Off-Ramp or Escalator - The Iranian Regime's Final Act?: Dr. Seth Jones

A major problem down the road if it's survived.

“I'm host Michael Allen with Beacon Global Strategies.”

Today I'm joined by Dr. Seth Jones, president of the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Dr. Jones joins us today for a discussion on the recent developments in the Iran conflict when the outlook going forward. Stay with us as we speak with Dr. Seth Jones.

Seth Jones, welcome to NatSec matters. Michael Allen, thanks for having me. I'm honored. This is going to be terrific. You have a long background in defense policy including service and the Pentagon.

“So I think you're going to be in a unique situation to help us understand where we are”

in the war with Iran. So let's just start generally what's your assessment of how our military campaign is going? Well, I think Michael, I'll answer it by looking at a couple of different objectives if one looks at some indicators such as the missile and drone capabilities of the Iranians, including

the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, they've been severely degraded.

I mean, I'm not going to talk in terms of eliminated because any country can eventually replace its stockpiles. In terms of the Navy, it's been severely degraded in most cases. If you look at in general other objectives, the nuclear program appears to be even further setback, there are still some questions about uranium stockpiles of enriched uranium 60%

in and around places like his fawn, buried underground, and whether it makes sense to try to extract them. They are buried underground, the shafts of almost certainly partially collapsed or entirely collapsed, tough to get to. But in all of those areas, I think the regime has been severely degraded, which brings

to, which brings me to some big issues that I think are still before us, which is the regime itself in Tehran. It is the son of the Itolla is in theory now in charge. We haven't seen him yet.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard still is a major presence in the country.

The regime itself has, in the order of a million or so, security forces. So the regime for the moment is still largely in place and could be a problem. A major problem down the road, if it survives.

“So I think in a range of different areas, I think key objectives that the US had set out”

for itself, the Chairman and the Secretary of War had outlined, have been achieved. A big question, which is where different administration officials have set slightly different issues, which is what is the objective for the regime itself. And then, of course, there are some other operational issues, Michael, like opening up the straight-of-forms, I think, which needs to happen, and that has not been achieved yet.

So let's go to the straight-of-forms, Admiral Mark Montgomery was on this podcast recently

and said, the plan was always to begin with attacks.

We also have a secondary mission of missile defense, but there's so many different things that need to be degraded before we would even be ready to run a high risk operation in the straight-of-forms. And so it's not only the things you mentioned, ballistic missiles and drones in the rest, it's the coastal cruise missiles, it's other things that seem near the straights that could

make our ships sitting docks. Does that sound right to you? We were always a few weeks away from an escort mission if it was needed. Yeah, so Michael, none of this is surprising, I don't think it's surprising to anybody who's been involved in planning of this for the Pentagon either now or in the last

several decades. Even when I was in the Pentagon, any contingency for Iran involved a significant amount of planning for the potential for Iranian mining of the straight-of-forms and then stand to off attacks against oil tankers or others that were going through the straight.

mission as long as the Iranians have capabilities.

So, in addition to really targeting severely degrading Iran's ability to shoot standoff weapons at naval U.S. or other coalition naval vessels or oil tankers or other commercial vessels going through the straights.

“And, yeah, I think in there, you'd need, essentially, permanent intelligence surveillance”

and reconnaissance of shoreline areas as well as islands, which I'll come back to in a moment around the straight on the Iranian side. You'd also want to be able to strike anything that moves, fast boats, for example, that

kind of appear out of nowhere headed towards ships.

