature question, already securing an agreement. We need huge patience, and it will take a very long time, because both countries come from two different approaches. The Iranians are coming from an Iranian point of view: ceasefire, and then we will negotiate. And what we are saying, in the last few years, is that we have been attacked by the Iranians twice: the open fire on Israel on the eighth of October 2023, and at the beginning of the last operation in Iran without any Israeli reaction or anything action by Israel.

So we cannot live with this situation in the future, and we are determined to disarm Hezbollah and to destroy it one way or another. We are still in a defensive posture. We didn’t move to an offensive one. What we are doing is to push Hezbollah out of South Lebanon, so Hezbollah will not have the ability to launch ground assaults on Israel, and will not have the ability to use the anti-tank missiles they got from the Syrians – the Russians’ new Kornet – to attack Israeli villages along the border.

And look at the map, it’s around the Litani River line, and in the east, it is maybe behind the Litani River, because the Litani River is very close to some Israeli communities. We are not doing anything with ground forces north of the Litani yet. Most of the missiles launched by Hezbollah against Israel since the beginning of this stage of the war came from areas north of the Litani. But we are ready to give the Americans and the Lebanese the time that is needed. But it should be clear at the end of the day, Israel will not retreat from Lebanon unless Hezbollah is totally disarmed.

How far we are ready to go in, and where will the line be at which the IDF will present itself at the end of the offensive state, I don’t know. We are not speaking about it. There are many plans at the headquarters.

Now, we are focusing ourselves on preventing the ability of Hezbollah to launch missiles and rockets into Israel, and that we haven’t succeeded in stopping it. We want them to stop launching drones into Israel, but every day they’re launching drones into Israel. We have more sophisticated ways to deal with drones. But still, drones are a huge challenge. And we cannot say yes to the Lebanese demand for a ceasefire first and then negotiations.

It is impossible, from our point of view, after two different occasions in which Hezbollah decided that it is a good time to launch missiles into Israel and open fire without any Israeli action. This is the situation today. Negotiations are very important, but it will take a very, very long time to get an agreement, and I believe that before, Hezbollah is not going to suffer a huge blow from the IDF. Hezbollah will not agree to any agreement that would be implemented in Lebanon and cannot be forced by the Lebanese Government.

The Lebanese government declared that the Ambassador of Iran in Lebanon is persona non grata. He is still in Beirut, and they cannot take care of an ambassador of Iran in Beirut. Are there expectations that they disarm Hezbollah? It’s not going to happen in the near future, and probably Israel will have to do the job. If we will be wise, and there is a demand from the Americans, we will agree to a ceasefire. But for how long? Months? Two months? Okay.

But it should be agreed that if Hezbollah is not disarmed by the government of Lebanon within these two months, the Lebanese government and the administration in Washington agree that Israel will continue fully attacking Hezbollah with ground and air forces. We can wait, but at the end of the day, this organization will not, should not, have the ability to launch missiles and rockets into Israel.

Blaise Misztal:

So let me ask you to give us a little more detail, General Amidror. When you say that an acceptable deal for Israel would require the total disarmament of Hezbollah, what does that mean? That would mean removing their rockets and missiles, their drones, but would that also mean making sure that there are no Hezbollah members with small arms, with rifles anywhere in Lebanon? How realistic is that?

IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror:

Unlike Hamas, a small weapon in the hands of Hezbollah is a problem in Beirut but not in South Lebanon. We probably will have a buffer zone in South Lebanon, in which we will prevent any move of forces into the area that might be used to attack our communities south of the border. And Kalashnikovs are not the problem, we are speaking about everything from RPGs on. That should be taken by the legitimate government of the State of Lebanon, unlike Gaza, in which there isn’t any alternative.

That is why In Gaza our demands from Hamas are much more about totally disarming the organization. In Lebanon, there is a government, there is an army, and Hezbollah should not be an organization making decisions in Lebanon.

The government should make the decisions on government in Lebanon, the parliament should make decisions in Lebanon, not Hezbollah as a terror organization. And Hezbollah will not have the ability to launch rockets, missiles, anti-tank missiles, and so on and so forth into Israel, partly because Israel will have buffers inside Lebanon, and partly because the organization will be disarmed by an agreement or by force.

Blaise Misztal:

And then let me follow up to ask – if I understand you correctly, the Israeli position is that Israel will not withdraw from Southern Lebanon until Hezbollah is disarmed. You said getting a deal would be a long process, but presumably disarming Hezbollah would be an even longer process. So is Israel preparing to stay in the South of Lebanon for an extended period? Months? Years? How long?

IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror:

My view, and I don’t know the view of Israel is, my view is that Israel should not withdraw from Lebanon till Hezbollah will be disarmed. We cannot allow a situation in which Hezbollah can launch missile rockets from Lebanon into Israel. And for that, we have to control a big part of Lebanon. How much to the north is a good question. It’s not a defined line that we decide today. Very much it depends on what will happen in Lebanon.

Blaise Misztal:

If there is no deal, is Israel capable and prepared to disarm Hezbollah itself? To launch ground operations all the way to Beirut and Bekaa?

IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror:

We cannot reach Beirut and Bekaa with ground forces. This is ridiculous, but somewhere between the Litani and Beirut will be the line reached by ground forces. The whole area will be cleaned up by the IDF, and the Air Force will make whatever we can based on intelligence to destroy facilities which belong to Hezbollah.

Blaise:

Can you disarm Hezbollah from the air?

IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror:

No, we can’t disarm Hezbollah from the air. What we can do is to minimize the ability of Hezbollah to launch missiles and rockets into Israel. And remember, unlike in the past, because there is no land bridge from Tehran to Lebanon, the ability of the Iranians to rearm Hezbollah is minimal. The ability of Hezbollah to produce inside Lebanon is also close to zero, because every facility that we know about we are bombing and destroying. And as I said, the connection between Iran and Lebanon can be made only by flying into Lebanon from Iran or through other places.

