Key Takeaways From the Pentagon’s Presser on Iran War

And now joining us live for some analysis and reactions to the press conference is Mike Cirelli. He's a U.S. Navy SEAL veteran, as well as a military analyst, and he's also the chief talent officer over at Overwatch Mission Critical. I'd love to get your reactions to the press conference that just happened, Mike. I thought Dan Cain and Pete Hagseth did a wonderful job. One, it was an update. Two, I think they were trying to refute hyperbolic left-wing narratives regarding this war. I think what people are losing sight of is Iran had, you know, they've been ranked on different capabilities and capacities between number five and the 16th largest militaries. And it's been 13 days, and we've decimated them. You know, there's fragility with the IRGC and regime. There are signals of collapse. We're not there yet. We, you know, they addressed the Strait of Hormuz, which is right now sort of the center of gravity for media, which they are dealing with. But I think Americans, as well as the rest of the world, is losing sight that there needs to be a little persistence. There needs to continue to be resolve. There needs to continue to be patience. Guys, we're talking about 13 days compared to 47 years of evil. And this will result in some spikes in volatility in the energy market, which is, again, the largest concern for the world. It's temporary. It's not permanent. And I think Dan Cain and Pete Haystack did a wonderful job of addressing that and really re-scoping the success of this campaign, as well as just the amazing bravery and competence of our U.S. military force alongside the Israelis. Yeah, and I'd like you to expand on the general's comments. He highlighted the artillery group, and he mentioned it sounds like he had maybe some sort of a video call with one of the groups and their leadership. I'd love to, having served yourself, I'd love to get your reactions to that. Yeah, and I know what Dan is absolutely, he's talking about. So the fact that when you see these young Americans forward with such pride, confidence, and again, I use the word resolve, it uplifts you. It's no different than when I was watching 18 to 20-year-old Marine infantry and Army infantry clearing the streets and fighting house to house. It's one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. Now, the artillery was crucial in the initial phases of the war, and it will continue to be. But as you heard, they're transitioning from long-range precision munitions now to what we call over-the-top munitions, which means our aircrafts have air dominance. We've got ISR assets overhead, which identify targets, pass it for precision strikes, which lead to BDAs. And the war secretary referred to that feedback loop. So now our intelligence and strike mechanism becomes quicker in this feedback loop overhead as we continue through what you can call systematic attrition of what remains of the regime. But those artillery rounds, which usually are HIMARS, which is actually, think of that as the rifle, the launch system. They're using Gilmers. They're using precision strike munitions, which is the newest long-range standoff precisions as well as the ATACMS. And those were used in the initial moments of this campaign. They've been used for the first few days, but you will see a transition to aircraft overhead, our fighters, our bombers now hitting targets in the future. And could you just go a level deeper on what that means in terms of this shift to an over-the-top approach? Does that suggest a transition to a different stage of the campaign? It does. We had to use these long-range precision munitions or this artillery in the initial days of the campaign before we could, what you call SEAD or DEAD, which is the suppression and destruction of enemy air defenses, before we could establish that air dominance and have a persistent, permanent presence directly over Tehran. You're talking about continuous 24-7, 365 operations with our aircrafts over the Iranian airspace. And so once we achieve that, it goes into that second phase of what we call kill chain prosecution. And again, I alluded to it first, reconnaissance assets overhead, doing 100 ops, trying to identify targets, passing that to our precision strike assets, whether it be fighters or bombers that then conduct those, prosecute those strikes, which leads to a battle damage assessment. And it creates this intelligence loop, this decision-making loop, which we do faster than any military in the world. So as we look for the remaining, call it missile launch sites or mobile launch sites, we will continue to hunt for those. Once those targets of opportunities come up, we will strike them to include in persistent strikes on regime leadership, on any military infrastructure, command and control nodes, intelligence mechanisms, or their architecture. The regime is holding on for dear life. And as the Secretary of War referred to, their leadership has gone underground. That's the only safety. And we can hit them underground. So there will be also a focus on hitting this mosaic of underground tunnels and bunkers that hold both leadership as well as munitions, whether it's ballistic missiles or drones. And they had said that many of these RGC teams are now going into civilian territories. What types of tactics can we use under that circumstance? That's where the human network comes into play. And that's where the Mossad has this, I call this human web of sources. And they've long had it, even within the IRGC. So usually we will rely on that human intelligence or signals intelligence paired with imagery intelligence to identify if we have key leaders in civilian populaces. But therein lies the challenge. We are trying to embolden and lift up the Iranian people. We wanna be very careful with strikes around the civilian populace to take out leaders as to minimize as much collateral damage as possible. We don't wanna lose the goodwill of the Iranian people who are trying to, again, embolden to take over their government. And Mike, pivoting a bit from what Admiral Cooper and General Kane are doing to what Secretary Hegseth must do, he took a question that was somewhat aggressive in asking why they didn't foresee certain things in the Strait of Hormuz. And his response was, he used the word shaping. In other words, we are fully aware of all of the elements, but we're not going in our briefing the press, reveal what we're going to do to the enemy. But could you elaborate on sort of the art of what the Secretary has to do in terms of this concept of shaping? Yeah, it's a great question. So, the former CIA Director Leon Panetta was very critical that the military and the Trump administration did not plan for the Strait of Hormuz. That is patently false and almost very offensive. The Strait of Hormuz was always a primary line of operations. It was a center of gravity that we understood. Why? Because the Strait of Hormuz has always been the pressure lever that the IRGC regime goes to. And if you ask why, it's because their Navy was not built to be a traditional state on state Navy. It was built to be a maritime harassment force that causes chaos and volatility within the Strait of Hormuz, which we know one fifth of all oil transit or maritime shipping goes through. So, we took out their Navy at a very fast rate. We're still doing cleanup, but they understand the IRGC, that is that is one of their only levers in order to create or rise the regional and global cost of war and turn the information campaign or the popularity of this campaign against the U.S. So, this will be, we're seeing the rise or the shock pricing to the energy market, but you've got to look at the long-term stability that this will cause. We're talking about stability, less volatility, predictable supply chains and maritime shipping through the Strait of Hormuz one month, two months, three months down the line. We've not lived in this world, you and I, for our lifetime in a world where the Strait of Hormuz is secure and that will also increase, this is a good one for the Gulf States, multinational corporation or foreign investment risk appetite. It'll increase their risk appetite for investment in the Middle East, which is arguably already becoming a tech hub as well as a data center hub. So, the problem is being addressed. We've got to give the military some time and eventually they will utilize convoys to assist commercial shipping through the Straits to lower that volatility, bring the stability and bring the price of oil down. Very much appreciate all your analysis and break down some of those military concepts for us. Mike Cerelli, good to see you. Thanks guys.