Suzanne Maloney

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.

And so that

probably isn't going to be a military solution.

It's going to have to be a diplomatic solution.

Well, the logic of the president is somewhat questionable.

It's not clear to me or to anyone who understands the economics of the energy markets that if the Strait remained closed, that somehow the prices in the United States wouldn't be impacted.

very clear that we would feel the hit both in terms of energy prices, but also to wider markets.

And that's something the president himself is very sensitive to.

So it's not a very well thought out plan.

I think the other piece of it is that, you know, to put the burden on our friends and partners and allies or even on other world powers like China to try to drive towards some solution to this crisis when none of those parties were consulted or in any way participated is

in the decision to launch the war against the Islamic Republic of Iran that was taken by the United States and Israel, I think would mean the end of some of those very long-standing partnerships and alliances that have been so critical to our ability to promote security and prosperity around the world.

Their core to the identity of the United States is a global power.

There's no other party that's going to come in and play that role in our absence.

And it will mean a much less safe and much less prosperous world as a result.

I think the likely outcome of a United States withdrawal from this conflict would be that, first of all, the Israelis would probably continue to try to strike Iran, and so the conflict itself would not be over.

The Iranians would essentially assume the role of toll collector at the Gulf, and they would use this opportunity to really rebuild their own finances.