Strait of Hormuz Crisis EXPLODES: Iran Divided, Trump Weighs Next Move
4/23/202628 mincomplete
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0:33T's and C's apply. Welcome to The Truth with Lisa Booth, where we get to
0:36the heart of the issues that matter to you.
0:38Today, I'm joined by Rebecca Heinrich.
0:40She's a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and director of the Keystone Defense Initiative.
0:44She's an expert on strategic deterrence, missile defense, as well as U .S.
0:49policy toward Iran. We're going to talk about what seems like a stalemate right now.
0:54How do you break it?
0:55How do you break a regime that seems built for resilience?
0:58We'll also talk about the disruption and the straight -up her moves.
1:00What can we do about that?
1:02Also, what does victory look like?
1:03We'll get to all of this with Rebecca Heinrichs.
1:06Stay tuned. Well, Rebecca, it's great to have you on the show.
1:13We know each other, but this is the first time you've been on, so I
1:16really appreciate you making the time.
1:18Thanks for having me. Good to do it.
1:20Okay, so Rebecca, we were talking before we started, and I guess where I am
1:25right now on things with Iran is I understand the justification for why we did
1:29it. Obviously, Iran's a threat.
1:32They've been a threat for decades now.
1:34So I'm not against what we've done, but I worry.
1:38It feels like we're at a stalemate, and I don't know how to resolve that.
1:42I guess, what are your thoughts on that?
1:44And do you share the same sentiment, or I guess where do things stand now
1:47from your perspective? So I completely understand that view and that sentiment.
1:52I mean, I think the way I view it is the first thing is I
1:57think how President Trump views this.
1:59It's very different than what we've seen in previous presidents.
2:02He's not—he sometimes uses rhetoric like we're going to solve the Middle East.
2:07We're going to have peace in the Middle East.
2:08It's kind of hyperbolic. But he's infected— We're like a wonder civilization.
2:12Yes, yes. But his actual objectives are pretty scoped and limited, I think.
2:18And it's the way Trump kind of operates is he's perfectly happy to figure out
2:25what we can get done with the least amount of risk and call it a
2:29day. So I think that that's important because a lot of the people I talk
2:31to sometimes are like, look, you know, his vision for this was just too big,
2:35and he wanted to permanently solve the problem.
2:36And I don't really think that that's true.
2:38But so I think that what he wanted to do, and we heard this a
2:43lot from Admiral Cooper, too, and General Cain, you want to just—you want to essentially
2:47neuter the regime, make it so that it can't project power outside its borders, not
2:53going to support terrorist proxies anymore.
2:54And it's not going to be able to produce the weapons that it has.
2:58And then, of course, the missiles are part of the nuclear program.
3:02So that's what he wants to do.
3:04And I think that was the first part of Epic Fury, was the military piece
3:08of this really kind of laid waste to Iran's—we know all the stats—really destroyed their
3:14military. Now what Trump is doing is tapping the brakes and seeing if some of
3:20these leaders that the United States and Israel has permitted to stay alive, which is
3:24truthfully what these people are at this point, because the Israeli military has so penetrated
3:29Iranian leadership that those who are alive and doing the negotiating truly are, you know,
3:36they've been permitted to be alive.
3:38And that's who Vice President Vance was trying to negotiate with, et cetera.
3:42It turns out now—there's a bump here in the road—that they don't have the total
3:48support of the IRGC. And so the IRGC is not listening to these guys.
3:53So that's where we are right now.
3:55It's not an unsolvable problem.
3:57But the way I view it is people are getting antsy.
4:00It's been more than six weeks now.
4:01The president said he wanted this operation to be four to six weeks.
4:04We haven't totally solved it.
4:06The Iranians are still threatening the Strait of Hormuz.
4:08And so I think we have to move into a new kind of pressure campaign
4:12to finally compel an end to the war.
4:14And I do still think that it is possible.
4:17I just think that this piece of it is going to take, you know, it's
4:20going to take a little bit more time.
4:22But it's not going to be the same kind of risk that we saw in
4:27the initial kind of opening parts of this war, where it was just like, you
4:31know. So I guess that was the point I made on Outnumbered the other day
4:35of like, OK, so we've killed many of our leaders and that it's sort of
4:39a double -edged sword, you know, because it's like we've been able to take out
4:42their leadership and a lot of their capabilities.