You cannot bring weapon systems on flights. You can bring money, of course, but with the situation today in Iran that I’m not sure that the Iranians will have enough money to compensate the Shiites in Lebanon for the damage they suffered in the war. Probably most of the Shiites from South Lebanon, from the border of Israel to the Zahrani, are refugees now in North Lebanon.

So, no, we cannot destroy Hezbollah totally as we can to Hamas in Gaza. We can minimize the ability of this organization to launch rockets and missiles into Israel. The defensive system that we have in Israel, if there aren’t many rockets, we know how to deal with it. It’s not very convenient, but we know how to deal with it. And remember that after the operation in 2024, Hezbollah lost around 75-80% of its capabilities. So at the end of the day, if we clean the area south of Beirut, the number of missiles which will remain to launch into Israel will be very minimal.

Blaise Misztal:

One last question for you, General Amidror, do you believe that the Lebanese Government, and more importantly, the Lebanese Armed Forces, the LAF, have the capability currently to disarm Hezbollah?

IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror:

I don’t know where the fine line is between will and capability here. I really don’t know. I know that it is not an easy decision, because what they have to face is a kind of a war between Hezbollah and the Lebanese arm. In today’s situation, after the blow that we made to Hezbollah in 2024 I think that the balance of power is not as bad as before the war. Is it going to be easy? No. Is it going to be necessary to prevent a devastating war that might destroy Lebanon again? The answer is yes, because we as Israelis cannot agree to the existence of long-range missiles and rockets that can reach Israel in the hands of a terrorist organization under the flag of Lebanon.

By the way, the weaker Iran will be, the easier it will be to reach the point where Hezbollah can be disarmed by the Lebanese army. The chances are not high, but will be higher than if Iran was strong as it is today. The capitulation of Iran versus the Americans will be very helpful to convince Hezbollah that they are going to lose. Will it be enough? I don’t know.

Blaise Misztal:

Thank you, General Amidror. Admirals, let me turn to you to close things out in our remaining four minutes, and just ask what you’ll be watching for as U.S. naval operations for this blockade continue. What should we be watching for to gauge their effectiveness? What sort of responses might we expect from the Iranians? What will you be paying attention to? Admiral Miller?

VADM John Miller, USN (ret.):

Blaise again, thanks for having me, and I’ve appreciated the discussion. I have confidence that we can perform this blockade, and Admiral Fox said it right at the very beginning – this is within the operational capability of the Navy. We have the forces there to do this. I think it’s fairly clear that if there are Iranian flag vessels that are trying to get into or out of Iranian ports and through the Strait on their way to conduct trade that that’s not going to happen, and there may be some fighting about that.

And there’s some risk associated with us taking ships that are potentially armed with security detachments from the IRGC. I think we’ll be watching for that. And then, of course, I think we’ll want to watch for any kind of widening of the conflict here, in particular with Chinese vessels – whether or not the Chinese want to press an issue here and potentially escalate horizontally in a very big way. I don’t really expect that to happen, but that’s certainly something for us to be on the lookout for.

Blaise Misztal:

Thank you, Admiral Miller. Admiral Fox, final word goes to you. What will you be watching for?

VADM Mark Fox, USN (ret.):

I’m just reading all of the clips that I get from CENTCOM and just listening, paying attention. It’s hard to have a fingertip feel from so far away, and Admiral Miller and I have been in that position, but we’re not there now. We are the guys now that are talking about stuff when we truly don’t know what the details of the operational plan are. We understand the concepts, so we just need to be patient.

It will be very interesting to see the impact on the Iranian economy once their oil exports end. That will be something that I think will traumatize their regime. I’d be keeping an eye on the Houthis and the Bab al-Mandeb. Now a couple of different clocks are ticking. One is an economic clock – how much pain can the world endure with the rising price of oil. The other is how quickly and effectively can we bend the Iranian regime to our will. We’ll have to see how it goes.

Blaise Misztal:

Well. Admiral Fox, Admiral Miller, thank you so much for your insights. General Amidror, always a pleasure to have you on and get your take on everything. Thank you to everyone who tuned in. And please stay tuned to JINSA.org for all our latest updates and analysis. Thank you everyone. Admirals, good afternoon. Good night to you, General Amidror. Thank you.

The post Transcript: Webinar – Lebanon Ceasefire: Progress or Déjà Vu? appeared first on JINSA.

For almost half a century, the Islamic Republic of Iran has fused revolutionary ideology, clerical authority, and modern statecraft into a system that reshaped the Middle East. With the assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the severe damage the Islamic Republic has taken, is the regime’s long shadow finally fading away? In Mosaic‘s April essay, Hussein Aboubakr Mansour argues that it is.

On March 31, Mansour was joined by the Israeli scholar of national security Dan Schueftan and Mosaic‘s editor Jonathan Silver to discuss his thesis.

Hussein Aboubakr Mansour is a Fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA). 

Dan Schueftan is an Israeli scholar of national security. 

Jonathan Silver is an editor for Mosaic.

…

Originally published in Mosaic.

The post After the Ayatollah: Is This the End of Political Islam? appeared first on JINSA.

PANELISTS

IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror
Distinguished Fellow, JINSA; Former Head, Israel’s National Security Council

VADM Mark Fox, USN (ret.)
Eastern Mediterranean Policy Project Advisor, JINSA; Former Deputy Commander, U.S. Central Command

VADM John Miller, USN (ret.)
Generals and Admirals Program Participant, JINSA; Former Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Central Command

The discussion was moderated by JINSA Vice President for Policy Blaise Misztal.

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TRANSCRIPT

Transcript has been lightly edited for flow and clarity.

Blaise Misztal:

Good afternoon everyone and thank you for tuning in for JINSA’s latest webinar update on the status of Operations Epic Fury and Roaring Lion. I’m Blaise Misztal, JINSA’s Vice President for Policy, and we’ve had quite a number of developments since our last webinar, including the declaration by President Trump, about six days ago, of a ceasefire with Iran, negotiations that happened on Saturday in Pakistan between the U.S. and Iranian sides that, at the time, Vice President JD Vance said led nowhere. But now, in recent days, we’re hearing they maybe did make a lot of progress. Then, most recently, President Trump’s declaration of a blockade of all ships entering or exiting Iranian ports that began yesterday.

