First Things First: Force Open Hormuz Strait

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:00]So, the war in Iran is changing by the hour. I mean, for weeks now, we've gone back and forth. We're either on the verge of a major diplomatic breakthrough or about to restart hostilities, sometimes both at the same time. So, to better understand the current situation, we're joined today by Aaron Mlan. Aaron is the host of the School of War podcast, a personal favorite of mine and a must listen if you're trying to stay up to speed on all things national security. He's also a columnist at the Free Press and a national security analyst at CBS News. You can find links to follow Aaron and his work in the description below. And with that, let's get to the conversation. All right, Aaron, thank you so much for taking the time. Uh, a lot happening, a lot changing day today, so we'll do our best to uh jump on this and get it out as quick as possible.

[00:00:41]>> Hey, thanks so much for having me. It's a real uh privilege to be on your show.

[00:00:44]>> Yeah, good good having you here, man.

[00:00:45]Uh, you know, everybody has been saying that it's just a matter resolving this war is just a matter of one good podcast. So, I think maybe we give it we give it a go. No pressure.

[00:00:55]>> This I can't imagine a better team.

[00:00:56]Let's do This is it. Yeah. So, we'll uh let's see if we can get this thing resolved in the next 30 minutes or so.

[00:01:01]Um so, I wanted to start out with the these statements that we get from the government. It's it's we're in a unique spot right now where every few hours or every few days there's a new statement maybe from President Trump or the Pentagon or someone and I'm I'm just interested in how much uh weight you put in those personally as you're kind of weighing what's happening and what to watch. As just a little bit of context for the audience, last night the president said, you know, they will be laughing no longer talking about how Iran did not accept our deal. He then went on to say, um, he doesn't he doesn't like what Iran sent out. It's unacceptable.

[00:01:37]Do you pay much attention to that? Is it white noise? Where do you sit on a lot of these statements?

[00:01:42]>> It's somewhere in between those two things. Uh, and I feel like this is a a closely related question to the question of whether or not Donald Trump is a is a president who, and I quote, tacos, uh, you know, whether the Trump always chickens out taco, uh, uh, you know, description is is accurate. Um, it's obviously that the this case the case that this president has um, you know, frequently resorts to hyperbole. Um, uh, sometimes does uh, make claims that he doesn't back up. Um, but the problem with uh taco as a phrase is is Trump always chickens out. Um, and it's the always that's the problem there. The fact is that the president sometimes very strongly backs up what he says he's going to do and in some cases goes much further, frankly, than any other president would. I mean, you might argue that the attack on Iran overall um is a kind of example of that or that Midnight Hammer in 2025 was or indeed I think the first time that I really noticed it and it was sort of struck by the aggressiveness of Trump um when he felt like being aggressive was uh killing Kasumsmani back in the very early days of 2020 which was a much more dramatic option that frankly that typically the United States would have followed um uh after after the kind of circumstances that led to it back then. So, you know, you have to you have to kind of balance on the one hand that the the noise to signal ratio there is a lot of noise.

[00:03:03]Um, and you can't it's just dishonest to claim that there isn't. Um, but it goes too far and you run the risk of kind of making the mirror, you know, the opposite mistake. If you think, oh, this is all just nonsense. None of this means anything. It's all talk. He's all talk.

[00:03:16]It's clearly not all talk. He he is in a bind, I think, right now. He is in a real bind over the street of Hormuz and over Iranian intrigence more generally.

[00:03:25]But I certainly would not sit here and think that um he's not going to follow up on his uh word. Moreover, I would say that with any other president, given he's departing, I think momentarily for China for this summit with Xi Jinping um this week, with any other president, I would say, "Ah, Preston, we got probably a quiet week on the Iran file ahead of us because he's not going to start anything while he's in Beijing." With Donald Trump, I'm not so sure. I don't think I can so confidently assert that.

[00:03:47]The only thing that felt reliable for the last what is it 10 or 11 weeks now is Sunday night, Monday morning a uh a good things are moving smoothly and that would last a couple hours maybe that was the only thing. But other than that, has there been anything that you've noticed in terms of kind of signals coming from the United States that would suggest we're focused on a peace deal or we're focused on building an alliance to open the straight or military strikes are incoming? Is there anything that has kind of pointed in that direction in the past from what you've seen?

