Richard Haass

It's also to incentivize countries like China, who derive benefit from obviously the oil coming from Iran, to lean on Iran.

So I want the Chinese, the Indians, the Pakistanis, the Turks, others who Iran has basically created exceptions for, I want them to lean on their buddies in Tehran and say, hey,

open the strait for everybody, or we're not going to be able to get the oil and gas that we need.

So that's essentially the argument.

Let me say one other thing.

What I'd really like, though, for the president to do is say, look, we're doing this blockade.

It's a means to an end.

It's not an end to itself.

And we're open to the idea of sitting down with Iran at negotiations and

and talking with them about how the straight might be governed going forward.

Then maybe that we create some new authority, some new group, Iran, maybe the Saudis, the Kuwaitis, the Bahrainis, whatever, UAE, and they would all decide how the straight is to be run for the betterment of all the countries that are living on it and dependent on it.

I think there should be the blockade, but also there should be a diplomatic initiative.

Well, I'd hope it wouldn't get to that.

What I'm hoping is that tankers would stop short of it.

And I would probably do the interdiction, so to speak, well into the Gulf of Oman.

If you think about a map, you have the

Persian Gulf, so to speak, or the Arabian Gulf, then you've got the Strait, then you've got the Gulf of Oman.

I would do it out there.

It's about 200 miles across.

You could do it with aircraft and ships.