So to discuss all of that, I’m pleased to be joined by JINSA distinguished fellow and former Israeli National Security Advisor, Major General Yaakov Amidror, and two of our U.S. Admirals, participants in JINSA’s Generals and Admirals Program. We have Vice Admiral Mark Fox, the former Deputy Commander of CENTCOM and Vice Admiral John Miller, former Commander of U.S. Naval Forces, Central Command, NAVCENT.

Thank you all for joining us so much. General Amidror, maybe I can just start with you, and going back to last Wednesday, when President Trump announced the ceasefire with Iran – supposedly lasting two weeks. We’ve heard various reporting about whether Israel was or was not consulted about the ceasefire, whether Israel was or was not caught by surprise by the announcement. Can you tell us – was Israel consulted? How is the ceasefire seen from Israel?

IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror:

Israel was not surprised, I think. At the level of Prime Minister and President, the Israelis knew about the American idea. Immediately I was asked publicly what I thought about it, and I said that the ceasefire is not important. What is important is the result of the negotiations. The ceasefire in and of itself is a pause in the war, but it doesn’t determine anything. Yes, it stopped the momentum and allowed the Iranians to take out some of their launchers and missiles, but strategically, it didn’t change anything.

What is important is the result of the negotiations, and that the Israelis, are satisfied that the American side in the negotiation was very determined that enriching uranium should be taken out, and that Iran will not have the ability to enrich in the future. From our point of view, these are very important elements in any agreement with the Iranians. That the Iranians cannot rebuild what they lost during the war – it will take a long time – and the American decision to neutralize the threat of the Iranians, to close Hormuz, saying we can live with a closed Hormuz, and this is not a threat for America, and it is now your problem, not ours, because you succeeded to export your oil during the war and now you are losing it. It is now not just that you lost your industry, control system, missiles, nuclear project, and so on and so forth – now you are facing huge economic pressure, because most of the money coming into Iran comes by selling oil. Blocking the ability of the Iranians to sell oil is economically a huge disaster for the Iranians.

How long can they stand and live without it? I don’t know. But it’s a huge problem for the Iranians. And the Americans did it without putting boots on the ground in Kharg. The idea that the Americans will free the Hormuz Strait from the Iranian threat, all that was, from my point of view, was a very unprofessional suggestion, which didn’t consider the price. Trying to conquer the Hormuz Strait is possible, but at a very, very high price.

This is the best way to do it. It’s very easy. You don’t endanger any of your assets. Yes, the American fleet will have to defend itself if the Iranians try to launch missiles into Navy vessels, but I’m sure that even 1% of all the admirals know about what they can and cannot do. It’s clear that it is much, much, much cheaper than conquering the Hormuz Strait or Kharg Island, where everyone who goes there will be under direct fire from the Iranians. So I think it was a wise step.

And now the Iranians – I think what Vice President Vance learned is that the group which met in Islamabad couldn’t make any steps. They came with the belief that they won the war and that the Americans will compromise, and what they found is a group of Americans who are not ready to compromise and don’t see the war result as the Iranians do. I think that it was a meeting in which it was clear to the Americans that they should go back and clarify at home what the situation is from the American point of view. Maybe that will change some decisions in Iran.

I’m not sure that will be the result, by the way. But it was the only way to take the opportunity to make the Iranians understand that from the American point of view, America didn’t lose the war, and America can continue with this situation many, many weeks and months if needed. Yes, there is an economic price for America and the world, but that is not something that will stop America from demanding the basic demand that should be achieved in this negotiation.

I hope that the Americans will be determined about that in the future. I’m a student of disappointed and dissatisfied negotiations by the American side – when the Iranians and Americans were in the same room, it was clear that the Americans were going to compromise to the Iranian demand. I heard it from the Europeans, who said that they had been surprised by the readiness of the Americans to capitulate. I hope that this is not the situation today, and this group of Americans will be more determined than previously.

Blaise Misztal:

Let us hope so, General, and like you, I’m anxious to hear from Admirals Fox and Miller about the blockade and all the operational issues involved with the U.S. Navy imposing that blockade. But let me stay with you – I have two questions you can answer just quickly related to the ceasefire negotiations. Another contested issue in the ceasefire appears to have been whether it applied to Israel and the war in Lebanon. I mean, the fact on the ground is that Israel has continued its operations in Lebanon, and so I suppose that’s our answer, but is your understanding that that was explicitly excluded from the ceasefire agreement by the United States?

IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror:

It was excluded, but the President asked the Prime Minister to be less aggressive, and we are less aggressive in Beirut and in Bekaa. What’s important for us in this stage is to advance our defensive capabilities and to push Hezbollah in South Lebanon so Hezbollah will not be close to the border, and we are continuing with that in full gear. We had some soldiers and officers injured today, twelve of them, some severely, but we are pushing because it is very important for us to have South Lebanon totally clean from Hezbollah forces.

Blaise Misztal:

Got it, and I’ll return to you. I definitely want to ask more questions about those operations in Lebanon, and the negotiations going on with Lebanon today later in the webinar. But one more question for you, General Amidror, about the negotiations. Reports have come out that the United States was asking Iran to cease enrichment for 20 years, not indefinitely, but for 20 years. I just wanted to get your take. Is that a position that you believe has been coordinated with Israel? Is that a position or a deal that Israel would support – if there was an agreement that Iran would cease enrichment for 20 years?

IDF MG (ret.):

I would be very much surprised if that was coordinated. If it is true, first of all – I’m not sure if it’s true.

Remember, in these negotiations and throughout the whole war, we heard many, many, many rumors and remarks, and at the end of the day they were not connected to reality. I hope this is another example. If true, it is very, very bad. In a way, it would be the Obama agreement 2.0. That was the whole idea – a sunset is not an option from our point of view, when it comes to the enriching of uranium in Iran.

