This is a 'strong and sound' strategy: Retired vice admiral

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]All right, with great pleasure we welcome to the show Vice Admiral Robert Harwood, former Sentcom Deputy Commander and fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America. Uh, Admiral Harwood, thank you, sir, for doing this. We appreciate it very much.

[00:00:15]My first question to you is I want to see the US um control the entire Persian Gulf theater, you know, the whole thing, uh, waterways, hormuz, you name it. Uh, can we do it? Are we doing it? in your judgment?

[00:00:31]>> Well, the US military can do anything they can set their mind on, but I'd like to comment first on your term. You use the Persian Gulf. For the last decade, I've heard it referred to as the Arabian Gulf because there are in fact more Arab nations and more coastline with Arab countries on that body of water. And you're indicative of the problem here.

[00:00:53]You have the Persians trying to control the Straits of Hormuz illegally. M >> so yes the number one objective for the president and to ensure the free flow of commerce through that straits and Iran now claims it's theirs and they will control that. So we can do it. There's ways to do it politically and ways to do it kinetically and obviously President Trump has uh taken the non-kinetic approach at the moment. So we're going to blockade your oil. So, you're not going to enjoy that and you're going to suffer by not having a an economy to support your people or your policies and objectives.

[00:01:34]The question will become how long can they live with that? Now, we can take the kinetic solution and bomb Car Island, but that becomes a long-term problem. So, he's demonstrating to the regime, hey, here's what this pain is willing to is going to look like. How long can you live with it? understanding that we can take it all out whenever we choose and force them to capitulate on the objectives he's dictated for the negotiations. I think that's a very strong and sound strategy. The question becomes how long will it take Iran to come to that realization?

[00:02:12]>> Well, seeing as Admiral, it looks like it's succeeded. The naval blockade has succeeded as far as I know. I saw a number this afternoon, 26 or 27 ships turned away. The only issue, and by the way, if you want the Arabian uh Gulf, I'm perfectly happy with that, believe me. Uh I'm I'm not going to put a pitch in for the Persians. But my question, you know, from your uh point of view, from your experience, um how difficult is it uh sea mines, these little motorboats, I call them these uh uh Iranian motorboats that are they they've taken a couple or shot at a couple of vessels, a a Greek vessel, another vessel, not an American vessel. It looks like it's a success, the blockade. Uh will it remain a success? How hard is it? cuz I think President Trump is suggesting sir that the blockade is going to go on you know for quite some time and part of our strategy is to literally starve Iran economically uh in addition to what we've done in combat.

[00:03:13]>> That's exactly right. I think that's a great strategy. But back to the small boats and the mines, those are still threats. At least the mines are. We've not seen a mine yet and we've had flow of traffic including theirs through the waterway. But the small boats are a problem. As we saw with piracies on Somalia, we started arming those ships who went through. So we could put people on the ships with longer range weapons than those ships have. So if it's just the small boat threats, we have ways of dealing with that. But again, are the those countries who are flown those ships through there, are they willing to do that? We can do that, but are they willing to do that? So again, who is that oil more important to them or us?

[00:03:58]They've got to be just as involved and concerned with this. So let's see what we're willing to do. And again, you can assume a defensive posture by putting personnel on those ships with guns, maybe even some missiles as we did to defeat the Somali pirates when they were hijacking ships. So, there are a lot of steps we can do to address what the Iranians are doing and the threats they posed to the commercial shipping lanes.

[00:04:26]>> But I just um look, I I don't know about the other countries. I mean, that's an imponderable. All right. Um and that's a longer story. Um you know, who who knows? You're right. Your assessment of the needs are correct. Uh but they may not understand what they need. So, we might have to sometimes help them on that. But the thing is, Admiral, if we control the Arabian Gulf, to use your phrase, which I like very much, if we control this thing for the foreseeable future, and it kind of sounds like that, you know, will we be able to do it? I mean, Iran, if they don't po I don't think Iran poses much of a naval threat.

[00:05:02]I don't think they pose much of an anything threat, but you read the newspapers and the critics and you think Iran's doing a whole lot better than they really are. No, I agree with you completely. They're in the hurt locker, so to speak, and it's only going to get worse for them. But the bigger issue, it's not just the straits. It's the nuclear weapons, the nuclear material.

[00:05:24]They're going to have to ensure if not handed over that they do not pursue those program. And that's the longer term threat. Consider this that if the president had not acted and Iran choose to do them this on themselves after they had a nuclear weapon. So take the worst scenario that had been percolating and had been consistently on that path for decades now. If the president had not acted, you may have been facing that dilemma and that makes it much more significant aligned with a much broader much more difficult problem. who owns and controls not just the straits of Hormuz, but all of the oil that comes out of that region, not just from Iran, but from Qatar, from Bahrain, from Kuwait, Saudi and UAE. So, you could not stand by and you have to eradicate that threat for the long term. So, after opening the straits, a priority, but number two and closely tied to that, ensuring Iran will never have a nuclear weapon. So they would never seed control of the straits or either the Arabian Gulf or as they would refer to it the Persian Gulf.

[00:06:36]>> Yes sir. Yes sir. I agree. I agree 100% agree with your logic. I think and but I think that's where the president's aiming to go on this. But um thank you sir. We appreciate it. Ad Robert Harwood. We appreciate it very much.

[00:06:49]Hope to see you again soon.