[00:04:19]>> I I mean I I think that um a lot of the you can call it noise, you can call it meaningful. Um I I'm I'm of the view that it's more meaningful than not. Uh of the last, you know, couple of weeks has been about the American desire to negotiate with Iran. I do think that that's genuine. I think that the president would genuinely like to make a deal um that makes significant progress on the nuclear issue which he has he has you know the war began with him outlining a whole series of war aims you know the Iranian navy which by the way I actually do think a lot of progress was made on that front the missile program some progress it still exists but some progress uh proxies that sort of disappeared we don't hear much talk of proxies anymore um as a as a war aim and then the nuclear program which Trump has clearly stuck with and embraced as his primary consideration for these negotiations. Uh the problem it seems is twofold. One uh excuse me, one uh the Iranians don't seem to be that interested in meeting the president halfway um or even 25% of the way on his demands for zero enrichment, also dismantlement, other things like that.

[00:05:27]two, very early, I mean within hours, if not just a couple days of the start of this campaign back on February the 28th, early March, the Iranians seize control of the straight of Hormuz. Um, and this is really their only meaningful leverage beyond just pure negative intransigence.

[00:05:42]Their only meaningful leverage is their control over the strait. And in my view, and it's been my view since the first week of March, is that the United States simply cannot let that pass for a variety of reasons, some of them very hard economic reasons. Um, and so for as much as I think it's genuine that the administration really does want a deal, um, I I think they've got real problems on that front. And at some point, my view and my view for weeks now has been they're going to come around to the conclusion that the only way for it is to restore access through the straight of Hormuz militarily.

[00:06:15]um uh after which um they will have at least reduced Iran's leverage um over us and over the global economy and then can proceed from there into what will still be a very uncertain environment.

[00:06:27]>> I don't know if if you had an opportunity to read the article it came out I think yesterday but Robert Kagan in uh in the Atlantic had one titled Checkmate in Iran. Um and he he talks about this. We'll have it linked in the description because I think it does a good job personally I think it's a little premature in declaring defeat.

[00:06:42]Um, but I think it does a good job of laying out kind of where we are and the challenges that you just articulated.

[00:06:48]And he kind of lays it out with we either can go allin militarily, which is some degree more than we've done so far, or back off. And this is the new status quo. And his argument is that the status quo is is effectively an American defeat. So if we were to go that military route, open the straight of Hormuz, force open the straight, how does that look in your opinion?

[00:07:11]>> Yeah. So I I mean I I'm sort of where you are I think on that article um and on declaring defeat which is is is some sort of um catastrophic or near catastrophic American defeat a possible outcome of where we are right now?

[00:07:24]Absolutely. I think absolutely the case and I would I would say a major component of that would be if Iran does retain control o of the straight of hormuz effectively going forward um the regime survives they return to um uh you know rebuilding their missile arsenal etc etc. Yeah, I think at that point it would be very hard to claim that the military action that we've led along with the Israelis was was worthwhile. I just it's just too early to say though.

[00:07:49]It's just premature. And there's another world in which um uh for example, some access through the strait is restored. I mean, look, I can be more dramatic than that. uh you you know NATO bombed Serbia uh at the end of the '90s um for for several very intense weeks and a year later Slobam Mallovich fell victim essentially to to internal domestic Syrian pol excuse me Serbian politics um uh if the Iranian regime falls a year from now because of whatever factor you know the cash finally runs out there is a successful uprising whatever it is are we really going to sit here and retrospect and say this was an objective American defeat so I just think it's premature Um, in terms of the strait itself, look, um, I I don't I don't see any way in which in the short to middle term, you return to the to the status quo uh, antibbellum. Like, you're not going to go back to February 27th where you had on average every day 130 140 ships going through the straight, unfortunately. And that's a problem. Uh, that's probably an unsolvable problem in the sense that you you can't get back to that. What you can do, and I I've been in many arguments about this over the last couple months. I'm very confident asserting it because we've done it. The United States of America has done it. We did it in the 1980s and 1987 888 is you can essentially ferry shipping through the straight under the protection of the United States. Ideally, we would have allies uh and their navies and and capacities supporting us in this effort in a way that you'll never reduce the amount of incoming fire to zero if Iran remains implacably hostile. Well, Indeed, in 1987 and 88, the Iranians kept trying to mine the straight. They kept taking shots at ships. Uh I mean, eventually they hit a US uh Navy ship with a mine, which led to Ronald Reagan in the spring of 1988 sinking a good chunk of the Iranian Navy. So, we've been here before. Like, all this has kind of happened before on some level.

