Dr. Bradley Thayer

As Iran has got influence in the Strait, it's important to recognize that the U.S.

Navy basically dominates the world's ocean.

So anything going into the strait or exiting the strait is subject to interdiction.

You talked about economic measures that we should employ.

As we're talking about 82nd Airborne, as we're talking about Marines being deployed, there are still a lot of economic and financial tools in the toolkit.

But there are also a lot of other coercive tools that we can bring into bear here as well.

So the Gulf of Oman is going to be owned by the U.S.

Navy, essentially, because of our dominance of world oceans.

So that's a tool that we can employ as well.

Steve, I'd also like to say that we can see this as an opportunity as well.

If the PRC, if the People's Republic of China wants oil,

coming out of the Strait, then we should link that to fentanyl precursor chemicals exiting China.

If they want oil, it's up to us to allow China to receive that oil from Iran.

We can allow that passage of oil if they stop precursor chemicals exiting the PRC.

So I think that when we're thinking about this conflict, we need to keep our mind on really what is the center of gravity in international politics today, and that's the Chinese Communist Party.

So there are a lot of other tools we can bring to bear in this conflict to influence the CCP as well as Iran, too.

With respect to the Arabs, of course.

Yeah, that's a cause of concern because we want –

This is a military effort, right?

We're bringing brutality, as Clausewitz identified it.