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Speaker 1: Donald Trump has announced he's going to pull strikes on

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Speaker 1: Iranian power plants for five days, saying peace talks are

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Speaker 1: progressing well. Iran claims there are no peace talks now.

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Speaker 1: Doctor Matthew Schmidt is an international relations expert and used

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Speaker 1: to teach strategic planning at the US Army's School of

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Speaker 1: Advanced Military Studies. High Matthew, Hi, right here, Good to

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Speaker 1: talk to you. Who do we believe Trump that there

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Speaker 1: are no that there are peace talks or Tehran that

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Speaker 1: there are no peace talks.

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Speaker 2: I think this is a process question. I think that

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Speaker 2: there have been people who have been talking about culminating

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Speaker 2: the war, but it hasn't been Trump directly, you know,

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Speaker 2: or the new Iotola directly. It's been cutouts in between.

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Speaker 2: And Trump is exaggerating what's going on and making it

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Speaker 2: sound like it was more direct than it is.

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Speaker 1: And Tehran, what are they doing?

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Speaker 2: They are signaling first of all, that they can embarrass

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Speaker 2: the president and call him out on this, and secondly,

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Speaker 2: they're resolved that they are in fact not in a

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Speaker 2: position to move towards any kind of ceasefire right now,

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Speaker 2: that they're not willing.

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Speaker 1: Why has he announced this five day pols on the

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Speaker 1: strikes targeting the power plants.

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Speaker 2: Because he can't carry out his promise, not without a

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Speaker 2: large degree of risk. And we know that Trump has

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Speaker 2: been quite squeamish in the past about the risk of

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Speaker 2: getting American service members killed, and so I think that's

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Speaker 2: really what you're seeing right here. The options that he

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Speaker 2: has on the ground are not great and there's a

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Speaker 2: lot again, to say the word again, there's just a

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Speaker 2: lot of risk involved in them, and he is, I think,

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Speaker 2: squeamish about it.

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Speaker 1: And what do you make of the fact that he's

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Speaker 1: done this five day pools on the power plant strikes,

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Speaker 1: but then Israel has ramped up its bombing. What's going

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Speaker 1: on there?

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Speaker 2: These are two separate countries and we essentially have different

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Speaker 2: goals in this operation. In Israel is really I think

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Speaker 2: in control and driving the tempo of the war here

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Speaker 2: and from the very beginning, and the Americans we have

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Speaker 2: been an instrument of the Israeli war plan, which is

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Speaker 2: really something that we've been you know, connected onto more

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Speaker 2: than we were driving.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, what is he going to do with KAG.

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Speaker 2: Well, that's the question. He has the option of the

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Speaker 2: eighty second airborne Immediate Response Force, which is apparently heading

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Speaker 2: to the region and then the Marine Expeditionary Force that's there,

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Speaker 2: so he could he could take CARG if he wants to,

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Speaker 2: but it would be very risky because once you have

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Speaker 2: boots on the ground in a situation like that, they're

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Speaker 2: exposed to a lot of things, not least of which

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Speaker 2: would be simply setting CARG on fire and making it

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Speaker 2: a kind of healthscape to operate in, which is going

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Speaker 2: to end up, you know, posing a lot of casualties. Frankly,

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Speaker 2: who who would.

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Speaker 1: Set it on fire? meThe you, because it's surely not

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Speaker 1: the Iranians they needed for their income.

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Speaker 2: Asplutally they could set it on fire. You know, they're

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Speaker 2: in a war for their and so those boundaries are

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Speaker 2: kind of out the window for this regime. They have

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Speaker 2: to win by not losing, and that's what they'll do.

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Speaker 1: Right, How does he get the straight of Humo's open?

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Speaker 2: That is again a question of probabilities in order to

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Speaker 2: close the straight. Really, what's happening is is that you're

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Speaker 2: spooking insurance markets. You're spooking Lloyd's of London, which is

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Speaker 2: increasing the costs and of shipping, and so shipping is

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Speaker 2: deciding not to try to risk it to pass through there.

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Speaker 2: And the Iranians only have to throw a few missiles

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Speaker 2: in the direction of ship. They only have to potentially

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Speaker 2: hit his ship, not even sink it or sink one

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Speaker 2: or SYNC two. They can do this with mines, they

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Speaker 2: can do this with unmanned boats. They can do this

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Speaker 2: with manned boats, right, they can do this with missiles.

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Speaker 2: There's a lot of of tools that they can throw

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Speaker 2: at shipping in order to spook it and keep it away,

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Speaker 2: and they can hide most of those things. They only

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Speaker 2: need a little bit in order to in order to

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Speaker 2: create the psychological effect that's going to stop the shipping.

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Speaker 2: And in order to counter that, you have to put

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Speaker 2: boots on the ground and essentially find everything that's hiding.

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Speaker 2: You have to find all of those unmanned boats, all

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Speaker 2: those man boats, all those missile sites, all those drone sites.

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Speaker 2: And that's a big, big process for a military to undertake.

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Speaker 2: And you know, we would take casualties in the process

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Speaker 2: of doing that also, And I think that that means

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Speaker 2: that the risk level is just too high for President

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Speaker 2: Trump right now.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Matthew, listen, thank you so much. Really appreciated. Doctor

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Speaker 1: Matthew Schmidt international relations expert at the University of New Haven.

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