Suzanne Maloney

The economy had collapsed to a point where people went to the streets back in January in very large numbers all around the country.

So they're facing a really difficult situation, but their goal is to essentially use their leverage at this key moment to ensure that they come out in a stronger position.

I think that's, to some extent, the truth.

But they do want the reparations.

They do want the sort of acknowledgement that they were wronged in this war.

And I don't think they're going to receive that.

So the question is, what is it that they're likely to settle for?

The other concern is that the international community does not want to see a tollbooth put at the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz because that effectively means that the Iranians retain control in perpetuity.

And can change the terms if and as they like.

And that would be highly unpredictable and no one wants to give Iran that kind of control.

Well, this is the question.

I mean, there certainly would be a military solution if we were prepared to pay the cost.

That would take, you know, much larger numbers of troops and military assets moving to the region than we've already seen happening at this point in time.

It would be very time consuming, very costly.

And of course, we would feel the hit to the economy even before we succeeded.

And it could take many months to do.

But that is certainly an alternative that's available to the president.

There could be mitigating missions, the escort effort that has been put underway with some support from the UK and others in Europe that would enable some amount of tanker traffic to reopen.

So there are avenues that we have to try to undertake this without conceding to the Iranians.

The best solution for everyone here is one that ends this crisis as quickly as possible.