Hoover Institution Fellow Peter Berkowitz joined the RCP podcast Thursday to discuss President Trump’s declaration that the U.S. has “won” the war with Iran in the context of the current fight to keep the Strait of Hormuz open for traffic. “The first 11 or 12 days have involved great accomplishments for the United States and Israel. We have greatly advanced the president’s announced military objectives, which are to severely degrade nuclear weapons programs, missiles, missile launchers, missile production, and IRGC installations,” he said. “We’ve sunk a good part of the navy, destroyed a good part of the air force. Those are explicit military objectives. Terrific.” “However, it should have been part of proper war planning to prepare for Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz,” Berkowitz said. “The Iranians can use low-tech to close the waterway: mining, the lowest of low-tech today, with small fast boats.” “This is a very important dimension of the war, and in the next few days we’re going to learn more about whether the United States is adequately prepared,” he said. “Maybe they’ll be in wetsuits, but yeah, I’m talking about American combat soldiers in a limited way, but special forces,” co-host Carl Cannon added. “To counter that, you start to think not of these amazing high-tech weapons America has. You start to think about special forces and Navy SEALs and the very capable units that the United States has, but which the commander in chief has given no hint he wants to use. Is there any way to counter it other than that?” “Mines are very mobile,” Berkowitz explained. “You can put some of them on your back and walk with them. They’re very cheap, and you set them in, you drop them into the sea, they spread out. They represent a very serious threat to these enormous oil tankers.” “One good answer to the mining and fast boats is special operations, yes,” he said.
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