4:45But at the same time, we've sort of taken out the decision makers that are
4:50actually able to enforce decisions, you know, across the board.
4:53Because the Iranian government, isn't it sort of structured where, you know, you've got like
4:57the political side of things and then you've got the IRG?
5:00And then we saw this play out the other day where the foreign minister said
5:05that the Strait was open and then the IRGC was like, no, it's not.
5:07So it's like, so it's like, so it hasn't sort of been a double -edged
5:11sword in taking out many of their leaders because now it doesn't seem like there
5:17is anyone in charge that can sort of like collectively pull everyone together.
5:21Well. What I think is, the way I view this is, the IRGC is basically
5:25like the regime when the Supreme Leader was alive.
5:29Like, that's what the rump IRGC is today.
5:32It's the remnant of that guy.
5:34The political leaders that seem to be willing to negotiate, I don't like to call
5:39them pragmatic because it makes them seem reasonable.
5:41It's not that they're reasonable.
5:43It's just that they don't want to be martyrs.
5:44Right. It's the problem. Right?
5:47They don't seem to be able to.
5:49So they don't have control.
5:50So I think, right. So they don't have control.
5:52We didn't know that was going to happen.
5:54That was kind of like a known unknown.
5:56Like, how is this going to work once we break down their command structure?
6:00Then what happens? And I think we didn't know that until Vance went all the
6:03way to Pakistan, talked to these guys, got a ceasefire, got a deal.
6:07And then you still see these guys kind of popping off at the mouth on
6:10X, saying that we don't listen to the political leaders.
6:13We listen to the Supreme Leader, who we haven't even seen the sun yet.
6:17We haven't, you know, we think he might be dead or incapacitated in some way.
6:21Like, we haven't heard from him.
6:22He's probably not alive, right?
6:23Right. But the IRGC guys claim that they're taking orders from him.
6:28So what does that mean?
6:29I mean, I think what that means is almost certainly you saw Besant come out
6:33and say, look, like, we're going to extend the ceasefire basically to see if the
6:36Iranians can shake out some kind of enforceable agreement within the power structure that just
6:42exists, this broken power structure.
6:45And if not, you know, we're going to keep the blockade in place, keep a
6:49pressure campaign in place. Trump loves to remind us all the Iranians are losing $500
6:54million a day. That goes directly to the regime.
6:56So we are starving them of their ability to even continue the fight at all
7:03while we're looking for somebody to have the ability to negotiate.
7:06So if I were to predict, I think we're going to resume some kind of
7:12limited military operation again. Probably these same guys that are saying they're not going to
7:18listen to the political leaders probably aren't going to live, you know, they're not going
7:22to survive the next round.
7:23And I think Trump's vision is really to just get a defanged regime, you know,
7:28in place that is able to, in fact, you know, make good on their promises.
7:32And if not, then we're just going to, you know, kill the IRGC.
7:36The IRGC is much smaller than the standing army.
7:39The standing army in Iran is not ideological.
7:43They're pro -Iran, but they're nationalistic.
7:46The IRGC are the ideological ones.
7:49So it's really interesting to me.
7:51There's a lot we don't know.
7:52Is the CIA and the Mossad working inside Iran to try to get the standing
7:57army to take control of the IRGC or take control from them?
8:01I mean, that would be really interesting.
8:03You'd have a militarized Iran, but it would not be ideological.
8:06So I think these are some things that are probably going on behind the scenes.
8:10Now, how does it play in the fact that, and I've heard it's not everyone.
8:14Obviously, there are some people working these jobs just to make money, right?
8:20But, like, there is, you know, unlike Venezuela, you have a religious component to this
8:25as well. I mean, you've got Islamists.
8:28You've got jihadists. You've got, you know, these radical Islamic extremists who don't mind dying.
8:34You know, they don't mind being martyrs.
8:36It's part of their culture.
8:37It's part of their religion.
8:38So how does that play in to, you know, regime change to try to get
8:44some of these people to turn?
8:46Well, this is sort of a difference, I think, why Iran is different than some
8:50of these other Muslim countries that the United States has done regime change with is
8:53Iran was pretty—it was secular.
