LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Since the start of the conflict with Iran, President Trump has said a lot of things about the Strait of Hormuz.
A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
He said the key waterway was in great shape after U.S. forces decimated Iran's navy. Later, he said the strait was not America's problem, and other nations needed to sort it out. And more recently that a preliminary peace deal meant the strait was open for business. But Iran has stymied the administration at every turn. Now a U.S. naval blockade is back in place, and Trump says he will take over the strait, though he backtracked on the administration charging a kind of transit fee.
FADEL: We've got Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman here with us to sort it all out. Good morning, Tom.
TOM BOWMAN, BYLINE: Good morning.
FADEL: OK. So Trump says he wants to take over the strait. What would that mean, Tom, from a military perspective?
BOWMAN: Well, full control for the U.S. would mean that you have to eliminate or severely reduce Iran's power to fire drones or missiles at commercial ships. Iran has hit at least seven commercial ships in the past week, damaging some, and the U.S. says nearly a dozen crew members are killed, wounded or missing. That has predictably led to ship transit slowing to around a dozen each day, down from 30 or 40 a day several weeks ago and well below the hundred and thirty before the war started.
Now, the U.S. in the last few days has hit Iranian drone bases, missile sites, radar, other military sites. But retired military officers and analysts I talked with say you'd have to increase those attacks by a factor of three or four times for weeks to maybe get that threat reduced to a level where commercial ships can start moving at decent levels. So will that happen? You know, we'll have to see, but recent U.S. strikes really have not accomplished enough because Iran is not only attacking those commercial ships, but also U.S. bases in Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain. Those countries have said their defenses have knocked out those Iranian missiles and no word on any damage from the U.S. side. You know, Leila, a guy I know on Capitol Hill said it's like two bucks locking horns.
FADEL: Can the U.S. drastically reduce that Iranian drone and missile threat with more intensive bombing?
BOWMAN: You know, it's hard to say. Iran has thousands of drones and missiles as well as fast boats that can lay mines. Again, it may take weeks or longer for a stronger bombing campaign. And the big question, if I'm a ship owner or an insurer, do I feel comfortable moving through the strait? Is the threat reduced enough? Only they can answer that.
Here's another thing, Leila. The U.S. is now guiding ships through this southern path in the Strait of Hormuz just off Oman, not escorting them, but basically in the area and saying, hey, here's a safer route. That's the route Iran is attacking, saying ships have to come through their approved route closer to their shoreline. Analysts tell me that the U.S. will have to expand that Oman route for ships, and they may have to actually escort the commercial ships, like we saw during the tanker war in the 1980s, during the Iran-Iraq War. That's very time-consuming and takes probably a lot more ships to serve as escorts.
FADEL: Realistically, Tom, how much is feasible without boots on the ground?
BOWMAN: You know, President Trump and others have raised that possibility. The Marines have studied this for decades, including seizing the main Iranian oil facility on Kharg Island. You know, it's doable, and you could take out the military facilities, seize the oil infrastructure as a bargaining chip. You might have casualties, though. Others say you don't have to put boots on the ground but simply blockade it or bomb the military targets.
FADEL: What about NATO getting involved in helping open the strait?
BOWMAN: Well, France and Britain have talked about this - a multinational maritime mission to secure the strait. They will only do that, they say, when the conditions stabilize and, of course, they're not stable now.
FADEL: That's NPR's Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman. Thank you, Tom.
BOWMAN: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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