[00:09:38]You could argue like you could play out the scenario and say we restart Project Freedom. We really lean into it. We start moving shipping through the straight. We we work with the insurers to, you know, backs stop um some of the some of the financial questions about getting some of this shipping through.

[00:09:54]And Iran just retaliates even more dramatically than we saw at the start of last week. And they're not just um hitting the UAE, they're hitting Saudi again. They're going after Israel. Like it's a full-scale retaliation at which point we feel like we have to to respond not just in the straight but beyond and the ceasefire is over. Um okay. Uh I you you know the president was threatening to essentially destroy the Iranian economy at the end excuse me at the beginning of April at the end of the the round of major combat.

[00:10:19]>> He could still do that. Does that ensure you know months more of warfare um at that level of intensity? It's not clear to me that it does. And that's why I just think again the sort of the the um what you characterized as the the Kagan distinction between its defeat or maximal war indefinitely. I just I think that's too crisp and too hard a distinction. I do think there are middle grounds.

[00:10:41]>> Got to get the headline though, man. So, we got to go all in. I got to figure out what we're going to title this talk.

[00:10:45]It's either all in or all out. Uh, undecided so far.

[00:10:48]>> The the future the future is murky.

[00:10:51]Protraction is likely. Um, and we don't know how much economic pain there there will be, but it's not a defeat yet.

[00:10:56]How's that?

[00:10:57]>> Yeah, perfect. That'll that'll do well.

[00:10:59]Um, it it it does feel like we are hesitant to use military force and I think that comes across weird given, you know, this was a massive campaign and and Midnight Hammer was was groundbreaking in so many different ways and we're actually attacking Iran with our military. We have freedom of uh our general air superiority over good chunks of the country and yet it feels like we are trying to not go further militarily.

[00:11:26]Does that make sense? Are are you seeing that as well or >> Totally. Well, it's the same as um uh what I was suggesting a couple minutes ago by saying I think the embrace of the diplomatic approach is genuine. Yeah, I I totally agree. Um you know, the president has has blinked repeatedly since April the 7th when the ceasefire began to include in the first moments of the ceasefire where he asserted that the ceasefire was being put in place in return for the Iranians opening the straight. Well, they didn't reopen the straight and they got the ceasefire anyway. Um, and you've seen sort of round after round of moments like that of real restraint. I mean, if you wanted to put it in slightly better terms, uh, from or more approving terms from the Trump administration. So, yeah, I agree completely. I mean, we could we could think through the reasons why that is. I mean, I think there's a to to my mind the most important reason is the political reason, which is that President Trump promised the American people a 4 to6 week war. Um uh and that's just intention with you know if you take this take the hypothesis I just offered that you could see more limited military operations in the strait that are not a return to the fullcale combat.

[00:12:31]Well okay but those are still protracted. Those still go on indefinitely. Those go on until the Iranians stop shooting at chips which could be years right. Um uh so that's one reason. There's the legal reason.

[00:12:41]You have the War Powers Resolution in Congress asserting that there's a 60-day clock. Um I and um and also I think you have the munitions issue where I think people who follow that issue closely and people inside the department of war um are concerned about how much we shot in those six weeks of or so of highintensity combat.

[00:13:01]>> That's going to be the title. Now we're going to get people fired up when you start talking about magazine depth.

[00:13:05]That's all right.