You'd want mine-claring capabilities, you know, there are a couple of different kinds of mines that you want to be mindful of if the Iranians start laying. You've got the Mord mines, which are attached to the seafloor or a weight and are often in a weight and a rate in minefields. You've got number two drifting mines, which are, which float on the surface of the water and are harder to counter because they don't

stay in fixed positions within minefields. Three, you've got limit mines, which are attached to the hull of ships via magnets and are often detonated with a timed fuse. So, divers, for example, could get into the water and then attach limit mines. Then the fourth or bottom mines, which sit on the seafloor, in shallow water and explode

when they detect a ship overhead. So, there are a bunch of different kinds of mines that you'd want to also be mindful of. And then also, just to highlight it, you know, as we've gone through the areas where we've

“seen a lot of ships move in the last several weeks and for that matter of years, I think”

there are areas along the Omani and the United Arab Emirates coastline where you'd want to hug pretty closely, but there are some islands along those lines that Iran either controls or that are contested like the, the jaziri, e-keshum, it's a large island as you come around the straight or a range of the islands like Abulmusa that you just, you know, I think you'd ideally want to be able to control or essentially get rid of everything

on there out of concern that, um, that standoff weapons or small boats could be used to strike. So, I still think there's some more preparatory time that needs to take place to reduce, not eliminate, but to reduce any risks to either U.S. or other coalition naval vessels or any of the commercial ships that were to come through.

So, where does that put us? Here we are almost at the end of March. At one point, some

estimates, I think that we're around where it would be the first week of April. We might

be able to do a freedom of navigation up and then shortly thereafter escort, a tanker or two. Um, do you think we're well into April now before we can, forcibly reopen the straits via an escort mission? Probably, at least, I mean, it depends on, in part, on a couple of things. One is how, and they're really intelligence questions that I don't think any of us can definitively answer, but they're ones like what kinds of capabilities

do the Iranians have left for strikes in the strait of Formus and they include those missiles and drones, but they also include some of the fast attack boats and any of their unmanned or uncrewed systems that essentially could be used as one way suicide, you know, surface boats or subsurface boats. In addition, so, you know, that's an intelligence question.

“And the other, I think, is, is in part, is, what are the key areas, uh, land areas that”

need to be controlled and do we control them or essentially have we eliminated any threats that they could potentially pose? And really, I'm talking about, um, a number of the islands in the strait, especially as you get into those narrow areas around the shipping lanes, this is that area where sort of, um, if you look sort of south in the strait of Formus where that tip where Oman is, um, that is the area, I think, uh, and on to, to the eastern

west of that is the area you want to be very mindful of some of the islands and who controls

any threats for them. And I think you, that's probably a few more weeks at least and then an assessment of what's on those islands and what's underneath. Yeah. Well, this gets to the question of, is President Trump going to see this through to reopen the straits or, and it seemed like this last week, late last week, when the President put out a tweet that said, we've achieved our military objectives. He cited ballistic missiles and drone and nuclear

degradation, but we only use the straits so we're out of here. Now, it doesn't seem like that

“this week. It seems like we're back in the fight, but, you know, I don't know. I think”

one of the, the questions will be how long does Trump hang in there if we're seeing bad economic, bad, bad economics on energy, other commodities and in the stock market. Yeah, Michael, my worry is, um, is even if there were to be a sort of short term successful negotiation with Iranians and, and I'm, I'm very pessimistic about that kind of outcome anyway. It would be, it would be hard to credibly believe that that would last for very long. I mean,

you're talking about warring parties and you're talking about an agreement, uh, between sides where there is very little trust right now. So even if one could reach a temporary agreement, uh, between the US, uh, and Iran, and potentially some combination of other mediators, uh, hard for me to believe that it would persist. So you may be back to the same point, eventually trying to figure out options to forcibly keep the straight open.

