SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
The U.S. and Iran continue to go back and forth with rockets and bombs. The U.S. military conducted strikes on Iran last night for the seventh night in a row, and today, there are reports from Jordan and Iraq of incoming Iranian missiles and drones, while Kuwaiti officials say that Iran struck a water desalinization plant. Ship traffic through the Strait of Hormuz is nearly at a standstill, and President Trump threatens more attacks if Iran does not stop attacking vessels. An underground military complex called Pickaxe Mountain could be the next target.
(SOUNDBITE OF PODCAST, "THE HUGH HEWITT SHOW")
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: But Pickaxe is a possible - you know, a possible target for a nice big, fat shot right in the front door. And I think that you'll - maybe you'll see that.
SIMON: That's the president on "The Hugh Hewitt Show" this week. We turn now to Dana Stroul. She's with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East during the Biden administration. Thanks so much for being with us.
DANA STROUL: Good morning, Scott.
SIMON: The U.S. resumed its blockade of Iranian ports this week, and the president posted that the U.S. would be, quote, "the guardian" of the Hormuz Strait. What would that mean in military terms?
STROUL: Well, in military terms, what we're trying to do now is clear out all of the ways in which Iran can threaten freedom of navigation and the free flow of commerce through that critical maritime choke point. So they're targeting port infrastructure, radars and the warehouses that store the missiles and the drones that are attempting to cut off shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. To be the guardian of the strait, however, we're talking about a long-term, undefined, indefinite effort of naval resources, but also air resources, and bringing confidence back to the shipping industry. So a long-term, undefined objective.
SIMON: So a lot more military assets and more U.S. military assets exposed to attack?
STROUL: In order for navigation to completely return, the military would have to both assure the international community and, particularly, shippers, that they're not going to be targeted even by one drone and that all of that is cleared out from Iran. But the other thing they would have to do is assure insurers and shippers that there's a clear pathway through the Strait of Hormuz. That is a long-term, very resource-intensive proposition.
SIMON: President Trump's threat to attack Pickaxe Mountain - would such an attack - how would such an attack alter the war?
STROUL: Well, Pickaxe Mountain is allegedly another location where Iran has stored its enriched uranium and other ways of reconstituting the nuclear program. And just like we saw with the U.S. military last year during the 12-day war, this is a different kind of effort than what the military is doing right now. We need very big munitions in order to get into those deeply buried facilities. And that would certainly be part of assuring the international community that Iran no longer has a pathway to a nuclear weapon, but the immediate issue right now is a different kind of threat that Iran poses to the Strait of Hormuz.
SIMON: And that threat, of course, is the international shipping.
STROUL: Yes. What we have seen right now is that this one maritime choke point can have such damage not only to the economies and the industries of the Middle East, but global energy prices with effect internationally.
SIMON: Yeah.
STROUL: And at this point in time, Iran poses such a threat that insurers will not provide adequate insurance, and shippers are not willing to take the risk to transit that vital waterway.
SIMON: And what are the risks involved in the daily attacks between the U.S. and Iran? The risk of escalation - where could this wind up?
STROUL: The risk of escalation is very high because what we've seen over the course of these seven days of renewed strikes is both sides shifting from pure military targets to targets that have civilian implications. On the Iranian side, there's strikes on desalination plants, civilian energy infrastructure and even civilian hotels.
And on the U.S. side, President Trump has threatened repeatedly to expand the scope of military strikes beyond the maritime threats to civilian infrastructure, where Iranians also are dependent on energy and clean water. When that happens, and the bar lowers to the kinds of strikes that the United States is signaling it's willing to strike, then Iran is going to, I think, expand its scope across the Middle East as well.
SIMON: And does that threatened escalation provide any new motivation or impulse for diplomacy?
STROUL: Both sides continue to say diplomacy is an option. The challenge with this escalatory threat is that both sides are using the same plays that we saw earlier this year during the height of those 40 days of war. Military targets and a naval blockade are unlikely to produce a diplomatic agreement that is acceptable on both sides, leaving them both with a perception that escalation is a better choice.
SIMON: Dana Stroul of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, thank you so much for joining us today.
STROUL: Thanks for having me this morning. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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