[00:13:07]>> Um >> it's a real issue. So I I guess where and I think I speak for a lot of folks where we see there's a bit of a reticence to use more military force, but I don't like we see that from Trump making these threats and then kind of walking it back or finding reasons to continue talks and we're going to push this out a little bit further. But at the same time, I'm not convinced that just going allin militarily right now would actually resolve the issue. So it's this to kind of go back to what you were saying a few minutes ago, we're in a tough spot. It's not entirely clear what the solution could be from this point going forward.

[00:13:41]>> Yeah, I think that's right. I think it is a tough spot. I I also think, you know, we were we were joking about how um when on both of our shows, so for me on School of War, when I record an episode on Iran, I try to get it up right away because you just never know what's going to happen next. And I it's totally possible that, you know, we'll be sitting here a very short period of time from now and the president will have reinitiated some kind of military action. Totally. If anything, I think, you know, what's sort of interesting to me this last week or two of Iranian intrigence on the on the diplomatic front is if they would just give him a little bit, if they would just make, and this has kind of been true for years now, if they would just make some kind of concession narrowly on the nuclear issue, I really do think this administration would kind of hand the store to them. Uh, I I I do I do think that you would see the United States be willing to deal on a wide range of things if the Iranians would simply make some concessions on nuclear issues. And it seems like they just won't. They just won't. At least not to the satisfaction of the president. And so, if anything, I think you're seeing probably the Iranians rather than doing what to me would seem like the smart play if I were them, which is to just string it out.

[00:14:48]Just drag it out. offer enough to keep the Americans interested but just drag this thing out indefinitely. Instead, they're going to be so it seems very possible to me they're going to be so intrigent that they actually force the president's hand because he can't come back to the American people and and claim um claim what he's getting is a victory. But as to your point about whether or not military action would solve anything, look, I mean, I look at the strait kind of how I looked at the hostages in Gaza because it is a kind of hostage situation. And by the way, I think one of the major successes of the Trump administration so far in this second term, if not overall, frankly, if not in terms of diplomatic successes of the century so far, was the freeing of the hostages from Gaza uh in 2025. I I say that because I didn't think it could be done. I was astonished when they pulled it off. Um, and obviously in humanitarian terms it was wonderful for those families and those hostages, but in strategic terms to me what was really interesting about it was that it immediately allowed Israel >> to sort of downgrade and demote the importance of Gaza in their strategic conception because up until that moment it was just the most urgent concern every day for all sorts of obvious reasons. But once the hostages were out they could they could think about other things. They could they could take their time. they could, you know, they could they could the clock was just more generous in terms of what their options were with Gaza. It's sort of that way with the Straight of Hormuz and America's options towards Iran if some level of traffic could be restored in the straight such that it was demonstrated that Iran did not have complete control and that commerce was on some sort of path towards returning to a normality. I do think the strategic calculus would be fundamentally altered and there would just be more time. You could keep the American blockade of Iranian ports which will start to have extremely negative consequences for the Iranian economy. But in time, economic warfare is not a it's not a light switch thing. Just like the effect of the closure of the straight has not just wrecked the world economy. Like these things take time, but in time they will have major effects. And so to to me it really is I've just I feel like I've become like monomomaniacal about this and just obsessive. It really is all about the straight. Um, and if some level of traffic could be restored in the straight, America would have a lot more time and a lot more options.

[00:16:58]>> It feels like uh like a temporary patch. And the temporary could be years long, but if we start allowing facilitating 5% 10% 20% of shipping through, that does not solve the problem. But it's 20% through today would be light years ahead of where it's been now for a couple months. So maybe buys a little more time in trying to negotiate something. Is that kind of what you're suggesting there?