“So I, I think, at this point, um, I think it's a, it's a very important consideration”

is to map out how do you, how do you forceably, uh, open up the straits and keep them open? I mean, I would say, uh, having talked to a range of of US Navy officials that have transit at this trade multiple times. Thank you. You'd probably want to bring in some commercial

ships that were relatively fast moving at first and try a couple of trial runs, pilot

tests, uh, through the straight before you get into some of the big slow tankers that would be, uh, potentially more vulnerable. Okay. Help us decode some of these military assets that are apparently in route to the region. There's the 82nd Airborne. There's the marine expeditionary unit. I'm sure there's something else. But let's talk with the, explain

“what the truth is and where it's coming from and what is capabilities are. Yeah. Well,”

I mean, if, if I can start off by talking about potential, uh, ways that any of these ground forces could be used. I mean, there are several options and then I'll talk about sort of where they're. Yeah, and that's where it was there. Yeah, I was going to say a car island

first. Okay. Yeah. We're, we're, we're, we're, they're coming from, I mean, there, there

are several. One is car island, which, uh, which is really the epicenter of, uh, of Iran's, uh, or production, uh, facilities. Uh, if the US were to seize it in some capacity, it would highly likely be an important negotiating, um, point. So the Iranians control, or at least threaten the straight or foremost, the US would control a major location of value to the Iranians could be useful in a negotiation. But is it necessary? Probably not. People

say we could bomb a tanker or threaten to that's in root to car island. Um, people talk about a blockade. Why do we have to physically take it other than if it's just demonstrating

to the Iranians that will take a hostage also? Yeah, I don't think it actually is critical.

I wouldn't actually suggest using it for that purpose. But I'm just saying it's one, it's an option. Uh, that could be used for, uh, for that. A second actually is, uh, using some number of forces to, uh, probably secure the perimeter of, and then, um, help with excavation, and then the removal of the enriched uranium out of, uh, canisters around areas like isphahan, which if an objective is really, it is significantly set back Iran's nuclear program,

and you want to extract the enriched uranium, which can be further enriched for bomb making material. A second option is, uh, is to use ground forces for something along those lines. I mean, at the end of the day, what, what is not entirely clear is how, how it would be

uh, locations underground and what site, what kind of excavation would be needed, how long it would take, and then presumably there are ton of canisters down there, some real, some fake. So, you know, that, that might not be a short-term process, and then you're leaving potentially those ground forces vulnerable to, uh, to fire, uh, your inside Iranian territory.

Now, there's a third, if you're trying to open up the straight, forcibly, there's a third,

which is one could use a range of ground forces to seize control of key islands in the, uh, in the straight-of-war moves. Uh, and I mentioned a range of them earlier, you know, one's like Abu Musa, for example, which if you had projectiles could strike a range of different targets, commercial vessels, or U.S. or Coalition Navy vessels coming through. So, a third would be, using forces for something along those lines, uh, and then a final air, a final option for any kind

“of ground forces, I think it'd be unlikely at this point, but which is certainly possible,”

which is, you could use them, uh, to help train a visa and assist the opposition groups to take

down the regime in general. Um, you know, I haven't heard much about the islands. Um, if it's just for ballistic missile purposes or cruise missile, why they need to be on the island. I mean, wouldn't they want to be on their territory proper? Uh, you could put them on territory proper, but again, um, the islands are in much closer proximity, uh, to where, to where the, uh, tankers or naval vessels would come. The more likely they could land a punch. Okay,

gotcha. They could land a punch. And then they could also be used for, uh, for fires, including long range fire into Iran. So again, these are a couple of different, um, options. So, um, the, uh, you mentioned earlier that, for example, thousands of Marines are slated to arrive in the Middle East shortly. One of the areas they're coming from are, uh, is the Japan-based amphibious assault ship, the USS Tripoli. So it is, uh, there, there are others too. There's the amphibious

landing dock, USS New Orleans. And then there are about 2,200 Marines coming from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, uh, which could be used for a range of these types of operations that I talked about. By the way, I mentioned islands. You could also use them for, uh, securing, um, territory inside of Iran on the shoreline as well. Those would come with brisk, obviously, because you're now on, uh, you're, you're now on, uh, Iranian mainland. Um, uh, there, there are

other types of forces that are being deployed, including, uh, the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit on board the USS Boxer, California-based, uh, and a few others all could be used for these purposes. And Michael also worth noting, um, that, uh, that the, uh, U.S. could also use special operations forces, either operating under total 10 authority. So, uh, openly or under intelligence authority,

