A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
For more on the fight over the Strait of Hormuz, we've called Ray Takeyh. He's a senior fellow for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. He's also a senior adviser on Iran at the State Department during the Obama administration. Ray, the U.S. says the Strait is open. Iran says it's closed. Who has the final say?
RAY TAKEYH: Well, at this particular point, the Iranians seem to have a greater ability to close the strait than we do in terms of opening it. And this is a context that will go on, I'm afraid, as the Gulf traffic comes to a close or reopens, pending how the tensions between the two governments play themselves out.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. Considering in April, former U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker told our Steve Inskeep on MORNING EDITION that Iran has shown that they can effectively control the Strait of Hormuz at will, and then that CNN report in June that U.S. intel assesses that Iran can shut down the Strait of Hormuz at will, should we never at this point, or maybe not necessarily, put too much stock in what the United States says about the Strait of Hormuz and how much control they actually have in it?
TAKEYH: Well, the Iranians have proven that they could essentially intercede with maritime traffic through the use of rudimentary technologies such as speedboats and drones and so forth. And those particular instruments of pressure are not really susceptible to bombing. You can bomb radar installations and so forth, but that doesn't affect the ability to use those munitions for stopping commercial traffic through the Gulf. And this is a problem that United States is having. It has certain technological superiority, but it's becoming less convincing in terms of its application on this rather peculiar battlefield, which is on high seas.
MARTÍNEZ: OK. That makes sense. Now, Iran and Oman have been holding talks about the future of the strait, which was stipulated in the memorandum of understanding. So why would Iran then start this latest wave of attacks by hitting a ship passing through the strait?
TAKEYH: Well, there seems to have been some kind of a misinterpretation on both sides, apparently, on the Provision 5 of memorandum understanding. It was the Iranian interpretation that this essentially gives them the right to charge tolls and control traffic through the Gulf. The memorandum has stipulated that that would be in conjunction with Oman and other Gulf states. But lately the Iranians have suggested that actually they have no interest in sharing it with Oman. After all, it's called Persian Gulf, not the Oman Gulf. And second of all, they - the - they don't seem to have any concerns about the Americans doing much about it, although we begin to see this pattern of escalation coming into it.
So there's a different interpretations about that provisions. And one of the things that had happened recently is you began to see the United States Navy getting some of those ships through what is called Oman Corridor, which is closer to Oman. And this is one of the things that Iranians have stopped doing. So they essentially suggesting there no privileged corridor through the Gulf that they have no control or access to.
MARTÍNEZ: With President Trump declaring last week that the ceasefire is over, how much more difficult will that make it to come up with a deal?
TAKEYH: Well, the president has declared a ceasefire over, and then he has declared it not over. And he has declared Iranian leaders are scum, and sometimes they're good people. So the president's rhetoric tends to be very volatile and all over the place. It lends him some degree of unpredictability, which has been a useful asset to him, a leverage. But increasingly, it makes him a difficult interlocutor, given the absence of any predictability. So ceasefire is over for now. That doesn't mean there won't be another ceasefire, simply because it is really at the core interests of both Iran and the United States for the Gulf traffic to resume, not to mention the international economy.
MARTÍNEZ: Now, we've seen several waves of U.S. strikes over the weekend, and it's intended to make it harder for Iran to attack ships. Have you seen any indication that those waves of strikes are working?
TAKEYH: Well, this pattern of escalation has inherent danger in it for both sides. The Iranians are targeting American military installations in the Gulf. And what happens if one of the Iranian missiles kills 10, 15 American servicemen? Then the imperative for wide-scale retaliation by the United States will become quite pressing. On the other hand, as the pattern of escalation continues, the United States is increasingly targeting civilian infrastructures - bridges, potentially power plants - and that would inflict very substantial damage on the Iranian people. One of the ostensible reasons for this war and even the June war of last year was that we would try to uplift the Iranian people and empower them. As this war expands in terms of its targets, which is an inevitable consequence of escalation, the lives of the Iranian people could be very much damaged.
MARTÍNEZ: We're nearly at the midpoint of that 60-day interim deal window. What are you seeing? I mean, we have got about 20 seconds, Ray. What are you seeing about what might happen over these next 30 days?
TAKEYH: Well, there's a possibility the two sides can work out some sort of a interim - again, another interim agreement that will open up the Gulf while they continue the conversation on these thorny issues. That would be essentially kicking the buck down the road. That's an optimistic scenario. The other one would be this pattern of escalation.
MARTÍNEZ: Ray Takeyh at the Council on Foreign Relations. Thank you, Ray.
TAKEYH: Thank you very much for having me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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