The Last Word On The US: Iran Says It’s Now In A ‘Full-Scale War’ With US
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Now we have Mary McKeown and Cal Thomas with us as ever, but I'm going to start with Scott Lucas, Professor of International Politics in UCD, because we've now had 10 consecutive nights of attacks by America on Iran. We have had the Iranians attacking more ships in the Strait of Hormuz How bad is the situation now as you'd see it, Scott?
I think it's the most serious position since that ceasefire was declared on April the 7th. We're not back at all-out war that we saw in the first six weeks, not only with these massive attacks, most of them inside Iran, but also Iran's retaliation across the Gulf. We're not back to the targeted assassinations of Iranian officials yet.
How serious is the escalation between the US and Iran after 10 nights of strikes?
But we're getting closer to that point. The U.S. attacks have now expanded beyond the south of Iran to move to other parts of the country. They are hitting non-military targets as well as military targets. And of course, the Iranians are firing on vessels who tried to bypass the Strait of Hormuz without or pass the Strait of Hormuz without their permission. and they are causing significant damage in the Gulf states again.
But does Iran have the capacity, the capability to continue doing what it's doing, given that we've heard plenty of talk from Trump and the Americans about decimating its capacity?
Yeah, talk is talk. Reality is a different matter. Putting aside the fact that you haven't heard from the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, in almost three weeks, which is significant in itself, The U.S. intelligence services say that Iran retains about 70% of its missile capacity from before the war. It retains the majority of its drone capacity from before the war and the majority of its missile launch sites. And what we've seen in the last few days is that the Iranians can fire at least several missiles on each of the Gulf countries each day. They can fire dozens of drones, and they've seriously wounded almost 100 American personnel in the past week, as well as killing, of course, two in Jordan last Friday and a third American being killed in Iraq from the explosion, the detonation of an Iranian drone on Sunday.
Okay, so this is all very serious. And then for America as well, has it degraded its own military capacity? Has it used so many bombs that it now has reason to be worried about continuing its bombing missions? And where do you think is it at on using ground troops as possibly the only way to actually beat the Iranians?
Yeah, first of all, the US military said before Trump decided to go into this war, that there would be serious issues if it was a prolonged affair, not just with offensive capability, but there would be serious issues with air defense interceptors. And so it is proved. There is reports that should count the past 72 hours that the Trump folks have considered expanding the war again, but that the military has repeated, we've got serious shortages. Now, I suspect some of those reports are coming from the camp of Vice President J.D. Vance, who was opposed to the war in the first place. But be that as it may, yes, I think the Americans have got serious limitations. The fundamental, Matt, remains the same, and this was the case in the start of April, when you either went into talks with the Iranians or you put in ground troops.
At that point, the Trump folks declined to put in ground troops to force regime surrender, and they had to go into talks. And I think the same conditions apply here. Seventy percent of Americans are against the war. I think an even higher number would be against it if ground troops went in. it would cause further global economic shocks with the effects, for example, on oil and gas prices, and there's no guarantee it would be a walkover.
But Marion McKeown, is Trump in an even worse situation in that he might like to walk away from what he has created, but that he can't do so while the Strait of Hormuz remains under Iranian control?
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–0:56
2
How serious is the escalation between the US and Iran after 10 nights of strikes?
0:56–7:45
3
What missile and drone capabilities does Iran retain despite US strikes?
7:45–13:34
4
Has US military capacity been degraded and are there shortages of munitions?
13:34–16:04
5
Could ground troops be the only way to defeat Iran and would Americans support that?
16:04–18:00
6
Why is control of the Strait of Hormuz central to the conflict and US strategy?
18:00–20:11
Speakers
6 identifiedMore from The Last Word with Matt Cooper
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