The president, of course, says we're still ahead of schedule, though by my

calculation, we don't have that much more time to be ahead of schedule.

If this was only supposed to be a six week operation in the first place and

we're in week five. Do you expect that it is going to end at

six weeks with the signals we are seeing both from the troop presence that is

getting even larger in the Middle East and the rhetoric from the president?

I don't think so. I think that we still have work to do to

sort of set the conditions around the Strait of Hormuz for us to even begin to

move to an escort, mission workhorse have been in an attack mission.

We've been on a missile defense mission. But to shift, they have to finish

degrading the coastal defenses of Iran. They probably need to degrade their

drones more and, of course, fast boats. So we're bringing the equipment over.

It's going to take time, but I think it's going to be a little bit longer

than forecast. That's the narrative in the major papers

this morning. The New York Times talking about several

hundred U.S. special operations forces, Rangers and

Navy SEALs joining thousands of Marines and Army paratroopers in deployment.

The Post talking about a Pentagon preparing for weeks of ground operations

in Iran. Does that feel to you like where we're

going or is this a deal that's about to be struck, as the president suggests?

I definitely don't think there's a deal in the offing.

I don't even know that we've met indirectly, so to speak.

What I think might be happening is that the president is serious or he's

seriously thinking about taking Kharg Island.

Right now, that's not my base case. I'm not sure or certain that it would.

It might be just something that gives him options, gives him leverage, and

allows him to take an economic hostage if the Iranians continue not to

cooperate when it comes time to reopen the strait.

But, yeah, I think he's making sure he's got the tools in place to do that if he

feels like he needs to. Well, when we think about the Iranian

regime, which President Trump described on social today as new and also as more

reasonable, I wonder if that matches your assessment, Mike.

Is this really a new regime or is it a just a cast of characters that has

changed at the top of the same regime? Well, it seems like the new boss is the

same as the old boss. It's a hard core element of the Iran

people that are good with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, that are in good

standing with the clerics. Maybe some of these new newer people

have some ability to compromise more, or maybe they're more pragmatic than

others. But I think they're all hardliners over

there. I think that they're as mad as a hornet

right now as well. And so I don't know that the conditions

are really set for anyone to earnestly put forward positions other than the

ones so far which have been totally maximalist, like get the United States

out of the Middle East and you cease everything.

Iran, including your ballistic missile program.

How important is it to you? And it does seem to be to the

administration whether part of a deal or we go in and get the thousand pounds of

enriched uranium that's sitting somewhere likely underground.

This would be one of the biggest operations, I think, in American

history. It would be normal or importance scale.

It would be. It's not just the special operations

raid. Think Osama bin Laden or against Maduro.

I think it would take let's just guess here, a thousand troops set up perimeter

for more than a day at least start to use.

Yeah. Earth moving equipment and who knows

what else to dig it out under fire and then put it on an airplane to ship out

again. I could see Cargo Island happening

sooner than I could. Really?

This HQ, although one you can't rule it out with President Trump.

And I've heard generals say that if we've planned it well enough, that we

can do it. But it does seem a little bit daunting

and it's important and it's critical to do.

But maybe there's other ways for us to neutralize it over time.

People say, well, you know what? If we just stared at it over over

satellites? And if Iran ever comes close to where we

think it's buried, we'll just hit them again.

But, you know, it's another big question mark on how we might use ground troops.

But is that where we stumble into quagmire?

Risk more substantially? I think we're only in a total quagmire

with ground troops is if we invade and try to hold territory like island for

for an extended period of time. And so I don't think we would be around

Esfahan retrieving the HQ for an extended period of time.

But yeah, I think if you're holding Kharg Island, I have been persuaded by a

lot of the sort of the export expert testimony that, yeah, you know what it

would be they would hold us in harm because of the drones proximity to

drones and the rest. So.

I think there's a lot to that. You've talked to us about the taco trade

before, which doesn't seem to be working for investors in quite the same way.

John Authors writing on the Bloomberg about a different acronym.

It's not Taco, it's wacko. Will the ayatollahs chicken out?

And he says traders are concluding they almost certainly will not.

And so prices enter Holy week under the worst pressure of this now month old

conflict. Nobody's going to want to go long into

this long weekend for fear of what happens, Michael.

Well, yeah, I agree. I mean, the the ayatollahs, the regime

is this is obviously an existential threat.

I mean, our targeting alone. But of course, you add what Israel is

doing there, they feel like they can use any tool in their toolkit.

That's why they're taking shots at the Gulf Arabs.

That's why they're taking shots earlier in the campaign that their energy

infrastructure, that's, of course, why they feel so liberated to have

threatened ships going through the strait.

And so I feel like they are going to fight their back is against the wall and

everything for them is on the table. Well, and then there's the proxies to

consider. You already have the front that has

opened up on the border with Lebanon and Israel as they go after Hezbollah.

Now, the Houthis also are launching drones and missiles at Israel.

We all remember what they were able to do with commercial shipping, effectively

cutting it off in the Red Sea back in 2023.

How high is the risk that we could see that scenario repeated?

Oh, I think it's very high. I mean, people have been trying to

figure out for the last few weeks why the Houthi was the dog that didn't bark.

But, you know, they've started to engage a little bit more here.

If they start not just targeting Israel, as you say, but beginning to target

again, ships transiting. You know, Katy bar the door, I don't

know. Oil prices are going higher and higher

and higher. Markets are turning lower before our

eyes here. By the way, I just want to mention the

S&P is down five now. The Nasdaq is down 89 points after early

gains. In our remaining moment, you spent time

on national security, as we've already established.

And whenever you visit in the George W Bush administration, you were certainly

gaming out any number of possibilities involving Iran.

Are these these options we're talking about for President Trump, things that

you had your eyes on, Kharg Island, etc.?

Kharg Island, I think has been on everyone's list for some period of time

when we were thinking about sanctions and maximum pressure because it was

always how do you get to the Iranian oil?

And here's their choke point, if you will.

By the way, the world's choke choke point, of course, is the Strait of

Hormuz. This is they're shooting that out to.

What's that strait? Yes.

You had these maps. You had these battle plans in front of

you. Oh, no, I we I, we had a sort of a

different role more along the putting pressure on Iran in that particular

office and less the military plans. But no, I know that this these two items

have been part of military planning for some period of time.

And I think this is something that we've got to figure out how to deal with or

else we've given the Iranians a lot more leverage than they had before this thing

began.