“total 50 authority, as well. And that's how, uh, if folks remember that's how the U.S.”

conducted the operation against the solid bin Laden that was using special operations forces operating under covert action authority. And then, of course, you also have, um, intelligence units, including paramilitary forces that could be used as well. So these are the, these are the, main sort of publicly visual ground forces, but not the only ones that could be used. So just, just to go in on the missing HEU, we've talked about this on previous

editions of this podcast. It was, it seems like an incredibly detailed, um, involved operation, not a special operations raid. It feels like you would need, I don't know how many hundreds or thousands of troops to set a perimeter. We've got to get earth moving equipment in there. We have to excavate the HEU presumably, we'd need helicopters to take it to a cargo plane, so we would need to maybe control air strips nearby. This is a, this is a big operation.

Does that, maybe that doesn't deter President Trump, and we have an amazing military, but what

“does that tell you about the likelihood that we would run that kind of off? Well, I think,”

you know, the way I look at it, it's sort of, what are the other alternatives? And, you know, we don't entirely know because you can't see it from, and I've been looking at satellite imagery

looking at the satellite imagery, just as not that helpful, and I don't, I don't, we don't have

a lot of, you know, we don't have boots on the ground there to be able to tell us. I have talked to folks at the International Atomic Energy Agency who have been on the ground in those areas.

“I think the question in part is, how difficult is it for the Iranians to access that material?”

And, and if it is difficult, because it's buried and shafts have collapsed, and then the, that the US has, and the Israelis have pretty much air dominance right now, and, and presumably, I mean, they, they had it last year, they have it this year, took, took four days, essentially, for Iran to get complete air dominance over Iran last year, took two days this year. So, presumably in six months from now or a year from now, you could also fly in aircraft for strike

missions that it would seem to me that the, the less costly and risky option would be to

continue if you've got a bomb, you've got to use more large bombs to basically continue to bury

that that, that, uh, enriched uranium underneath the earth and make it increasingly more difficult for the Iranians to access it, and then if they do try to excavate, then you strike those targets in the future rather than what could be a long tedious and dangerous mission.

“But I think, I mean, it's probably worth noting that, I don't, we don't, we don't have”

all of the intelligence again on, uh, on some key questions like, you know, how easily accessible is that HU? Yeah, I mean, I'm still going off the New York Times article that said there was a

narrow corridor, I think they said, we're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back

with Seth Jones. Beacon Global Strategies is the premier national security advisory firm. Beacon works side by side with leading companies to help them understand national security policy, geopolitical risk, global technology policy and federal procurement trends. Beacon's insight gives business leaders the decision advantage, founded in 2013, Beacon develops and supports the execution of bespoke strategies to mitigate business risk, drive growth, and navigate a complex

geopolitical environment with a bipartisan team and decades of experience. Beacon provides a global perspective to help clients tackle their toughest challenges. All right, let's talk a little bit

“about these railies at the beginning of the conflict. I think we had divided up responsibilities and labor”

according to well certainly geographically on what was closer for these railies inside of Iran. And I think for a time there, we were both prosecuting military targets, of course. It seems like the Israelis increasingly are almost exclusively working on a regime-change targets. And by that, we mean, you know, they continue to hit scientists, I think they hit two more this week. There are, and I'm kind of amazed at their target set. I mean, it's not only the

besiege, it's not only the IRGC, it's local police stations, it's even checkpoints, and they have this ingenious app or website for average Iranians, assuming they can get to the internet to post to them, the locations. Maybe the address, if you will, of where certain, you know, neighborhood watch type or checkpoint people are stationed in neighborhoods and these railies are apparently hitting those as well. What do you think about Israel's role here? What's it after?