Blaise Misztal:

Got it. Thank you, General. So let me turn now to the admirals to learn more about the blockade that the United States has put in place for the last 24 hours, or so. And I guess, first and foremost, maybe Admiral Fox, we hear different terms being applied. There’s blockade, there’s embargo, there’s quarantine. Can you explain the differences between those different types of actions, and what a blockade is? That which is currently being imposed by the U.S. Navy.

VADM Mark Fox, USN (ret.):

Well, a blockade is an act of war. Those are all essentially the same, with small distinctions. Remember back in the Cuban Missile Crisis, it was an embargo, not a blockade, so therefore it wasn’t an act of war when we embargoed. So those are legal distinctions with little practical difference, at least from where I sit.

The one thing that I’d point out is, we the U.S. Navy, are certainly capable of this mission. But in the one-week period of time, our ships replenish at sea, but our surface combatants need to go pier-side to reload. So there has been a significant pause of those people who have been doing all of the shooting down of drones and ballistic missiles and so forth. And one of the impacts of this particular new kind of conflict is with the drones and the extended range that’s contested our logistics – at least as I understand it, we’re doing our re-arming down in Diego Garcia. And of course, the Iranians tried to shoot a couple of intermediate-range ballistic missiles there, and they were intercepted.

So you want to have a full magazine, is another way to put it, when you’re operating in or around the Strait of Hormuz. And the other piece that I think I would highlight is I would hope and expect that we -the U.S. and our partners – have got a very, very strong surveillance and reconnaissance picture, in understanding where things are. I’ve heard some reports that there might be some mines. I’ve also read that somehow the IRGCN has been spared – I don’t believe that, but I don’t know for a fact exactly the level of damage. Anytime you’re flying Apaches and A-10s in the Iranian littoral, I think you’re going to be doing good work against IRGC and small boats, but I’ll pass it over to Fozzie for his thoughts on that.

Blaise Misztal:

So Admiral, if I could just make sure I understood, you’re suggesting that the ceasefire could present an important opportunity for our naval vessels to restock their munitions, particularly their interceptors, but the act of having to impose this blockade might interrupt their ability to return to port in order to resupply?

VADM Mark Fox, USN (ret.):

No. Any ship that’s going to be operating inside missile envelopes will be a full-up round. But this pause gave us a good opportunity to ensure that magazines are replenished in full, and we’re in a place where we can execute the task that the President’s given us.

Blaise Misztal:

Great, so Admiral Miller, let me turn to you and let me read this post on X that came out from Central Command today, which says that “More than 10,000 U.S. sailors, marines and airmen, along with over a dozen warships and dozens of aircraft, are executing the mission to blockade ships entering and departing Iranian ports. During the first 24 hours, no ships made it past the U.S. blockade, and six merchant vessels complied with directions from U.S. forces to turn around and to reenter an Iranian port on the Gulf of Oman. The blockade is being enforced impartially against vessels of all nations entering or departing Iranian ports and coastal areas, including all Iranian ports on the Arabian Gulf and Gulf of Oman. U.S. forces are supporting freedom of navigation for vessels transiting in the Strait of Hormuz to and from non-Iranian ports.”

Could you break that down operationally for us, Admiral Miller? What does that look like? Where are the U.S. Navy vessels operating in order to enforce this blockade? What sort of vessels do we know the U.S. Navy to be using, and how exactly do you stop ships from getting out?

VADM John Miller, USN (ret.):

There’s a lot to break down there, so let me try to do it. Admiral Fox is right. From a practical standpoint, there’s not a lot of difference between a blockade or quarantine or embargo, but from a standpoint of customary maritime law, there is a difference. So the first thing to remember is that the CENTCOM statement reflects the legal requirements for a blockade. And so when, when we say there’s a blockade, legally, from a maritime law standpoint, that’s what CENTCOM just laid out that they’re doing. So practically, what does that look like?

We don’t have to have ships in the Strait of Hormuz. We don’t even have to have them necessarily too far up into the Gulf of Oman to do this mission. We can have those ships in the Arabian Sea. Admiral Fox talked about and it’s a great point – what does our maritime picture look like? The common operating picture? Do we understand the maritime and civilian traffic that’s around the region and headed into the Gulf? How much do we know through AIS? How much do we know through other intelligence collections? And that’s how we’re going to parse ships that are headed into the Gulf.

We’ll have, presumably, that same sort of operational picture in the Gulf, which allows us to know which ships are coming out of Iranian ports. So, the blockade specifically prohibits ships – and that’s all ships, regardless of flag or ownership – from going into Iranian ports to conduct trade, ostensibly, mostly oil, but not exclusively. And they cannot go in, and they can’t come out from Iranian ports and then go on their way. So they can’t pick up oil at Kharg Island and go to China. They’ll be interdicted and then taken care of, I’ll talk about that in a second.

So I think we have the picture to do that. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t going to be ships transiting to and from that don’t necessarily have the blessing of the U.S. because they’re not ships that are in any way involved in this blockade. So they’re not going to or coming from an Iranian port. When we see reports that there’s Chinese ships that have come out, for example, and they’re part of the ghost fleet, and they’re typically sanctioned ships, why wouldn’t we intercept that? Well, perhaps we don’t want to confuse other activities, sanction activities, that we’re involved in with this blockade activity. And I think that clears it up.

What happens when we seize a ship? A ship is informed it can’t go through the blockade, and we have to board it and seize it. We have that capability in the Marine forces that are there. We have that same capability to do an opposed boarding with our Special Operations Forces. The Coast Guard has teams – we saw those down in Venezuela a couple of months ago – so we have the ability to do it. But once we seize a vessel, we own it, and we own it for the duration of the blockade. And by own it, I mean we’ve got to take care of the vessel, we’ve got to make sure that the crew is taken care of in accordance with international conventions and that sort of thing. So that’s a potential additional administrative burden that we might take on if we start seizing ships.

I suspect for the most part, ships are going to do the same thing that ships that think they are under a threat from Iran are doing, which is not transit into or out of the Strait until all threats are gone. And so, what this does for us, practically, is it chokes off the regime, as General Amidror talked about, and keeps them having a revenue source.

