Iran war ramps up again amid series of resignations and firings in U.S. military

For more on the escalating situation in the Middle East, we're joined now by CBS News National Security Analyst Aaron McClain. He's also, of course, host of the School of War podcast. Professor, good to see you. After weeks of relative calm, why are we seeing hostilities flare up again? Hi, Ed. Well, I want to give some military context to some of the purpose behind the strikes that we're seeing. The president keeps talking about them in terms of retaliation. But the issue we were just discussing with Nancy Cordes, this question of getting oil out of the strait at night, the United States seems to have secured some degree of passage for this oil. We can debate the exact numbers. We don't know the exact numbers. But this level of control, such as it is, it's not static. The Iranians can test it, and they're going to reconstitute their military capabilities to contest it, some of which are going to be on shore. So as long as this process goes, from time to time, the U.S. military will need to, to use this inelegant phrase, sort of mow the lawn. And if you look at the kinds of targets that have been struck in the last few days, that's what's going on. This is all part of a battle for control of the strait. Aaron, what do we know about the recent U.S. strikes? Because I'm also thinking about this in context. A few weeks ago, it feels like we were talking about how the concern about the munition stockpile that the U.S. has was dwindling. Now we're seeing strikes, you know, ratchet back up. How is that playing out in context? Well, so the munition shortages that we have, which are very acute, by the way, they are on the interceptor front, which of course is a question for defense when Iran retaliates, and on the very high-end munitions, you know, the cruise missiles, the ballistic missiles, the standoff weapons, things like that. For bombs dropped from aircraft, to include precision bombs dropped from aircraft, the shortages are not as acute. And when you look at the kinds of targets that are being struck in Iran along the coast of the Strait of Hormuz and just a bit inland, again, they paint a picture of a central command of a U.S. military that is striking Iranian targets that are themselves there to contest control of the strait. The president keeps talking about it in sort of these tit-for-tat terms, but the military is fighting a battle for control of that passage of water. You know, all of this comes as the secretary of the army, Dan Driscoll, is resigning this week. He's the civilian leader of that service branch. If you're a soldier out in theater somewhere in the Middle East or some other part of the world, are you even feeling this change of command? How does it potentially upset, you know, rank and good order out there? Right, Ed. It's the civilian leaders now step down, but also we have no uniformed head of the army right now confirmed by the Senate. There's an acting chief of staff. So it really is an extraordinary situation for the army in a time of war. How much direct effect does it have in central command where the war is being waged against Iran is hard to say. The chief of staff of the army, the secretary of the army don't have a direct operational line of control into that. That said, the future of the army, the future of the U.S. military in this highly transformative period for warfare, that's that's in question when you have a lack of leadership at the top. And we are told Driscoll's last day on the job is today. So we'll see what the president opts to do in terms of new leadership at some point in the coming days. Aaron, thank you as always. Good to see you. Thanks, guys.