Suzanne Maloney

They have, in many cases, invested in the president's family.

And I can't imagine they're going to be very happy holding the bag for the president.

for this crisis.

You know, it's very difficult to assess where the president's tweets and his actions connect, but I do think it's a realistic possibility that we will see American forces occupying or attempting to occupy some ground positions

In Iran, the most obvious contenders are Karg Island, which is the export terminal through which much of Iran's oil passes.

It is not the production facility.

It is really just the place of which the tankers are loaded.

And if that Karg Island was taken by American troops, then theoretically the Iranians would not be able to export their oil.

And that's been one of the interesting dimensions of

this crisis, that in all the war gaming and planning and thinking about what might happen in a closure, the assumption was that Iran would feel some pressure because its economy would be hit.

And what they've been able to do is very selectively enable their own exports to go.

If that changed, then they might have some more time pressure.

But of course,

You know, the risks to American troops on Karg Island would be severe.

Our ability to resupply them with munitions as well as just basic living conditions would also be severe.

We would have the impact to the global economy because we would have turned off the spigot on another million or million five barrels a day.

There have been war games that have looked at what a United States-Iranian war might, how it might play out.

And they have all involved some threat to the Strait of Hormuz, as well as some response from the international community led by the United States to reopen it.

The military options for the United States in terms of reopening the Strait are not particularly attractive ones.

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