The Hormuz Standoff, Military Readiness, and the Axis of Aggressors: Adm. Mark Montgomery & Norman Roule

NatSec Matters

The episode features Admiral Mark Montgomery and Norman Roule discussing the strategic implications of the maritime blockade against Iran and

Key takeaways

• The US is pursuing a strategy of 'economic strangulation' against Iran through maritime blockades and targeted sanctions.
• Extended naval deployments of 9 to 10 months are creating a 'readiness bathtub' that threatens US carrier availability by 2028 or 2029.

Main topics

• Iran maritime blockade
• US Navy readiness crisis

Notable quotes

They are four countries in six relationships that share a common desire to push this revisionist theory.

Conclusion

The discussion serves as a warning regarding the systemic under-resour

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:01) Having two carrier strike groups with their air wings, you know, 15 to 18 destroyers, four to five to six extra fighter, Air Force fighter squadrons, and a plurality of your Patriot and THAAD weapon systems in the Gulf unexpectedly for so far seven months, but heading quickly to nine or ten months is a guaranteed readiness problem. Speaker 4 (0:30) I'm host Michael Allen with Beacon Global Strategies. Today I'm joined by two regional Middle Eastern experts, Mark Montgomery, a former Navy admiral with tremendous experience in the Strait of Hormuz and in the region, and also former CIA officer Norman Rule, expert on Iran and the Gulf Arabs. Please join us today. as we discuss the most recent developments in Iran and the evolving nature of the negotiations. Stay with us as we speak with Admiral Mark Montgomery and Norm Rule. Speaker 4 (1:15) Everyone, welcome to NatSecMatters. Today we have a very special episode. We have Norm Rule, who had a long, distinguished career in the Central Intelligence Agency, primarily working in the Middle East. He's incredibly well-networked and insightful and someone we turn to frequently to find out what is going on in the Middle East. And he's joined by Admiral Mark Montgomery, who's also been on this podcast before, but is also a frequent commentator on the events in the Middle East, naval issues in general, cybersecurity. And bonus, earlier in his career, he was actually on naval ships who conducted a variety of operations in the Straits of Hormuz. So I think he'll be able to get granular. with us on how the Oman channel works and how the The Iranians seem to be insisting on an arrangement that continues to benefit them. But in the meantime, Norm, Mark, welcome to NatSecMatters. Thank you for having me. Speaker 2 (2:32) It's good to be here. Speaker 4 (2:33) All right, let's get into it. Mark, let's start with you. Certainly there was some news over the weekend about whether or not President Trump was going to hit the Houthi. Let's get to that, but let's not get to that right this second. Can you sort of give us an update on where you think we are with Iran? And what do you see happening in the near future? Speaker 3 (3:00) So I think the president, look, it's hard to speak. The president does change his position. But I think broadly for the last few weeks, he's been on a goal of economic strangulation of Iran, you know, through a successful blockade. It's not 100 % successful, but I think it's a broadly successful blockade preventing the maritime shipment of Iranian fossil fuels, combined with a very selective, and I don't mean very in a good way there, you know, targeted enforcement of some sanctions against Iran, and with the idea being that you build more pressure on the Iranian leadership through damage to their economy. Whether that gets you to success, I don't know. defer to Norm. I don't think I'm smart enough to answer that. But I could tell you it's a plan that relies on not allowing the issue to escalate too much out of control. I think the United States has done a pretty good job over the last four weeks of doing proportionate responses to attacks by the Iranians or actions by the Iranians in the case of beginning to... assemble and potentially use a Fajr 5 launcher to put mines somewhere in the Strait of Hormuz. So from my perspective, I think our plan right now is at least through the end of the midterms to play a largely economic strangulation game with a goal of not unnecessarily escalating things. And that might get into why we'll see some of the answers you were referring to about the Houthis in the United States response. I'd be interested in how Norm sees that. Speaker 4 (4:37) Norm, you want to go ahead and jump in? Speaker 2 (4:39) I associate myself with Mark's usual wise and insightful comments. The administration's policy has been consistent. It is a strategy that's based on three economic pieces, maintain the sanctions, maintain the blockade, which starves Iran not only of its revenue, but prevents Iran from receiving a number of imports critical to its industries and to supporting counter-inflation moves. And then most recently through the Secretary of Treasury undertaking an almost unprecedented campaign against the major institutions that