8:571978, before the revolution. There are, again, Iran has—it's a diverse culture, and there are
9:03plenty of—I mean, as far as I know from my friends who really are true
9:07Iranian experts and really understand the people in the region, the United States is still
9:13popular with a large section of the Iranian people who are not Islamists.
9:18They're not political Muslims. They might be Muslim, but they're pretty secular.
9:23And so that's a large portion of the Iranian people.
9:27And that was the sort of the distinction I was making with the standing army
9:31versus the revolutionaries, the Revolutionary Guard Corps, which are there to defend the regime.
9:37There's just far fewer of those guys.
9:39So I think that there are seams inside Iran.
9:43And it's interesting, when Admiral Cooper gave an interview inside Iran, he was reminding IRGC
9:50people or people in the army, they can defect.
9:53They can defect and get paid.
9:55And clearly, we're looking to create, you know, splinters inside the regime and create another
10:02force that wants to be more—you know, doesn't want to participate in the Islamic Revolution.
10:08And I don't think it's impossible.
10:09We've got more with Rebecca on the other side.
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10:44T's and C's apply. Part of, like, with Iran— Part of, like, with Iran— A
10:49little bit of the challenge is that it sort of set up like we're trying
10:54to break a regime that is built for resilience.
10:58No, like you it's not a top down structure in the sense of, you know,
11:01we took out the Ayatollah and it's like playing whack -a -mole, it seems, you
11:05know, and you've got all these IRGC commanders spread across the country in these different
11:10provinces that are allowed to act with autonomy if need be.
11:15So even if you cut off the head of the snake, it's like seems like
11:18it can still survive. So what do we do about that?
11:21Like, how do you break a regime that's sort of built to not break?
11:26Yeah, well, it's a good question.
11:28I think it's probably more fragile than than it may appear at first.
11:32I mean, the the Supreme Leader himself really was the center of gravity ideologically.
11:36He really believed and the IRGC believed that he was leading the global Shia revolution.
11:47And so the fact that the United States and Israel or Israel, I think, was
11:50the one that actually took him out.
11:51I'm not sure which one, probably Israel.
11:53But by eliminating him, it's like that's a significant, it's a significant sort of psychological,
12:00ideological blow against this revolution.
12:02And so you take him out, which is why this IRGC commander who still thinks
12:07that he's sort of like the leader now, he is appealing.
12:10He's claiming that he's even talking to the Supreme Leader Junior because that's part of
12:15where he is like pulling his credibility within the Revolutionary Guard Corps.
12:18I just don't think he's saying, you know, I don't know if that's true or
12:22not. I don't know if he's actually meeting with that guy.
12:24But so I think that they're already really, really weakened.
12:28They still have to have money to survive, which is why the blockade is so
12:32important. So it's not I mean, they really do.
12:35They really are a force.
12:36They really do need to be supplied with goods and resources and energy.
12:40And right now we're choking that off, in addition to the fact that we've completely
12:46taken out their most senior nuclear scientists.
12:49So, you know, the Iranians have the knowledge to build a nuclear bomb, but they
12:53don't have the know -how.
12:54They don't have the people who know how to do it.
12:56And we've taken out their, you know, their ability to produce these weapons as well,
13:01too. So regardless of how this kind of ends, and I think we're going to
13:06be patient here to see how we can like win the peace finally and get
13:09the Strait of Hormuz open.
13:10And we can talk about that.
13:11But the regime is really severely weakened.
13:15I mean, even if Trump was like, I'm done with this, and now I'm just
13:19going to sort of force the Strait of Hormuz open with an international coalition or
13:22whatever he decides to do.
13:25Iran is a far weaker, far weaker threat and problem for the United States.
13:31Do you think the, I mean, obviously there's always politics in play, right?
13:34Like we've got a term election coming up.
13:37Obviously, President Trump's worried about gas prices.
13:39Clearly, the Iranians understand this as well.
13:42If we exit it now, would the American people view that as winning the war?
13:47That's a good question. I mean, I think it would be hard.
13:50I mean, I would basically, the kind of way how I've thought about this is,
13:54I think that the president made the right choice.
13:58I think that the Iran regime is significantly defeated or degraded, I should say.
14:03And so, you know, I would give us like a B.
