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Let's bring in former retired US Air Force Brigadier General Rob Spalding to join us now. Good morning to you. Thank you for joining us. What was your takeaway after you learned or you watched that um press conference for the last 30 minutes? Well, I think the president's plan here is brilliant. It really puts the Iranians on the back foot. It allows the United States to begin to coalesce allies to be in support of it where, you know, they haven't been in the past. And I think we're going to have to wait for the uranium regime, which is already quite fractured, to further fracture and see what comes after before we can really get to a deal. So, Secretary Hexath repeatedly said uh that this new
operation to open up the strait is separate and distinct and he called it purely defensive. Um I heard that uh I read that as his effort to restart the clock with Congress u not wanting to uh run up against that deadline which passed last week where uh the where the president would have to go to Congress or it is argued the president would have to go uh before Congress to get approval. Yeah, I actually read it that um you know, we're trying to get somebody else um other allies and partners to be a part of this and not have to do it all ourselves. And I think making it purely defensive kind of puts the onus back on
the people that actually need those ships to leave the Gulf, which are not primarily American uh ships. They're primarily for Europe. They're they're for Asia. And so getting them to others to step up is I think part of the strategy here. So General, a couple of things. We got to get to the point where the straight is so secure you can get a 100 plus ships through as they were prior to the war. How close is that being that the day one saw so much fire on the two destroyers even though we handled it? We just we want to symbol we want to show the tankers you can get through here. So how close are we to getting to that point?
Well, I think the problem lies in when you have a consistent flow of ships, uh, you don't have the element of surprise in terms of when you're going through that. And so, I think it does give the Iranians the opportunity to plan a strike that might be successful. That being said, they can't sustain it. So, we may see some ships get damaged, but I think the vast majority will be able to get out, which is what they need to do. So, General, the president has said no nuclear weapons. That's the goal here. And he's going to continue to block the Iranian ports so that they can't export their oil, which means um they're not making any money right now or they're losing a lot of money. 500 million a day
is has been estimated. But Trump is bashing Iran's latest 14-point proposal. So what will it take for all of this to end the straight to be completely open so that oil prices can go down around the world? Yeah, I think unfortunately with the IRGC, it's it's a manyheaded hydra and no one head is in charge and that's a challenge that the president has. Who is he going to negotiate with? And so they're going to have to wait for something to change in the country that allows them to have somebody with the significant power and authority to make the deal to transfer that uranium.
General, I find it astounding that if they're going to take a shot at a country, they didn't take a shot at Israel. They went after the UAE and they've given more hits to UAE, targeted them more than Israel. Yet the Gulf States has only brought them together despite the fractures. Saudis contacted the UAE premier emir and said, "How can I help? We got your back." So, they are uniting the Gulf forces and bringing them closer to us. No, I think that's that's great for, you know, what we've been trying to do, which is essentially get the Gulf uh states and Israel to be more cooperative. That was the idea behind the Abraham Accords. It's only strengthened that effort. And I think
the reason they're not hitting Israel is quite frankly we've we've, you know, decimated their long range weapons in the country. So that, you know, the UAE is probably about the best they can do. Again, though, it supports our strategy. They were hitting Israel in the very beginning, remember? And they were intercepting it. Yeah. Thank you so much, General. Appreciate it. Thank you. Be sure to like and subscribe for all the Fox News latest on YouTube and catch full shows streaming now on Fox