And we can do this for some time, and presumably far enough away, not out of all the envelopes – the Shahed has got a pretty good range to it – but having tac air from Tripoli, from the carriers, having Air Force tac air overhead in support of the maritime activity, is going to be going to be really important, both in terms of any potential drone attacks – the occasional, I think, will be mostly out of the cruise missile envelope but maybe not completely – and then, of course, the occasional small boat, although being outside the Gulf limits the ability of those small boats to be a threat.

Blaise Misztal:

So, a lot to unpack there, a lot of questions that come to mind. So let me try to break it down. But thank you for all that information, Admirals. The first one is, if the difference between a blockade and a quarantine is largely a semantic one about whether one is being applied in a time of war or not, does calling this a blockade mean that the ceasefire is de facto over? Any opinions? Admiral Fox?

VADM Mark Fox, USN (ret.):

I don’t think so. The ball is now in the Iranian’s court. Do they want now to challenge our imposition of a blockade? If they do, as Admiral Miller talked about, if we interdict a ship, then we will own it. We’ll probably park it off someplace, and it’ll be basically there until the end of the conflict, or until, you know, resolutions are obtained. So, there’s a lot of things that we just don’t know right now, but the fact that we’re exercising a blockade does not mean that the ceasefire is not in effect.

Blaise Misztal:

Admiral Miller, you referred to the reports circulated that maybe two Chinese-owned ships, sanctioned ships, have made it through the Strait, which some see as an indication that the blockade isn’t effective. But if I understood your point, your point was that if those ships aren’t coming from Iranian ports, even if they are sanctioned, even if they have in the past, carried Iranian oil, if they are not currently coming from Iranian ports, they would not be subject to the blockade. Was that correct?

VADM John Miller, USN (ret.):

Yeah, that was correct. That’s the point I’m trying to make, and I believe that to be true, with the caveat, though, that these are early days, right? So there’s going to be some adjustments made to this as operationally, CENTCOM settles in and understands exactly what they should and shouldn’t be doing. But presumably, clearly, we knew about the ships. So it’s not like they ran through the blockade at night and we didn’t see them. I have to think that the reason that they weren’t interdicted is they didn’t meet the criteria set forth from CENTCOM – that’s reflected in their own statement – to be part of the ships being blockaded. So, having come from an Iranian port, I would think we’ll find out, is the reason those ships were not interdicted.

Blaise Mistzal:

Admiral Miller, you referenced the sort of similar blockade of Venezuela. In that case, it seems that we did a fair bit of chasing Venezuelan ships, catching some of them only, I think, in the Indian Ocean. Is it operationally easier to enforce this blockade and keep ships out of Iranian ports? Or could we face similar potential trouble keeping ships from getting out and having to chase them down, sort of all over the world?

VADM John Miller, USN (ret.):

Well, one of the unique things about the Strait of Hormuz and the geography that surrounds it is the fact that it naturally funnels you. If you’re outside, going in, you get funneled into the Strait. You get funneled from the Indian Ocean into the North Arabian Sea, into the Gulf of Oman, into the Strait, and then into the Arabian Gulf, or the Persian Gulf, and the same thing coming out.

So presumably, we don’t have to chase ships that have violated the blockade halfway around the planet or into the middle of the Indian Ocean. We should know if there’s a ship today that’s in an Iranian port, is that Kharg Island, for example, and it comes out, we should know long before it gets to the Strait that that it’s in violation of the blockade and then interdicted at a time and place of our choosing, I would guess, sooner rather than later, because that that keeps us from stretching our forces across too great an area.

Blaise Misztal:

And then I wanted to ask you to give us a little more clarity on how we should understand how CENTCOM describes this blockade. They say it’s being enforced impartially against vessels of all nations entering or departing Iranian ports and coastal areas. So the first question is, does that just mean civilian or commercial shipping, or does that mean any ship of any size leaving Iranian ports, whether it be an IRGC Navy fast boat or a fishing ship? What is the target set here? Do we have an idea? Admiral Fox?

VADM Mark Fox, USN (ret.):

Well, as Admiral Miller pointed out there are still some things that we’re going to be sorting through. In my mind, a ship is a vessel that actually displaces a certain amount and so forth. So I don’t think we’re necessarily applying small boat criteria to this kind of blockade. The Iranian coast is 800 nautical miles long, and so there’s a lot of littoral there, as we’ve discussed. We know when a ship enters the Gulf, we don’t know necessarily – unless they’ve declared that they’re going to go to an Iranian port – they may change, and they might, might wind up going over somewhere else, up to Iraq or over to Kuwait, or Bahrain.

So it’ll be very easy to keep tabs on vessels that were in an Iranian port and heading towards the Gulf, because, as Admiral Miller pointed out, this is naturally funneled. We’re not going to be all over the Indian Ocean, or all over the world, they’re going to have to come to us. And so, the implementation and the enforcement of the blockade, I think, will evolve over time, but if it’s an oceangoing vessel, I think the blockade criteria will be applied to it.

Blaise Misztal:

And Admiral Miller, let me ask you about another part of that sentence: “impartially enforced against vessels of all nations”. Does that set us up to potentially broaden this conflict if we do have Chinese- flagged vessels that are trying to enter or exit Iranian ports, or Russian flag vessels trying to run the blockade and we try to take action against them? Could that be a source of conflict beyond just with Iran?

VADM John Miller, USN (ret.):

That could be a source of conflict. It’s written that way, and clearly the legal minds at CENTCOM have done their homework, and they have put their fingerprints onto this document. If you look at the Newport Manual, for example – there’s a couple of manuals that cover the customary international law for blockades – it requires that the blockade be applied impartially. And this is one of the reasons why there wasn’t a blockade in Cuba – you can quarantine ships carrying war material, but if you’re going to use the term blockade, which we have done, then it applies to all vessels.