are responsible for the leakage in the sanctions. The Gulf Cooperation Council seniors with whom I speak are satisfied with this approach, in part because it doesn't mean a missile and drone war against their entities without any real impact on Iran decision-making, whereas this will eventually, it is believed, erode Iran's institutional edifices to the point where they will have to make some sort of compromise. We have seen some indications that this policy has been working. They're both good and bad, but they're indications. The first is that you've seen the president, the Iranian parliament leader, and a former president all come out and say, we need to consider negotiations because the economic consequences are very significant. They didn't come up with any specifics. Second, you've seen A few visits of senior leaders to Iran, Pakistan, and the Qataris. And the Iranians have ostensibly put forward a seven-point deal, which doesn't show a lot of give yet, but it shows they're attempting that. And last, you're seeing an escalation of violence by the Iranians. And the reason that's important is as the Iranians see the train of doom, the train of collapse approach them, they're going to make actions before then to try to get a deal of some sort. And that does involve showing that they're not weak. That will involve moving the Houthis and the Iraqis, as well as maintaining intermittent attacks on shipping in the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. The Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf are increasing weak spots for the Iranians. You're seeing a steady, maybe not, the numbers aren't constant, but there is a large flow of oil and some natural gas that is moving out through the Oman Channel. So for the Iranians, it's Speaker 4 (7:04) a Speaker 2 (7:04) somewhat declined value. in assets to the Strait of Hormuz. Bottom line is this will continue for a while, and that has significant ramifications for the military, the U.S. military, the economy, energy markets, etc. Speaker 4 (7:16) Okay, I'm going to come right back because that was a bunch of things to follow up on. But Mark, let me just ask with regards to the U.S. Navy's activity, CENTCOM's activity, are they guiding oil and gas ships through? And how is that working? How often does Iran take a shot at these commercial vessels? Or are they looking the other way? You Speaker 3 (7:41) know, it's funny, when I was a junior officer, we had something called Naval Control and Guidance to Shipping, NCAGs. And I just remember thinking, what a dated, worthless, you know, set of doctrine and policy that we never trained on. And now I'm sure like... There's young junior officers flipping through like 40-year-old books trying to figure out how to do it properly. But, I mean, on a more serious note, we are providing guidance and control to shipping. Some of it is about timing. Some of it's about route management. Some of it's us explaining what we've done, what I would call queue route-wise, where we have had, you know, checked for mine-like objects on a specific route. that's known generally as the Omani route or the southern transit lane. And then kind of obviously more importantly, we have an unblinking intelligence eye overhead, keeping an eye out for small boat movements or drones or missiles becoming, uncovering themselves and ready to conduct an offensive strike if necessary. And those same aircraft overhead. of that transit lane can also provide some counter drone and counter missile defenses. So I do think we're assisting these. We're assisting these with advice, with mine clearance, with air cover, with offensive strike, and with intelligence support. Now, that doesn't mean that the captain of a merchant ship's getting any of that information. Once he's transiting, they're getting very generic information. You know, go 070 for... 22.2 miles, then go 090 for 7.3 miles. Stick to this chart. Do not leave this lane. That kind of thing. Go at this speed so that we get spacing proper between ships. I think we're doing that kind of support. And I think, you know, with the right vessels, now a lot of this has been smaller vessels that then offload their 100, 200, 500,000 barrels of crude. to a VLCC, a very large crew carrier on the outside of the Gulf, a 2 million barrel carrier. So it gets filled up by two, three or four ships and then it takes off. So we have to do a number of ships to get to that 2 million barrel carrier. And then, you know, six or seven 2 million barrel carriers a day would be a very close to what's necessary for when combined, when the pipelines are operating with the Saudi East West and the... United Arab Emirates north-south pipelines to get you to pre-war levels of crew going through the Straits of Hormuz. So I think you're seeing that, and I think you are seeing U.S. support to doing it. I just don't think it's the kind of convoy operations I was used to where two U.S. Navy ships would pull four larger merchant ships through a transit lane over an eight-hour transit or eight, 10, 11-hour transit. through the Strait of Hormuz. Well, Speaker 4 (10:41) maybe