And comment on all of that? Well, Michael, I think the range of Israeli officials have been pretty clear, even before this war began, that the ideal objective or an ideal objective for the outcome of a war with Iran would be the end of the theocracy in Iran, because it presents such a strategic threat to Israel, and it has since 1979, both in the sense of Iran itself, and it's a missile program, and it's nuclear weapons program, but also it's aid and support

to arrange a partner organizations like Lebanese has below in Lebanon, like the Houthis in Yemen,

vessels and US Navy ships. And then a number of other actors historically, it's also been

“malicious operating in Syria as well as Iraq and other locations. So I think for the Israelis,”

I see an important part of the campaign right now, as being weakening the regime largely from the air. I mean, I suspect they've got small numbers. I cannot imagine there in in any kind of uniform, they've got small numbers of folks in in plainclothes in in Iran. We know last year that they had Mossad on the on the ground in Iran, including flying drones against targets. So I wouldn't be

surprised if there were efforts to provide some weapons, money, and other aid to opposition groups

as well. But I think the if what comes out of this war right now is a new leadership, but the same government in Iran. I think that would that would not be an ideal outcome for Israel,

“which means that is I think what their key target set is. That's what explains the targets of”

most of their operations. And that is a very important strategic objective. And I would just go further by saying several Israeli officials said to me over the last couple of weeks, you know, even sort of contested civil war in in Iran is still a better outcome than the regime. In other words, if there was active fighting over control of the government, that would also be a better outcome than a stable regime in place. So my general sense is that's sort of where the Israelis are

headed and that explains the types of operations that they're conducting. Leadership strikes, weakening of the regime itself in various ways to try to collapse it. But again, you know, one big challenge is going to be there aren't large numbers of any boots on the ground. And that is a very difficult thing to do. And even with boots on the ground as Michael's we know from looking at wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and Libya, even with some boots on the ground, it is very

difficult to kind of engineer what comes next. And so, you know, lots of risks anyway. So I'm wondering if you subscribe to the something I found persuasive that I've heard different experts open upon. And that's that the regime's days are numbered. We don't believe they're capable of reforming themselves or making compromises with the international community to recover their economy. We're not sure when it's going to collapse, but it's bound to at some point.

Do you subscribe, I assume, to that more than you do, we're going to have just an immense regime

“change move as soon as we quit bombing or where are you on this?”

Yeah, so I mean, I think the biggest challenge frankly with Iran right now and the sort of the future of governance in Iran is there is, you know, there are some options, but there are no good opposition elements that have sufficient money, weapons, training and legitimacy of the Iranian population right now to come in and take over. And so that is going to be a key challenge right now. So I think, you know, the future could hold several potential options. One is the regime just stays

around actually in various capacities just weakened. And I think that is a possible outcome. I mean, this regime has spent considerable time trying to coup-proof itself anyway and has still

has said this earlier by our count, roughly a million security forces. The second option is it

just significantly weakens. I mean, the regime has already faced massive protests and what we see is actually the descent into civil war where the government weakens even more partly because of these actions by the United States and Iran. And then we actually see some version of what we saw in Syria under Assad after 2011, which is the Saudis, the Emirates, the Americans, the Jordanians,

Ayatola. In that case, it was against Assad. Now, remember that aid was limited in Syria.

It's certainly possible that it could persist until the regime falls. But I don't see any near-term future where the regime itself quickly falls and gets replaced by a legitimate entity.

“I think you're looking at either the regime stays in place or an active civil war for control”

of the state. Okay, so then we're both in the same camp, which is status quo with an IRG, the IRGC dominated government continuity here in Iran. I think we're yes or potentially as the country

starts to slip into civil war the way Syria did. Okay, got it. Good. I don't know if that's good

by the way. No, no, I just mean that we're thinking through this. So, Seth, you're a leading voice on defense policy issues and you recently had a well-received Wall Street Journal article about munitions shortages in the defense industrial base here in the United States. Can you walk us through that and tell us the point? Yeah, so I think there have been some concerns, some justifiable, some less so about munitions stockpiles. One of the things that just to back up that really became

evident during the U.S. assistance to the Ukrainians starting in 2022 is that the U.S. essentially