Now, could that widen the war? There’s a very real possibility that that’s the case, because one of the first questions you ask when you hear about this blockade is, well, if a Chinese flagged vessel is entering the Gulf with the intention of going to Kharg Island, are we going to interdict it? According to the CENTCOM statement, the answer to that is yes. Or if it’s coming out of Kharg island with Iranian oil, headed back to China, where their intent is very clear. They’ve gone to an Iranian port. They’ve come out of the port. They have Iranian material on them. Are we going to interdict it? And does that set up a potential conflict with China? It does, I think.

That has to have been a consideration when we put this blockade into place. It’s also a consideration, of course, for China, which watches this whole thing with a great deal of interest. They’re interested in the oil, that’s important to them. And they’re not just interested in Iranian oil, they’re interested in a lot of the oil that comes out of the Gulf. More than half of their oil comes from that part of the world. So they’ve got interest there, which gives them an interest in a free and open Strait of Hormuz. They also have an interest in a toll scheme in the Strait of Hormuz, because that satisfies some of their interests, for example, in the South China Sea, where they would like to refer to the South China Sea as Chinese territorial water, and they’d like to control that. So there’s some interesting second and third order effects that this blockade could potentially have.

Blaise Misztal:

Just staying with that, because you said something that tripped my curiosity there. You said, “if the vessel has a declared intent to go to an Iranian port.” Is one way around this blockade for ships coming into the Gulf just to not say they’re going to Iran and then once they’re inside the Gulf, since the U.S. Navy isn’t in the Gulf currently, they can just go wherever they want once they’ve been let through?

VADM John Miller, USN (ret.):

Unless Admiral Fox sees that differently, I think the short answer to that is yes, they can lie. We’re not going to the bar, we’re going out of the bowling alley, and then they go to the bar, but we’ll know that. And you know, part of what has been clear since the upbringing of hostilities is we have very good intelligence, both U.S. intelligence and incredible intelligence from the Israelis. So if it goes into an Iranian port, any ship, even though they said they were headed to Bahrain, for example, we’re going to know that, and we’re going to know when they come out.

Blaise Misztal:

So I suppose that might make it difficult for a ship to go into Iran, load up on oil and then sail back out. But if, for example, there was a ship that was delivering armaments or some sort of resupply from China, for example, we’ve heard China saying that it might ship MANPADS to Iran, it could still potentially get through just by lying about its destination, and then whether it gets out or not seems less material. So that could potentially be a loophole here.

VADM Mark Fox, USN (ret.):

International ships declare, they basically file what we in the aviation world would call a flight plan. They say, we left here, we’re going there. And so obviously you can determine whether or not someone is adhering to their plan or not. And it’ll give you the opportunity to take appropriate action. We’ll always have the opportunity if and when they leave the Gulf, and if they’ve declared to go into an Iranian port, then that would be criteria to prevent them from going in.

Blaise Misztal:

Last topic here, just sticking with the CENTCOM post, the last sentence – we have most of the post talking about the blockade. But then the last sentence says, “U.S. forces are supporting freedom of navigation for vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz to and from non-Iranian ports.” What sort of activity would be required to support freedom of navigation? Is it the same activity as sitting outside the Gulf to blockade? And have we actually seen the U.S. Navy doing that to support freedom of navigation? Admiral Fox?

VADM Mark Fox, USN (ret.):

Well, we sent a couple of guided missile destroyers into the Gulf over the weekend, which is another place where you would say, we know if there are threats or if we thought it was mined, we would not have done that. I think we have a pretty clear idea of where the threats, at least in the water, are. So obviously, to be able to ensure freedom of navigation, you’ve got to be able to respond to whatever threat occurs with the Iranian IRGC or whatever their drones and attacks might be.

This goes back to having very strong surveillance and reconnaissance posture, very strong rapid response forces that are available to prevent either IRGC small boats from trying to board or capture, so I would expect us to be in a very forward-leaning posture that would ensure that anyone that is complying with our freedom of navigation goals will be part of the umbrella which we’re going to provide. And it takes ships, and it takes airplanes, and it takes Marines. So I mean, it’ll be a very well-coordinated effort, but it’s going to take ships that are operating in and around the Strait of Hormuz.

Blaise Misztal:

So Admiral Miller, to that point, would you expect to see more U.S. Navy vessels transiting the Strait, going into the Gulf? Should the U.S. be pursuing that in order to support freedom of navigation?

VADM John Miller, USN (ret.):

Before I answer that specifically, I do want to highlight that part of the ceasefire agreement was that the Strait of Hormuz would be open and that the Iranians would not impede transit. And clearly that has not been the case. So that’s another one of the measures regarding the ceasefire that we ought to keep in mind. I think what the destroyers that Admiral Fox was referring to have done is set the conditions. I think the CENTCOM statement really specifically intended to state – as part of this blockade statement –  that what the U.S. favors is a free and open Strait of Hormuz, where traffic can transit without fear of being impeded or attacked by the Iranian regime.

And so these two destroyers are, I think, a precursor to that, and I think we’ll see additional activity. Part of what I think, practically speaking, we need to keep in mind is in order for the ships that are trapped inside the Gulf to get out, and the ships that are outside the Gulf that want to get in – that are going to the GCC, or have been part of the GCC trade activity – in order for them to go they’re going to have to be confident that it’s safe. And part of that is sort of an implicit, well, prove it’s safe. And part of doing that is by having a U.S. presence, and that’s a maritime presence, and as Admiral Fox spoke to, it’s also a pretty robust airborne presence that can interdict anything that IRGC might have left in terms of small boats or other military hardware.

Blaise Misztal:

I believe the USS George Bush aircraft carrier is on route to the Gulf or the region, along with its Carrier Strike Group. Would that give the U.S. more options for supporting freedom of navigation through the Strait, or trying to open up that waterway? Admiral Fox?

VADM Mark Fox, USN (ret.):

We’re not in a place right now where we can necessarily dictate where ships are going to go. We’re not in that place. But obviously, when you have more resources, it gives the Fleet Commander, and it gives the CENTCOM commander, and it gives the Secretary, and it gives the President more options. And so therefore, I’ve seen the reports now that Gerald R. Ford has left Crete; she’s back in the Eastern Mediterranean. So where the George H.W. Bush goes will be driven by the mission that they’re tasked with.

