Hope isn’t strategy

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NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s Tuesday the 21st of July.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Nick Eicher.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown. Up first…the Iran War heats up.

SOUND: [Explosions]

Iranian missile and drone attacks over the weekend killed three U.S. service members and wounded several others in Jordan and Iraq. The Pentagon identified two of them as Private Isabella Gonzales of Texas and 1st Lieutenant Tyler Feehan of Hawaii…both served with air defense artillery battalions in Jordan.

EICHER: Iran also continues to launch attacks on commercial ships attempting to pass the Strait of Hormuz without paying tolls. They’ve also attacked civilian infrastructure in Gulf Nations, including desalination plants that turn sea water into fresh water.

The U.S. responded by striking Iranian command centers, and missile and drone launch sites.

Reporters on Sunday asked Secretary of State Marco Rubio what the new attacks mean for the outline of last month’s peace deal. He said Iran may talk about diplomacy, but its attacks say otherwise.

RUBIO: Look, Iran a week ago was supposed to put out a statement saying the Straits of Hormuz would be open, that they would no longer attack shipping. And instead of doing that, they attacked three ships. That was last Friday and Saturday. So, I mean, their behavior has to change in order for ours to change.

BROWN: Rubio also said there’s evidence of a split in Iran’s leadership between political leaders who want to negotiate a deal and military leaders who want to keep fighting.

RUBIO: If the guys that want to do something productive for Iran win and take control of that system or take control of the negotiation, that'll be a very positive development. That's not where we are tonight, unfortunately.

Joining us now is Cameron McMillan…he was a U.S. Army Field Artillery officer in Iraq, leading a defensive weapons unit. He now studies U.S. military power for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

EICHER: Cameron, good morning.

MCMILLAN: Good morning. Thanks for having me.

EICHER: You bet. Well you have the relevant military experience to tell us a bit about what the service members killed on Friday were responsible for and why Iran happened to be targeting that particular base.

MCMILLAN: Yeah, we've seen certainly in the past few days Iran obviously has been targeting U.S. bases throughout the Gulf, throughout the entirety of the conflict. Though some of these bases are, are different, some are large airfields, some are kind of remnants, if you will, of the counterterrorism campaign in Iraq and Syria during Operation Inherent Resolve. In this one, seeing what CENTCOM released about the identities of the two soldiers that were killed were both assigned to air defense units, the U.S. Air Force overwhelmingly relies on the U.S. Army to provide its air defense. So whether it's kind of the big ticket items like Patriot or THAAD missile defense systems or shorter range threats like I used to work on, things like C-RAM. These are U.S. Army soldiers assigned to these units that are responsible for air defense of these large airfields, whether they're in Jordan or Qatar or Saudi Arabia or Kuwait or elsewhere.

BROWN: President Trump has said that the old government is gone and we're dealing with officials two or three levels down. Cameron, what do we know about the military commanders calling the shots today?

MCMILLAN: Yeah, we've seen a lot, or I've seen a lot of discussion and somewhat debate of trying to distinguish whether it's the Iranian foreign minister, head of the IRGC, what's left of the IRGC's command and control network. I think there's a lot of debate and it's been a debate for a long time in kind of U.S. circles of who are the moderates. I would say at the end of the day the Islamic Republic is a radical regime. It is run by the RGC. It has been for some time. I don't think I think that's increased, if anything, lately. I think the president's hope going into this was he could find a Delcy Rodriguez figure. And I think unfortunately the president found out that the IRGC and the Islamic republic, they're serious. . It's horrific, many of the things they believe in and their their quest to oppress their own people and spread chaos throughout the region, but they believe it and they're willing to die for it.

EICHER: Right, very different from Venezuela. The Houthis, another shot has been called here. The Houthis are, are threatening Saudi shipping through the route that the Saudis have been relying on to bypass Hormuz. Do you think the U.S. has the forces to secure both of those important choke points?

MCMILLAN: Well, we've certainly seen that U.S. forces, at least as, so far as has been politically acceptable, I'd say, for them to be applied, have not been able to deal with the Hormuz threat on its own. So the Red Sea would certainly add an additional complication. And I think anyone that's been watching the conflict has kind of been wondering when this shoe is gonna drop. I mean the Houthis were always the hand that the Iranians could play, shutting down the Strait of Hormuz themselves, then you throw in the Houthis to the picture. Well, now we're talking about two global supply choke points, not just one. And that will be an additional complication for CENTCOM as its own forces are strained, whether they're naval forces, air defense, in theater, they're trying to deal with a lot right now. So I'd imagine that that will continue to place pressure on what are already finite and in many cases expended resources.

BROWN: Iran is also targeting civilian infrastructure in the Gulf states, including a desalination plant in Kuwait. How are Gulf states responding and what can they do to get out of Iran's stronghold on the Strait of Hormuz? This is their neighborhood after all.

MCMILLAN: Yeah, I think it obviously depends on the country. But desalination plants has been another big card that the Iranians could always play. We've obviously seen they've been willing to attack civilian infrastructure. And the Strait of Hormuz is something that obviously impacts the entire world. But desalination plants would be one that, that impacts these countries specifically. So the Iranians have shown, you know, they're not done. And I think it's kind of important to take a step back and kind of realize where are we here in the military picture? If you listen to Admiral Cooper, the commander of CENCOM, he laid out three types of kind of target buckets: missiles, drones, and naval capabilities. And he said the goal is to “destroy,” not degrade them, destroy them in order to eliminate Iran's ability to project power outside of its borders. Whether it's killing American soldiers in Jordan, whether it's shutting down the strait, whether it's hitting desalination plants in Gulf countries, they still obviously retain the ability to, to project power outside of their borders, whether it's with drones, missiles, or even with a basically crippled navy, overwhelmingly in the maritime domain.

EICHER: Just real quickly before we go, diplomatic question. What do you think the renewed military campaign is doing to the regional coalition? Or might they be pushing the Gulf states closer to us? What do you think?

MCMILLAN: Yeah, again, I think it depends on the country. I think they, they certainly again throwing everything out of the bag by going after Gulf states. You know, the UAE to an extent was kind of all in to the extent that they could be. Whereas others have said, you know, bottom line is whatever gets the Strait open, so that their economic lifeline can reopen. I think it'll depend, but in terms of the larger diplomatic picture, I think we've kind of always been looking at somewhat of a, of a dream here. I mean this MOU seems to have been propagated by hope and hope alone that if we say something it will materialize, and it is not. And what can be gained out of these additional strikes? It appears the administration is simply just trying to coerce Iran to come to the table in hopes of what type of agreement, I'm not really sure. It appears to change by the day. But what I do know is that hope's not a strategy. The Islamic Republic has shown that it is willing to continue taking punches, so I have little hope that that coercion will result in a consequence that is acceptable to American interests any time soon.

BROWN: Cameron McMillan is a Senior Research Analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Cameron, thanks so much.

MCMILLAN: Thank you.

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