this relative success explains why the Houthi were targeting some of that Saudi oil and gas infrastructure. Is the Strait of Hormuz a wasting or at least a diminishing asset, Norm? Speaker 2 (10:55) Well, it's a diminished asset. It is still contested. by the Iranian capability and contested in terms against Iran by the extraordinary activities of the U.S. Navy. And those activities, which Mark has eloquently described, I would just like to add on to and say that they are heroic. These are personnel working in extremely dangerous, violent conditions. This is evidence of a tremendous amount of training that the Navy has undertaken. These plans go back many years, and Mark's thumbprint is on a lot of this, and he deserves a lot of praise for the successes that are occurring, as well as Admiral Cooper's staff. But what the Navy has done in terms of demining, improving the capacity of the Oman journal, and pushing back on Iran's, eroding Iran's capabilities on the eastern side of the Bitter Hormuz. It is extremely impressive. One of the United States could do something like this and the Iranians know it. They can still impose some ability to contest that. They just can't control it. Yeah. Speaker 4 (11:57) Norm, you mentioned a few minutes ago that the United States policy, of course, is sanctions enforcement, the blockade and the unprecedented action that the Treasury Department is taking. I wonder if you think. that all of this is working to such a degree that it has caused worry across the Iranian regime. I know the speaker has spoken out and said let's consider, as you say, negotiations, but it's widely assumed that the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps He's really calling the shots. Are they nervous? Do they want to get back to negotiations with the United States? Or do they want to, quote, make Trump pay by having high oil prices, at least through the midterm election? Speaker 2 (12:53) I think there's a firm yes to all of those issues. And there's evidence for all of that. So let's start with the Iranians themselves. There is no indication that there is a strategic disagreement between any of Iran's power players. They're all cut from the same fabric of career dynamic, having been their early careers through the cauldron of the Iran-Iraq war and then moving through a worldview established post-2001 in terms of Iran's activities. in the region and how it handles the world and what it got away with and how it saw the world respond. They all see this. They just have maybe some different paths to see the survival of the Islamic Republic through a post-revolutionary generation of leadership. If you look at some of the architectural changes the Iranians have done, they are significant and show their concerns of unrest, which again have been unprecedented since 2017 and especially in December and January this year, much heroism on part of the Iranian people that shows they have a reason for concern. The assignment of an IRGC officer with a heavy intelligence and hardline background to manage the besiege, Hussein Tayyab, and the ability of the Iranians or the practice of the Iranians to not build the besiege into basically a spy service against their own people at a neighborhood level and then work neighborhoods into committees of propaganda, weaponry, etc., etc. It's unprecedented in the history of the Islamic Republic. They're clearly worried about it. unrest in their country. And then last, as they approach the region itself, they've got to show they have that capability to conduct violence across the board. But they have had conversations with their Gulf partners and other partners to say, you know, we realize there's going to be a future here after the conflict, and we need to have some kind of a dynamic working forward. So all this is playing out, but it's just not playing out heavily enough in any one area to allow a clear... picture of what's going to happen tomorrow beyond the trend lines are moving in this direction. So Speaker 4 (14:56) they're talking about it and they're maintaining their position of Iranian control or some role in the Straits of Hormuz. I mean, if they put forward this seven point plan and from what I read about it, it just, as you said, was pretty hard line. They're at least putting it out there that they're open to negotiations, even if they're not geared for real concessions right now. Speaker 2 (15:20) Well, the Iranian position on negotiations has been constant. It's a strategy and a tactic that passes through all of their leadership. Remember, Arakji has been around for many years. In essence, they show up to talk. We've never had a problem talking with them since 1979. Multiple channels have existed. But that doesn't mean they have anything to say. And then if something happens that we end the talks or conduct military action, then their answer is to say, you know, we were just about to have a big victory here, but the U.S. or the Israelis pulled the rug out from us. because they're against peace. The Iranians have four consistent demands. They want to control the Strait of Hormuz. It gives them capacity