14:07Like, you know, that's like really good.
14:09It was worth it. Great job.
14:10But I think that the American people want a more concrete finality to it.
14:17And so for that, to just be like, no kidding, we won this war and
14:21everybody has to recognize it.
14:22I think you really do have to have leaders inside Iran willing to basically heal
14:27and listen to the United States about, you know, what we're going to expect of
14:32them. And we actually have to have control of the Strait of Hormuz.
14:35That's the other really big piece because China, as we know and your listeners know,
14:39China is the biggest, most powerful backer of this rump regime, Iranian regime.
14:44And we do not want to have some kind of Iranian -Chinese tolling, extortion racket
14:49through the Strait of Hormuz.
14:52I think that would be pretty undeniably a geopolitical disaster for the United States.
14:58So how do we get control of the Strait of Hormuz?
15:01How difficult is that? Obviously, it's been challenging thus far.
15:08And even if we've taken a lot of Iran capabilities, they still have like this
15:12asymmetrical warfare and smaller, but they can still, you know, create a lot of problems
15:20and a lot of headaches and a lot of danger.
15:22Yeah. All they have to do is terrorize it.
15:24This is sort of why it's kind of funny when Trump comes out and says,
15:28the Strait's open, actually. The Strait's open.
15:30It's like, you might get hit with a cruise missile, but it's open.
15:33It's like, he's kind of, he's right in a sense that.
15:37It's like people are like, I don't really want to get hit with the missile.
15:39Like, I don't, I don't really want to risk it.
15:41Like captains and companies being like, yeah, that's not really a little bit more than
15:46that. Well, and it's these insurance companies, these insurance companies are determining the price to
15:51pay because the risk is greater.
15:53And then so these other companies don't want to pay it.
15:55So you're just not seeing, you're not seeing people willing to give it a shot.
15:58And we saw these like Indian ships, you know, tried to go through because they
16:03thought they were cleared. And then the IRGC started firing at them.
16:06So, you know, so that, so what's going on is all it takes is some
16:10guys really in caves along the coastline to pop out and fire off some shoulder
16:15fire rockets or whatever they have.
16:17So, yeah. And that's enough to terrorize the strait.
16:21So, but it's clear, we have to have clear in our mind, though, but they
16:24do not have, like, the actual sort of, like, naval capacity to really push us
16:29out. In other words, if you actually had, if we could, like, snap our fingers
16:34and, like, diplomatically create this international armada, where you had the Indians, the Japanese, the
16:39South Koreans, the Europeans, you know, basically, you know, all these people who have flagged
16:43ships to go just go through it.
16:46And use our collective capacity, air defenses and all kinds of stuff that we have.
16:51You could force open, you could basically get enough oil traversing, you know, getting through
16:57the strait in a pretty serious amount, and you would create a massive problem for
17:01the IRGC, because the IRGC cannot fight everybody.
17:05I mean, the problem that we're in is we don't have any willing partner or
17:10ally willing to participate in this other than the Israelis.
17:13I mean, we're doing a lot of praising of the Gulf states, but they're not
17:17going on the offensive either right now.
17:19Like, they're really not. I guess, why isn't anyone helping us?
17:22Why don't we have friends?
17:24So this is kind of my, like, I've got this piece that I'm working on,
17:28and it's kind of getting to this point, which is that, you know, President Trump's
17:34style has affected a lot of good things geopolitically, like a lot.
17:38I think we've reached the limit to what happens if you do not do sufficient
17:43distinguishing between how you're treating your friends and your enemies.
17:47Like, we've been doing a lot of beating up on our allies.
17:51I mean, you just think of, like, South Koreans and the Japanese on trade.
17:55And it does have an effect.
17:57Even if you can say, like, Trump's right.
17:58Like, Trump's right. Like, these guys, their tariffs are terrible.
18:01You know, like, their own tariffs or whatever are terrible, or they're protectionists too.
18:05You can go all down the list and say, he's right.
18:07But, you know, I think, like, the threat to Greenland had a really big effect
18:12on European countries. It doesn't even matter if you think that it should or shouldn't.
18:15I'm just, it just, it just did.
18:18So I think we're kind of at a point now where, you know, I think
18:24that our own State Department really needs to get with some of these guys and
18:28say, look, like, you are greatly harmed by the Strait of Hormuz closing.