had to quickly turn on the production lines for javelins, stinger missiles. There were problems with one five, five millimeter ammunition. And so in a couple of different cases, the U.S. had to quickly turn on its production lines because, you know, it had been, it spent years after the end of the Cold War focused largely on counterterrorism missions, not in protracted war and it's worth noting that that war in Ukraine is now in year five. So, when you talk about protracted war,

you're talking about running through large numbers and amounts of munitions, both offensive but then defensive as well. And then also your equipment starts to break down or gets destroyed, you need additional spare parts. So, you know, one of the, the good news story from the war in Iran right now is the U.S. is its strike capabilities are deeply impressive. The U.S. is using Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles to destroy Iranian radar installations and command centers

and missile sites. The U.S. has also used a range of ground-based systems like army, tactical launch, missile systems, attack arms, or guided multiple launch rocket systems, controllers, or precision strike missiles to precisely hit Iranian targets. The bad news on these offensive weapons is that some of them were low even before the

“Iran war started. So, you know, I think modern war, it's not just about drones, it requires a”

high low mix of both long-range missiles and other munitions and relatively cheap drones. The challenge has been the U.S. stockpile of Tomahawk's joint air to air surface missiles or jazams and some other missiles are now even lower than before the war. And that is particularly important because any operational plan or war plan that the U.S. has, whether it's for the O plan for Russia or the O plan for North Korea or most importantly in my view for China,

which is kind of the U.S. is most significant challenger, require a large number of these offensive munitions. And if people remember, last year the administration said it couldn't afford

“to give Tomahawk's to Ukraine. I mean, I remember sitting down with President Zelensky after”

his meeting with President Trump couldn't, the U.S. couldn't afford to give Tomahawk's, because it didn't have enough of them in the Indo-Pacific war yet we've now churned through a bunch of them in Iran. The same thing is also my Michael Tru in the air defense side where munitions were low even before the war started. In 2025, the U.S. fired by our estimates

including in the Red Sea. In the current war, the U.S. is further depleted its stockpiles of patriot and that interceptors. And in addition to that, we've got at least one fad radar, the tipi-to radar on the fad that was hit. There are only eight fads that the army has around the world. And the radar system is the, these are the eyes and ears or the eyes really to detect, track and provide targeting for the fads. So the big point here is some offensive munitions and

defensive interceptors. U.S. isn't dangerously low supply right now. And many of these take 18 to 24 months to get off the production line to build. So this does not a real quick solution to building more of them quickly. So what does this tell you? I mean, we need hurry up and wrap up operations here against Iran. Does it tell? I mean, when we talk about spending more on the defense industrial base, we've been doing that. You know, I, what kind of new investment do we need?

I thought we had just had the deputy secretary of defense arranged with two leading defense companies, you know, ramping up substantially the production of some of these missiles. I mean, if a policymaker is saying, Seth, what exactly do we need to do? What's the answer?

Well, I think there are a couple of things. And, and the first is not necessarily to wrap up the

“war in Iran. I think for Iran, we do need to get to an important strategic objective that we”

can, that we can live with. What I would say is the supplemental and future size of the defense budget. I think should grow and the supplemental that's being discussed with Congress right now, really should not be in my view in Iran. Supplemental, it needs to be an industrial base. Supplemental, you mean the explain for the audience, what you mean? I mean, at least a temporary increase in funding to take care of a lot of the money that has

has been a lot and so far. It's just very expensive for operations and maintenance costs right now to run a war the way the US has with Iran. But again, for me, if you're talking about

“providing the Pentagon with more money right now, because it's in a war, I think what is critical”

is not just to shore up money for the Iran war, but also do this with an eye towards providing help for other theaters. And let me give you a couple of examples of where I think more needs to be done and fast. First of all, the Pentagon, I think needs to focus on fully funding

multi-year contracts for several critical munitions that Congress has already authorized. But the

