PDB Situation Report | March 13th, 2026: The Strait Of Hormuz Showdown: How The U.S. Can Secure The Gulf

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**Mike Baker** (0:12)
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**Mike Baker** (1:12)
Welcome to the PDB Situation Report. I'm Mike Baker, with your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's get briefed. First up, the war with Iran, perhaps you've heard about it, enters its second week with the air campaign continuing and new attention shifting to the increasingly volatile Strait of Hormuz. We'll be joined by retired Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery to get his insight, and he's got a lot of experience and a lot of terrific insight. Later in the show, global energy markets are rattled as the war with Iran threatens oil supplies and shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. Daniel Turner, Executive Director of Power the Future stops by to share his expertise on the growing energy crisis. But first, today's Situation Report Spotlight. We're now entering the second week of the US and Israel's war with Iran and the military campaign continues to evolve. Coalition airstrikes are still pounding Iranian military targets, missile sites and infrastructure as the effort to degrade Tehran's ability to retaliate presses on. But increasingly, attention is shifting to the Strait of Hormuz. Now, that's the narrow waterway that carries roughly one-fifth of the world's oil. And not to mention LNG. Iranian forces have stepped up attacks on commercial shipping with the regime promising to choke off one of the most critical arteries of the global economy. It's essentially the Iranian regime's best and possibly only leverage point at this stage. Joining us to break it down is retired Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery, Senior Director of Foundation for the Defense of Democracy's Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation. Sir, thank you very much for joining us again on the Situation Report. Thank you for having me. We should start by talking about Iran.
That seems to be the hot topic. Where... This may be a strange way to phrase the question, but where do you stand on this conflict? I mean, from the very top, you know, 30,000 foot few, strategically did it make sense? And what do you think will be the end game result? I know that's a massive playing field, but fire away.

**Mark Montgomery** (3:21)
So, look, if the President were to tell me, I mean, my strategic goal here is to prevent Iran from being able to impose its will on its neighbors, its Arab neighbors in Israel and affect US national security interest in the Arabian Gulf. I would have said, I'm in on that kind of war.
I would have been in on for one on regime change. I don't think we set up the proper conditions for that at the beginning. So that's probably not an option. We can change how the regime acts and I think that's what I'm for. So, I do support a four or five week air campaign that removes their ability to fire missiles, that reduces their ability to fire drones, that's harder to remove, that reduces their maritime capabilities, that removes their air defense systems, that takes out some of their IRGC leadership and capabilities and that sets back their nuclear program again. But the goal being that, you know, for the next three, five, seven years, depending on which of those topics you're talking about, Iran can't impose its will as it has been doing for the last three decades. It is the single source, single greatest source of malicious behavior in the Middle East, a Middle East that has been a pain in the butt. And so, from my perspective, including by the way, remind people, they've killed a thousand American soldiers since 1983, you know, six or seven hundred in the Iraq conflict. But you know, a thousand overall, three or four hundred of our NATO partners and a number of Israeli soldiers and a lot of Israeli civilians. So, they are not a good actor. But this isn't about retribution. This is about preventing them from imposing their will on the Middle East and on US security interests in the Middle East for the next three, five or seven years. And in that case, I am okay with this conflict.