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NICK EICHER, HOST: President Trump says he’s still considering whether to take military action in Iran, but the administration does appear to be ready for his orders.

That’s based on the additional military assets that have been moved into the Middle East. At least 16 ships, including two carrier strike groups, more than 100 fighter jets, and refueling aircraft and missile defense systems. They are now part of the American military presence.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Joining us now is retired rear admiral Mark Montgomery. He previously commanded a Carrier Strike group in the Pacific and now is senior director of the Center for Cyber and Information Technology at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Mark, good morning.

MARK MONTGOMERY: Good morning. Hi, Mary.

REICHARD: Well tell us more about the buildup. How big is it?

MONTGOMERY: Well, you have to look at it as how much of our deployable military. So when we say we have roughly just under 300 ships, at any one time only about 100 are at sea and about 80 are on deployment, that is away from home port a significant amount of time. And so, you know, this represents about 50% of the ships that are on deployment, even, maybe even higher for the maritime. 

For the aircraft, a little harder to estimate that way, but it's probably about 50% of the deployable capability we have. And I should mention, we also have, you know, we have a bomber force in kind of US, you know, B-2, B-1, and B-52s, all of which are starting to cut over some level of of their bandwidth to this mission. 

But that doesn't really burn readiness because they're in their home airfield. So, you know, I'd say roughly, these are very rough numbers, but around 50% of like our deployable assets are now in the Middle East.

REICHARD: So it's a lot, in other words. 

Can you walk us through the main options President Trump is considering? More diplomacy and sanctions, or potential military measures, and the implications of each?

MONTGOMERY: Sure, so I mean he is still conducting negotiations with Steve Witkoff, his Swiss Army knife of negotiations, not sure to what end those will achieve. The Iranians are pretty professional negotiators who, you know, are not known to be getting cornered in negotiations, and certainly not by someone like Witkoff, who has marginal experience in the region. But I'm sure the President is still interested in hearing how they're going. 

He then has a series of options on the military side, and you know, that are pretty scalable, from like, a very precise, targeted, very short, one or two or three day campaign, to you know, several weeks long campaign, independently or bilaterally with our Israeli allies. 

You know, the short version one is just to pick one of the two or three target sets. And I would break the target sets up into three broad areas. One would be rehitting the nuclear enterprise, you know, and completing the job. The second, kind of a more likely one, is hitting their defense industrial base. And then finally, he could order hits on the IRGC senior leadership. That's Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps senior leadership, you know, who are the most aggressive and authoritarian of the military elements are security elements inside Iran. Or he could hit a mix of all those lines of effort, and that's the multi week or two week long or three week long campaign, best executed alongside our Israeli allies, and it has both the most risk and will cause the most damage.

REICHARD: Let's talk the potential of retaliation. Iran’s Foreign Minister told CBS News that hitting American bases in the region was a possibility if the U.S. launches a strike:

ABBAS ARAGHCHI: If the U.S. attacks us, that is the act of aggression. What we do in response is the act of self-defense.

So my question to you is what do we know really about Iran’s capabilities to retaliate?

MONTGOMERY: They have extensive capabilities of retaliation: cruise missile, ballistic missile, short range and intermarriage, ballistic missiles and drones. And they will use all of them. They did in responding to the killing of the IRGC commander Soleimani by President Trump back in 2020; they conducted strikes against the U.S. bases that they could reach.

So yes, they will 100% launch at our bases, and likely some of their weapons will get through. Not many, but, you know, a handful. They'll hit Israel as well. Israel and the United States have Arrow, THAAD—those are long range missile defense systems—the ships off the coast in eastern Mediterranean, what's called the SM-3 and SM-6 missiles. So we'll shoot down a lot of the incoming Iranian stuff, but some will get through.

REICHARD: Okay. Final question here: We’ve heard reports of Iran doing joint military exercises with China and Russia. So what do we know about their support for Iran if the U.S. launches strikes?

MONTGOMERY: Well, certainly there is an axis of authoritarians, China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and they maintain a very transactional relationship in military areas and economic areas and cyber and technology areas. You know, they're not there to participate in any military way, shape or form. They're there to, you know, for kind of diplomatic and signaling purposes. 

An interesting marker on this was last year's 12 Day War, where Russia and China were nowhere to be found when Iran, was kind of getting pounded hard by Israel, and then Israel and the United States. So there's limits to that relationship.

REICHARD: Mark Montgomery is a retired rear admiral in the U.S. Navy, and a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. 

Mark, thanks so much!

MONTGOMERY: Well thank you for having me.

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