18:34We are too. And we've had a lot of differences, but we need to pull
18:38together and get this international armada through in a pretty serious way.
18:41And I think it's going to have to take some, maybe some mea culpa's privately
18:45on some things, or some promises not to do some things anymore.
18:50But my thinking on this is, that's the quickest, most realistic way out of this,
18:55is actually getting a coalition of the willing to open up the Strait of Hormuz.
18:59And it's just going to require, again, you know, it's going to require the Trump
19:06team to, to, like, chill out on the anti -European rhetoric that we've seen a
19:12lot here lately, and other stuff.
19:14I mean, like, the Indians, the Indians get, like, 90 % of their oil goes
19:19through the Strait of Hormuz.
19:20And they're a serious country with a serious military.
19:23Like, we could really use the Indians, like, help, you know, just doing, you know,
19:27joining an armada and getting through the Strait of Hormuz.
19:30But it's going to take some pretty serious, I think, diplomatic finessing behind the scenes.
19:34Got to take a quick commercial break.
19:35If you like what you're hearing, please share on social media or send it to
19:38your family and friends. How much longer do you think we're looking at here?
20:15I mean, I just, I worry that we maybe have entered into a protracted war
20:22that we can't really exit out of.
20:28And then if we exited now, would it be viewed as a loss?
20:32But then if we stay in, do we lose more?
20:34So, you know, and then I, you know, you've got a massive country of 90
20:38million people. I think it's like four times the size of Iraq.
20:41So it's like, it's not like an engage in any sort of land war.
20:45And, you know, full -blown invasion, obviously.
20:47Like, I think there was like 150 ,000 people lined up before the start of
20:51Iraq. Like, you know, it's what's...
20:53Right. This is four times the size of that.
20:56So I just, you know, I don't know.
20:58I just worry that we're going to be in this prolonged war.
21:01And if we get out now or we stay in, there's really no winning.
21:06So I would just say the way that I...
21:08I don't want to be too...
21:09You know what I mean?
21:10Because I think our military is brilliant.
21:12And they, like, even just the rescuing of our troops.
21:15You know, so it's like, I don't want to sound like too much of a
21:17Debbie Downer. But I just, right now, it just seems like, you know, it just...
21:21It looks impossible. It looks hard.
21:22Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think that that's reasonable to sort of like kind of look
21:26at this. But I think it's going to take some...
21:29Part of the confusing thing, I think, for people who are...
21:32And I include myself in this, who are making sense of it on the outside
21:35is, is the president... When President Trump speaks or when he posts on truth or
21:39whatever he does, he... He's like...
21:42It's like part of the negotiating.
21:43So not all of it's true.
21:44And... you know so it's like we're doing this and we're doing that and we're
21:47going to have a deal in a couple days and so in terms of like
21:50expectation management i feel like a lot of us are like wait i thought this
21:53was going to be done in four weeks and you know it's like i thought
21:55you had a deal now you don't have a deal but i actually think um
22:00kind of big picture i mean this is really it's only been i think do
22:04you even know i think it's been like seven weeks maybe i don't know it's
22:06a pretty short time yeah it's hard i feel like i have no concept of
22:09time anymore because yeah things happen so quickly i think it's only been like seven
22:16weeks they've completely i mean our to your point the military was just amazing and
22:20what it accomplished with really minimal casualties you never want to minimize you know a
22:26single american loss is horrible but really incredible asymmetry in our military power and competency
22:32versus the iranians and and for the more the the chinese air defenses that the
22:36iranians had so it's we just you know totally demolished them and i think though
22:41you know you've got the military piece of it and then you have the political
22:45piece of it and you have to you have to compel a political solution to
22:49your favor and trump is trying to do it at the least possible cost you
22:55know there there is which is why we tapped the brakes and tried to get
22:59something to shake out in in pakistan i just think it's going to take a
23:03little bit more time i think we're going to resume military operations and i think
23:08i i mean i i just i don't think it's implausible that you can actually
23:12sever the regime from the less radical members again the whole army the artesh is
23:19then their name their the whole standing army is not like the irgc um and
23:24so we're still encouraging defection so i i just think it's possible that we can
23:29actually get a more cooperative leadership structure um i think we're still going to have
23:33some irgc guys that are you know we're not going to get every single one
23:37of them but i think we can compel an end that gets the straight open
