Dana El-Kurd

Geographically, you've probably heard a lot about Karg Island recently, which is this island that, as we talked about in a previous episode, a lot of Iran's oil infrastructure is on because it's

The coast of Iran is mostly not deep water, and you need very deep water for the boats that transport huge amounts of crude oil.

These are massive vessels.

These are some of the largest machines human beings have ever built of any kind.

Yeah, these are the size of skyscrapers.

These are skyscrapers on their side.

They are enormous boats.

When people were suggesting, like, what if we just drive the oil, you have no idea how big these fucking boats are and how much oil it takes to keep the world running.

So you have a very narrow waterway for most of this.

So it's not like it is in other waterways or in the broader ocean where people have a lot of routes they can take.

Big ships can only take one very well-known path through the strait, right?

And it's really easy to mine that path.

If you've got naval vessels escorting those big boats, then you've got U.S.

naval vessels that are exposing themselves to direct fire from the mountains and hills in a way that is impossible to stop them from getting shot at, from having drones flung at them.

And we have a pretty good understanding of what we can stop and what we can't stop.

And based on everything that's been happening, my suspicion is that Trump has been getting told by his officers, we can't guarantee we won't lose sailors and we won't lose ships if we do this.

Because you are sending them through the chokiest of choke points.

And Iran has spent 50 years preparing to fling shit at naval vessels, escorting oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz.

There's no guarantee it's not going to be a bloodbath.

So that's why the administration is looking at stuff like, well, what should we be sending in Marines?