Blaise Misztal:

All right. Well, thank you, admirals for that, I think, exhaustive discussion of current operations in and around the Gulf. If any of our audience has further questions on that topic, I encourage you to submit them using the Q&A feature in Zoom, and I’ll read them out. But let me turn momentarily back to General Amidror to talk about Lebanon, because I believe Israeli and Lebanese sides were supposed to be meeting here in DC to negotiate a potential agreement. So let me ask you, General Amidror, what is Israel looking to get? What sort of deal would it consider to be a good deal with Lebanon that would end the fighting there?

IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror:

I think that first of all, the meeting ended successfully. I mean, both sides came out alive and continued to their embassies. And I think that it’s a premature question, already securing an agreement. We need huge patience, and it will take a very long time, because both countries come from two different approaches. The Iranians are coming from an Iranian point of view: ceasefire, and then we will negotiate. And what we are saying, in the last few years, is that we have been attacked by the Iranians twice: the open fire on Israel on the eighth of October 2023, and at the beginning of the last operation in Iran without any Israeli reaction or anything action by Israel.

So we cannot live with this situation in the future, and we are determined to disarm Hezbollah and to destroy it one way or another. We are still in a defensive posture. We didn’t move to an offensive one. What we are doing is to push Hezbollah out of South Lebanon, so Hezbollah will not have the ability to launch ground assaults on Israel, and will not have the ability to use the anti-tank missiles they got from the Syrians – the Russians’ new Kornet – to attack Israeli villages along the border.

And look at the map, it’s around the Litani River line, and in the east, it is maybe behind the Litani River, because the Litani River is very close to some Israeli communities. We are not doing anything with ground forces north of the Litani yet. Most of the missiles launched by Hezbollah against Israel since the beginning of this stage of the war came from areas north of the Litani. But we are ready to give the Americans and the Lebanese the time that is needed. But it should be clear at the end of the day, Israel will not retreat from Lebanon unless Hezbollah is totally disarmed.

How far we are ready to go in, and where will the line be at which the IDF will present itself at the end of the offensive state, I don’t know. We are not speaking about it. There are many plans at the headquarters.

Now, we are focusing ourselves on preventing the ability of Hezbollah to launch missiles and rockets into Israel, and that we haven’t succeeded in stopping it. We want them to stop launching drones into Israel, but every day they’re launching drones into Israel. We have more sophisticated ways to deal with drones. But still, drones are a huge challenge. And we cannot say yes to the Lebanese demand for a ceasefire first and then negotiations.

It is impossible, from our point of view, after two different occasions in which Hezbollah decided that it is a good time to launch missiles into Israel and open fire without any Israeli action. This is the situation today. Negotiations are very important, but it will take a very, very long time to get an agreement, and I believe that before, Hezbollah is not going to suffer a huge blow from the IDF. Hezbollah will not agree to any agreement that would be implemented in Lebanon and cannot be forced by the Lebanese Government.

The Lebanese government declared that the Ambassador of Iran in Lebanon is persona non grata. He is still in Beirut, and they cannot take care of an ambassador of Iran in Beirut. Are there expectations that they disarm Hezbollah? It’s not going to happen in the near future, and probably Israel will have to do the job. If we will be wise, and there is a demand from the Americans, we will agree to a ceasefire. But for how long? Months? Two months? Okay.

But it should be agreed that if Hezbollah is not disarmed by the government of Lebanon within these two months, the Lebanese government and the administration in Washington agree that Israel will continue fully attacking Hezbollah with ground and air forces. We can wait, but at the end of the day, this organization will not, should not, have the ability to launch missiles and rockets into Israel.

Blaise Misztal:

So let me ask you to give us a little more detail, General Amidror. When you say that an acceptable deal for Israel would require the total disarmament of Hezbollah, what does that mean? That would mean removing their rockets and missiles, their drones, but would that also mean making sure that there are no Hezbollah members with small arms, with rifles anywhere in Lebanon? How realistic is that?

IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror:

Unlike Hamas, a small weapon in the hands of Hezbollah is a problem in Beirut but not in South Lebanon. We probably will have a buffer zone in South Lebanon, in which we will prevent any move of forces into the area that might be used to attack our communities south of the border. And Kalashnikovs are not the problem, we are speaking about everything from RPGs on. That should be taken by the legitimate government of the State of Lebanon, unlike Gaza, in which there isn’t any alternative.

That is why In Gaza our demands from Hamas are much more about totally disarming the organization. In Lebanon, there is a government, there is an army, and Hezbollah should not be an organization making decisions in Lebanon.

The government should make the decisions on government in Lebanon, the parliament should make decisions in Lebanon, not Hezbollah as a terror organization. And Hezbollah will not have the ability to launch rockets, missiles, anti-tank missiles, and so on and so forth into Israel, partly because Israel will have buffers inside Lebanon, and partly because the organization will be disarmed by an agreement or by force.

Blaise Misztal:

And then let me follow up to ask – if I understand you correctly, the Israeli position is that Israel will not withdraw from Southern Lebanon until Hezbollah is disarmed. You said getting a deal would be a long process, but presumably disarming Hezbollah would be an even longer process. So is Israel preparing to stay in the South of Lebanon for an extended period? Months? Years? How long?

IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror:

My view, and I don’t know the view of Israel is, my view is that Israel should not withdraw from Lebanon till Hezbollah will be disarmed. We cannot allow a situation in which Hezbollah can launch missile rockets from Lebanon into Israel. And for that, we have to control a big part of Lebanon. How much to the north is a good question. It’s not a defined line that we decide today. Very much it depends on what will happen in Lebanon.

Blaise Misztal:

If there is no deal, is Israel capable and prepared to disarm Hezbollah itself? To launch ground operations all the way to Beirut and Bekaa?

IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror:

We cannot reach Beirut and Bekaa with ground forces. This is ridiculous, but somewhere between the Litani and Beirut will be the line reached by ground forces. The whole area will be cleaned up by the IDF, and the Air Force will make whatever we can based on intelligence to destroy facilities which belong to Hezbollah.

Blaise:

Can you disarm Hezbollah from the air?

IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror:

No, we can’t disarm Hezbollah from the air. What we can do is to minimize the ability of Hezbollah to launch missiles and rockets into Israel. And remember, unlike in the past, because there is no land bridge from Tehran to Lebanon, the ability of the Iranians to rearm Hezbollah is minimal. The ability of Hezbollah to produce inside Lebanon is also close to zero, because every facility that we know about we are bombing and destroying. And as I said, the connection between Iran and Lebanon can be made only by flying into Lebanon from Iran or through other places.

You cannot bring weapon systems on flights. You can bring money, of course, but with the situation today in Iran that I’m not sure that the Iranians will have enough money to compensate the Shiites in Lebanon for the damage they suffered in the war. Probably most of the Shiites from South Lebanon, from the border of Israel to the Zahrani, are refugees now in North Lebanon.

So, no, we cannot destroy Hezbollah totally as we can to Hamas in Gaza. We can minimize the ability of this organization to launch rockets and missiles into Israel. The defensive system that we have in Israel, if there aren’t many rockets, we know how to deal with it. It’s not very convenient, but we know how to deal with it. And remember that after the operation in 2024, Hezbollah lost around 75-80% of its capabilities. So at the end of the day, if we clean the area south of Beirut, the number of missiles which will remain to launch into Israel will be very minimal.

Blaise Misztal:

One last question for you, General Amidror, do you believe that the Lebanese Government, and more importantly, the Lebanese Armed Forces, the LAF, have the capability currently to disarm Hezbollah?

IDF MG (ret.) Yaakov Amidror:

I don’t know where the fine line is between will and capability here. I really don’t know. I know that it is not an easy decision, because what they have to face is a kind of a war between Hezbollah and the Lebanese arm. In today’s situation, after the blow that we made to Hezbollah in 2024 I think that the balance of power is not as bad as before the war. Is it going to be easy? No. Is it going to be necessary to prevent a devastating war that might destroy Lebanon again? The answer is yes, because we as Israelis cannot agree to the existence of long-range missiles and rockets that can reach Israel in the hands of a terrorist organization under the flag of Lebanon.

By the way, the weaker Iran will be, the easier it will be to reach the point where Hezbollah can be disarmed by the Lebanese army. The chances are not high, but will be higher than if Iran was strong as it is today. The capitulation of Iran versus the Americans will be very helpful to convince Hezbollah that they are going to lose. Will it be enough? I don’t know.

Blaise Misztal:

Thank you, General Amidror. Admirals, let me turn to you to close things out in our remaining four minutes, and just ask what you’ll be watching for as U.S. naval operations for this blockade continue. What should we be watching for to gauge their effectiveness? What sort of responses might we expect from the Iranians? What will you be paying attention to? Admiral Miller?

VADM John Miller, USN (ret.):

Blaise again, thanks for having me, and I’ve appreciated the discussion. I have confidence that we can perform this blockade, and Admiral Fox said it right at the very beginning – this is within the operational capability of the Navy. We have the forces there to do this. I think it’s fairly clear that if there are Iranian flag vessels that are trying to get into or out of Iranian ports and through the Strait on their way to conduct trade that that’s not going to happen, and there may be some fighting about that.

And there’s some risk associated with us taking ships that are potentially armed with security detachments from the IRGC. I think we’ll be watching for that. And then, of course, I think we’ll want to watch for any kind of widening of the conflict here, in particular with Chinese vessels – whether or not the Chinese want to press an issue here and potentially escalate horizontally in a very big way. I don’t really expect that to happen, but that’s certainly something for us to be on the lookout for.

Blaise Misztal:

Thank you, Admiral Miller. Admiral Fox, final word goes to you. What will you be watching for?

VADM Mark Fox, USN (ret.):

I’m just reading all of the clips that I get from CENTCOM and just listening, paying attention. It’s hard to have a fingertip feel from so far away, and Admiral Miller and I have been in that position, but we’re not there now. We are the guys now that are talking about stuff when we truly don’t know what the details of the operational plan are. We understand the concepts, so we just need to be patient.

It will be very interesting to see the impact on the Iranian economy once their oil exports end. That will be something that I think will traumatize their regime. I’d be keeping an eye on the Houthis and the Bab al-Mandeb. Now a couple of different clocks are ticking. One is an economic clock – how much pain can the world endure with the rising price of oil. The other is how quickly and effectively can we bend the Iranian regime to our will. We’ll have to see how it goes.

Blaise Misztal:

Well. Admiral Fox, Admiral Miller, thank you so much for your insights. General Amidror, always a pleasure to have you on and get your take on everything. Thank you to everyone who tuned in. And please stay tuned to JINSA.org for all our latest updates and analysis. Thank you everyone. Admirals, good afternoon. Good night to you, General Amidror. Thank you.

The post Transcript: Webinar – No Deal: U.S. Blockade and Ceasefire’s Future appeared first on JINSA.

As the United States and Israel continue to decimate Iran’s conventional capabilities, it becomes clearer that their campaign cannot stop until at least one of two objectives is achieved: the collapse of the Tehran regime, or the end of its nuclear program. If the regime survives, it will be even more determined and desperate to go nuclear.

The Tehran regime already understood that giving up on a nuclear program is a recipe for being invaded, as happened with Ukraine; toppled like Bashar al-Assad; or invaded, toppled, and killed like Moamar Qaddafi and Saddam Hussein. Meanwhile, North Korea achieved nuclear weapons and its impoverished hermit regime remains safely in power. This history lesson is even clearer now that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and other top officials have been eliminated. Assuming it survives in some form, the regime will have every incentive to secure the ultimate deterrent against another such war.

Michael Makovsky, a former Pentagon official, is President and CEO of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA)

Jonathan Ruhe is Fellow for American Strategy at JINSA.

Originally published in RealClearDefense.

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