23:41i mean if the united states again with our western allies can actually be the
23:47ones that have control of the straight i mean i don't know even if you
23:51there's some people who say look if we don't extract every single piece of enriched
23:54uranium then that's a loss and i don't agree with that either i mean the
23:58iranians can't even access that right now i mean i think that we need to
24:01extract some components of it um but even if we don't do that piece like
24:06in the next whatever weeks and months i think that it's so entombed that the
24:11iranians just can't even act you know get to it access it so i think
24:16that there are conditions that are set where we can credibly say look we won
24:21and we can really start getting you know getting troops back out of the region
24:25etc and get be in a better in a better position but it might be
24:29another couple of months you know it might be another couple of months of this
24:32back and forth resuming military options keeping the blockade in place see if we can
24:37shake out a diplomatic solution and then try it again but it's trump so anything's
24:42possible there's this like thinking and you know national security world where it's like oh
24:47the president has to save face and he has to do this i don't think
24:50trump cares about that saving face i think that he can sort of just decide
24:55what he wants to do and he'll be happy to just call it you know
24:58call it a call it over but i do think realistically we do have to
25:03have that straight open and i think that's going to require that diplomatic piece i
25:08said that's going to require some humility on the part of the u .s and
25:11then cuba i don't know so this i am just like oh my goodness cuba
25:15i i don't know enough about what's going on in there i know that trump
25:19officials keep sort of implying or or even saying like cuba maybe next i don't
25:24know how fragile the cuban leadership is at this point but i know that that's
25:29part of what the u .s and trump too wants to do is remove these
25:34narco communists from our hemisphere and get you know get these regimes to be more
25:41compliant i mean people didn't think that they were going to be able to do
25:43it to venezuela and they did which is still remarkable to me i mean i
25:47had venezuela experts i talked to all the time and they were like you can't
25:50just eliminate maduro and get a more cooperative government like that won't work that's why
25:56we haven't done it and it's working yeah so we have such an unconventional government
26:04right now where they're willing to do things others just have not been in the
26:08past and so i'm always just really reluctant to be overly definitive about the possible
26:14well so i always feel like with trump it's just like always smart to never
26:18bet against him because i don't know the man does but he somehow always manages
26:22to pull like a rabbit out of his hat so let's hope that he pulls
26:26one out on this he's like a cat you throw it off the roof you
26:29land on his feet i know like every time i made the mistake of you
26:33know thinking that he was done or you know like the walls are closing in
26:36as the you know left always says particularly before the uh republican primary and then
26:42you know sure enough he figures out a way to to make it through so
26:46the guy's remarkable he is and i will just say too as somebody like i
26:50have been dealing like really working on this iran issue for years and years and
26:54it's like the whole professional established national security establishment was basically just stuck in this
27:00i guess we have to have the iran deal like that's the only option we
27:03have because all these things are hard what i appreciate about trump is like he
27:07gets in there and he listens to all the options and he's like yeah we're
27:11not we're not not going to do that.
27:13And after Midnight Hammer, when the Iranians were so weakened after Midnight Hammer, that's whenever
27:20he was like really kind of thinking about Epic Fury because the Iranians started rebuilding
27:25air defenses with the help of the Chinese.
27:28And that's, you know, what's interesting about Trump is like, he was like, why would
27:31we wait until the Iranians are stronger again before we try to actually, you know,
27:37degrade them even further? And so I just give him a lot of credit for
27:41just having the guts to do what others haven't been willing to do.
27:44And I hope he can pull off a good political outcome because it would be
27:48pretty amazing. Yep. Praying for his success in our countries.
27:53So Rebecca, really appreciate you coming on and breaking this down for us.
27:58I've just been thinking about all this.
28:00So it helps to have your expertise.
28:02So appreciate you. Yeah. Thanks for having me on.
28:04Always happy to chat about this stuff.
28:06That was Rebecca Heinrich. We appreciate her rejoining the show.
28:09Appreciate you at Home for listening every Tuesday and Thursday, but you can listen throughout
28:12the week. Also want to thank Don Cassio, my producer for putting the show together
28:16until next time.