Pentagon had not fully appropriated the money for and that there are several of those. There's like joint air-to-surface standoff munitions, standard missile six, Patriot, advanced capability three. I think there also should be a real effort to fund a development-produced cheaper alternatives to those because those are extremely expensive. In many cases, second, Michael, I really would focus on contracts. The multi-year contracts, in a number of cases, the Pentagon has reached

strategic framework agreements, not contracts with defense companies, and look for any company that has to report to which shareholder, and is worried about a future where the government, because the defense industry is a monopsony. There's one major buyer. That's the Pentagon. That's not a free. It's not necessarily a free and open market for a range of these weapons

systems. There is always a worry. And if you look at the post-Cold War period, a worry that the

government will reduce defense spending again. So contracts commit the government, essentially,

“in ways that some of the agreements that have been signed don't. And I think multi-years in particular”

are important, not just for companies. People shouldn't look at these and just the primes, the prime companies that are the final assembly points for a range of these systems, but it is probably just as important, maybe more important for the supply chains. These are the suppliers that need to be reassured that they should be devoting resources to stockpiling rocket

And if I get to add a couple of other parts that I think are absolutely critical that the

war in Iran shows us, one is that we see US bases, but also critical infrastructure, commercial infrastructure are big targets. The Chinese, if we look at the Indo-Pacific, have infinitely better standoff capabilities than the Iranians do. More missiles, more capabilities, more on the hypersonic side. But just to put a finer point on it, tell us about Taiwan contingencies

“and why we need so many of these munitions in Asia. I mean a couple of things. One is, I think”

what we have seen is the Chinese expanding their activity, surface ships, drones, aircraft,

in and around Japanese islands, St. Kaku Taiwan, including a growing number of exercises, one might call them rehearsals in and around Taiwan, in and around the Philippines. We've been involved in running, including for Congress, Michael a number of war games, where we run out of long-range anti-ship missiles, which are long-range, they strike surface vessels. So, key parts of, say, a Chinese invasion, we run out of them in a week of war.

I mean, how do you expect to deter, if you've got empty bins? And that's kind of the crux of the problem. Got it. As we begin to wrap up here, said, I've talked a little bit about what you think Trump is up to. Is Trump trying to buy some time to set the theater? Is he really trying to pursue talks with the Iranians? Is he trying to, you know, jawbone the market to keep oil prices down by suggesting, or either nearly done, or the talks or in the offing? What's your analysis

of all this? Well, it's a good question. It's hard to note definitively the answer to what the

“administration is doing. And I think there are good reasons for it. I think no government in a”

time of war wants to necessarily indicate exactly how it's planning to move forward, wants to keep everybody, including its adversary's guessing. I think part of what the administration is probably doing is buying time. If part of what the administration really wants to do, and if negotiations fail is to open up the straightforward move to commercial traffic, then the administration, I think needs more time. It needs more time to strike targets in Iran, it needs more time to get its forces

into position. If it needs to seize some territory, it needs more time. I think to expand a

“coalition of countries willing to participate in that. And so I think with a lot of these statements”

and even reaching out to the Iranians and having conversations, I think part of the incentive is to buy additional time. You know, one last thing Michael along these lines that has been interesting, it does appear that the longer this conflict continues, and the more that Iranian Iran strikes commercial targets in the Gulf, whether it's energy infrastructure, hotels, whether it's commercial airports, the more it looks like a number of governments in the region are pushing for the end of the

Iranian regime. And so I'm wondering actually the more this drags out, the more that the administration and the Israelis and a number of Gulf states actually start trying to take steps to end the Iranian regime as we know it. And I think that explains the, the Israeli targeting that you mentioned earlier, that explains the calls for opposition to hit the streets once this bombing starts. That may be also increasingly where we're headed. Wow, big things to come.

Seth Jones, thank you so much. That was tremendous. We hope to have you back again on

that set matters. Thanks Michael. Always happy to be back. That was Seth Jones. I'm Michael Allen. Please join us next week for another episode of