[00:17:25]>> Well, it buys time for the blockade to start to really wreck the Iranian economy, which keep in mind was already in an extraordinarily weak situation when the war started. I mean, they're having water shortages in Thran before this war. So, it's not like the Iranian economy was some sort of model of of success. So, um, yeah, exact. I think I agree completely with with how you just formulated it. just buys time for everything. It reduces the in the the the urgency of the situation. It allows the administration to focus on other things. Not that the president really struggles with that. It's it's actually always kind of fascinating to me how uh there was one briefing uh where he he was he was on Air Force One flying back from Florida up to Washington and he was answering questions about Iran. Um uh and then he sort of did, you know, four or five questions on Iran. And all of a sudden, he turns around and he pulls out like a an image of the ballroom and starts talking about the ballroom and answering questions about the ballroom with the exact same level of intensity that he was just fielding questions about Iran. And you could see, I think, in his mind, it's all like there's Iran, there's the ballroom, there's the reflecting pool, there's China and trade, there's NATO, and they actually do all kind of coexist in his mind on the same level. Um, nevertheless, I agree with your formula. Um, uh, some 20% would is probably, you know, pushing up on the high end of realistic if the Iranians maintain the intensity of fire that they've brought to bear so far. But you would also degrade their ability to interdict traffic in the straight if you got Project Freedom up and really running, right? Because you you would be doing counter battery stuff and you'd be going after the sources, the fast boats and all that kind of stuff to the point where it would get hard for them to sustain a certain level of interdiction.

[00:19:02]So it would just buy time and that's what that's what the administration needs.

[00:19:06]>> That that is one of the arguments though being made from the Iranian side is that they are buying time and they're waiting out a little bit the president but also the American people and that doesn't seem like a crazy strategy. I mean we lose focus so quickly. Um I'm just interested in your thoughts there. How important is it that the United States that the people stay invested in this or or is it better? Like right now gas is up. I got it. And it's not great, but it's also not completely unsustainable.

[00:19:33]Like, I would like to see the prices go down, but you know, it it it's not going to it's not wrecking the economy right now. Is is this okay? Um like is this the type of thing that we could kind of put on the back burner and still resolve?

[00:19:51]Americans do not like wars that are lengthy uh inconclusive. Vic the theory of victory is not immediately clear and that are casualty producing. Um now we have had casualties uh in this war so far and and each one of them is a tragedy as of right now that that seems to be on pause. Um and you know I would say that's the one category where actually this war does not check one of the boxes thus far of the kind of things that Americans genuinely hate. but in every other category like we are we are on the path to the kind of things that traditionally the American people don't care for. Um and you know one of the liabilities of the administration's approach right which they they hold their strategic um hand very close to their chests um and they don't show their cards ahead of time which they'll argue and they'll defend themselves. You hear the Secretary of War Pete Hexath say this kind of thing all the time that this is valuable for war fighting that we don't telegraph our moves to our enemies. That's no doubt true, but it's a double-edged sword because as your question suggests, political support for war making is extremely important. And there was not a lot of political preparation to say the least um for this military campaign. You had the president stand there in the morning of February 28th giving what in my personal opinion was um a pretty strong case for the for the for the reasons why military action against Iran was justified. uh their history of aggression, the blood on their hands, uh the American blood on their hands over the years to include relatively recently um their pursuit of nuclear weapons. You know, the argument he's made repeatedly about what what would it look like if Iran had a nuclear weapon uh and they suddenly decided to take control of the street. That's a good argument. I mean, I I I think that the the actual case for um doing something about Iran was very strong. I don't think that case was really made to the American people in a way that they realized they were actually signing up for for for to quote Gene Hackman from one of my favorite movies um a bridge too far for playing the war game which is a very serious game indeed where both sides get to fight and very serious things can go wrong and people die and countries get wrecked. I don't I don't think there was a tremendous amount of preparation that this would be something very serious. Um uh so that's um that's problem number one. Um, and yeah, I mean, I do think the Iranians, so long as they can keep the straight closed, do think that they have time on their side.

[00:22:05]It's not totally implausible for them to think that, which is why it's all the more imperative that the straight be opened back up. So, in in in wrapping up here, we'll give you the impossible question because we promised to resolve this before we started, and I don't know if we're there yet. You know, we'll find out. Time will tell. Um, but if President Trump calls tomorrow and says, "Hey, what is our action plan this week?" What would you say the two or three things are he needs to do in the immediate term to move us closer to a victory in Iran?

[00:22:30]Step one, reopen the straight of Hormuz.

