Suzanne Maloney

And so they're looking to come out of this war, I think, in a stronger position.

And that's not entirely inconceivable.

It's going to be a regime which has taken enormous hits.

The country has suffered tremendous losses in terms of its productive capabilities, in terms of its own economy.

And as we know, that was in pretty dire straits.

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.