[00:22:32]Step two, reopen the Straight of Hormuz.

[00:22:34]Step three, reopen the Straight of Hormuz. I really I told you I was moniacal about it, and it's it's true. I really do think that the a robust execution of Project Freedom uh which is what he called the sort of uh abortive attempt to reopen the straight uh a week ago. Uh was that that was directionally correct and it should be reopened robustly if the Iranians decide to retaliate broadly. I mean that that can be anticipated. That's obviously very likely. Um in which case he has the option of restarting a major campaign that does in fact go after the Iranian economy. Um he'll have that option. Um and that will have its own pros and cons which we can game out. But at a minimum, restoring some level of traffic through the straight fundamentally changes everybody's calculus because the global economic catastrophe that we are currently on course for will be at the very least mitigated. Um whereas if we maintain the blockade on Iranian ports, the national economic catastrophe that Iran is already in and is only getting more aggravated with every passing week, that will continue. And that is the kind of relative strategic situation that we want to see. We don't want the situation that we're currently in, which is I would characterize it as economic chicken. Um, where we just kind of wait to see whether it's the global economy that blows up first in such a way that brings political pressure to bear on Trump or it's the Iranian economy that blows up first and they literally can't pay the salaries uh of IRGC members, for example. Like that's, you know, that's that's when people try to game out like what's going to actually happen in the Iranian economy, it's like the real question is is not, you know, will things get worse for the Iranian economy in time. I think the answer to that is unambiguously yes. The question is when does it get so bad that someone like Vahidi, the current head of the IRGC, who appears to have some sort of intermediary role with Majaba, the new supreme leader. When does his decision calculus get changed? Because he is a died in the wool radical. Uh which is to say his pain threshold, his his threshold for the pain of others is going to be pretty high. Um weird. So it's not an overnight thing. Yeah, exactly.

[00:24:34]>> Um economic chicken is a terrifying term when you lay it out like that. Is is Project Freedom ongoing right now? I know it was it was on then paused. It s I think the last I saw was that it might be restarting. Do you know officially if it's back on or not?

[00:24:48]>> It is as of the moment we are speaking uh not back on. Um uh the president has sort of hinted at it including I think just this morning uh has hinted that he is thinking about restarting it. It was shocking to me that he stopped it 48 hours after starting it. You know, I I I told you um Preston that in my view since April the 7th, he's he's blinked a number of times uh over the course of the last month. To me, that was the most dramatic. And on Sunday morning, um the Secretary of the Treasury, I believe, said on one of the Sunday shows um the CBS uh show with Margaret Brennan, uh that um uh they had essentially stopped Project Freedom at the Iranian request so that they could keep talking. Well, I you know I I I don't know about you, Preston, but to to me um stopping a military operation at one's adversar's request when what the concession the adversary is offering is we'll continue to exchange notes about the structure in terms of future talks that we're not even having yet. Like I that is just not how one maintains the upper hand. It's it's weak, frankly. Um and uh the Iranians um can sense that a mile away and it does not put them in any mood to make any kind of concessions that mean anything to the strategic interests of the United States. Well, we're in the middle of it and one thing for sure is is it's going to change in one direction or the other uh before too long, maybe in the next few hours, if not the next couple days. But Aaron, thank you so much for taking the time, sir. Where can people of course know uh School of War podcast? We'll have that linked in the description below. Where else can people follow you and find your work?

[00:26:20]Well, I'd be grateful if they checked out the podcast. Um, uh, it's been a real labor of love these last five years. Um, so please do check out School of War. I'm a columnist at the Free Press, uh, where people can find my work and, uh, I'm national security analyst at CBS News, which is my day job, so people should watch CBS.

[00:26:36]Aaron, thank you so much. Thank you.

[00:26:39]>> All right. So, thank you so much to Aaron for taking the time to walk through all that today. Again, I've been a big fan of School of War for a long time, so really cool to be able to talk to him about some of these subjects. If you haven't come across that podcast, you're missing out. Check it out. Link in the description below. But that's all we got for now. Thanks for watching and I'll see youall next time.