US fired on & seized Iranian-flagged ship in blockade standoff

[0:00] The U.S. destroyer fired several rounds toward an Iran flagged cargo ship. President Donald Trump [0:06] first announcing the U.S. Navy fired on and took custody of that cargo ship after it tried to get [0:11] past the American naval blockade in the Gulf of Oman. Now this comes just hours after the White [0:16] House said top U.S. officials are preparing to take part in another round of peace talks with [0:21] Iran in the coming days and it marks the latest escalation amid this ongoing fragile ceasefire [0:28] set to expire in three days at an impasse over control of the Strait of Hormuz. It's prompted [0:34] renewed threats by Trump raising already heightened tensions in that region. CNN's Julia Benbrook is at [0:40] the White House. Julia what more are we learning about this incident with the Iranian vessel and [0:46] how is the president and his team thinking about these negotiations in a few days? Well with these [0:53] negotiations coming in a few days every hour every day every development matters. So as President [1:00] Donald Trump announced this he said that U.S. forces had fired on and seized an Iranian flagged cargo ship [1:09] as it attempted to pass through that U.S. naval blockade in the Gulf of Oman. Now I want to pull [1:16] up that post for you now. He did go into a bit more detail. He said quote the U.S. Navy guided missile [1:22] destroyer USS Spruance intercepted the Towsk in the Gulf of Oman and gave them a fair warning to stop. [1:31] The Iranian crew refused to listen so our Navy ships stopped them right in their tracks by blowing a [1:37] hole in the engine room. Right now U.S. Marines have custody of that vessel. Trump's announcement [1:43] comes as he has accused Iran of violating the current ceasefire that we are in right now that has a few [1:49] days left. He was recently asked if he would consider extending that if the deal is not met [1:54] by then and he said maybe not maybe I won't extend that. Joining us now former U.S. ambassador to the [2:00] U.N. John Bolton he also served as Trump's former national security advisor during the first [2:04] administration. Ambassador Bolton thank you for being here with us. I just want to start by getting [2:09] your reaction to this news we have now about the U.S. Navy firing on and seizing this Iranian flagged cargo [2:15] ship. Well this is what blockades do. This ship a very large tanker apparently was trying to run the [2:23] blockade. They were told not to do it. They kept going so apparently we fired a missile into their [2:30] engine room. That's usually a pretty good way to stop a ship. Marines boarded it and are presumably [2:35] taking it into custody. I might say not only is the ship apparently in violation of the blockade it is [2:41] also a ship we've sanctioned. It may be part of what people call the ghost fleet. These are basically [2:48] ships with shady ownership that change their flags of registration on an hourly basis and that's a [2:55] separate independent ground to board the ship. It's a stateless vessel if that's true and therefore [3:00] no state can complain when we board it. It ought to be a lesson to not just to Iran but to any other [3:06] ship owners or insurance companies that think they can run a U.S. Navy blockade. Yeah we're waiting [3:13] for obviously confirmation of that. We don't know exactly the case on that just yet. Do you see this [3:19] though as escalatory or is this expected? Well if anybody escalated here it was the government of [3:26] Iran to challenge the blockade. I believe this is the first serious ship. Maybe some fishers now may [3:33] have made it through the blockade but if this is as large a tanker as it appears to be I don't think [3:39] they went out there by accident. So Iran may have been the ayatollahs the regime may have been trying [3:45] to see whether we really did have resolve if somebody didn't turn around when they were ordered. Now they [3:51] know the answer to that. What do you think it means for the ceasefire? Well it's probably not good news but [3:58] it's exactly the right thing to do. I don't think Iran should make a nickel off of its oil as long as [4:05] this conflict goes on. And frankly I think the next step has to be the U.S. and Israel militarily [4:15] opening the strait to ships from the Gulf Arab states to get their oil out onto the water. The [4:22] way Iran has turned this control of the straits blocking it on and off like a light switch shows [4:28] somebody needs to take the light switch away from them. They do not have the authority to do what [4:32] they're doing. It's unacceptable to the Gulf Arabs and as a country whose foreign policy has rested [4:38] on freedom of the seas since before the declaration of independence we should open it up on that ground [4:44] alone. And before this war started Iran to your point to you continue your analogy didn't really [4:51] seem to know that that light switch or that was so powerful that they can really control so much and [4:58] have so much leverage. Do you think that that has been one of the unintended outcomes of what's [5:05] happening? And do you think I know you say that the U.S. and the Israeli military should take it back. [5:10] What would that even look like? Well I think we've got plans for that. I think part of the operations [5:16] are already underway or were before the ceasefire. Look this notion that somehow something new has [5:23] happened though I don't think is correct. Any navy in the world knows a choke point like this when they [5:29] see it. And in fact the Iranians before during the Reagan administration were firing on tankers [5:35] in the Persian Gulf and the U.S. and Kuwait arranged for the tankers to be reflagged as American ships and [5:42] were escorted by American naval vessels through the Gulf and out the strait. What the Iranians did was [5:47] take this potential leverage of closing the strait and make it a reality. And if there's any silver [5:54] lining here it's now everybody understands what's at stake. And there's no way that Iran should come [6:00] away with the lesson that they can close the strait anytime they want. They need to learn the exact [6:05] opposite lesson which is they better not try it again. That's how you restore deterrence. That's how [6:11] you prevent whoever is ruling in Iran from thinking they can do it again. [6:16] Yeah that's what I was getting at. It's just like if that's their takeaway that that could be quite [6:21] problematic. And so what what would you like to see happen then specifically? [6:27] Well I guess we'll find out tomorrow whether there are talks in Pakistan or not. We're getting [6:33] one signal from the White House a different signal from Tehran. We'll find out tomorrow. [6:38] But the notion that was being spread around at the end of last week and I think reflected in [6:43] stock markets and oil prices that this thing is almost over that the differences are almost resolved [6:48] is just flat out wrong. You know when people talk about sticking points like opening the strait, [6:54] like possession of the Iranian nuclear weapons program, like their support for international [7:01] terrorism, these aren't minor details. This isn't 80 percent of the deal done with just a few minor [7:06] things to work out. These are the existential issues that in many senses caused the U.S.-Israeli attack [7:12] to begin with. [7:13] And we were hearing from Julia Binbrook there, the president saying in one of the telephone [7:19] interviews that the vice president won't be going due to security concerns. What does that tell you [7:24] if anything? And I know I hear you. We have to see if these are actually even going to happen. [7:30] But but how are you thinking about these potential discussions? Well, I think they're a waste of [7:37] oxygen. In fact, I think it was a mistake to have the ceasefire. The overwhelming preponderance of [7:43] weapons being delivered was by the U.S. and Israel on Iran, not by Iran on everybody else. They've got [7:49] now a two week breather where they're doing what they can to recover, regroup, get ready for the next [7:55] phase of the war. We never should have let up on them. Yeah. Do you think J.D. Vance should be going? [8:01] Obviously, the president saying it's a security concern. Yeah, I don't I can't speak to the [8:07] security concern. It wasn't such a concern the last time. But you shouldn't send the vice president [8:12] is one level below the president. We don't know that the people the Iranians are sending have [8:17] any authority to commit their government to begin with. If we were going to send a high level official, [8:22] it should have been the secretary of state, not the vice president and not civilian volunteers. [8:28] Yeah. And what message do you think that sent to to the Iranian negotiators? [8:32] I think they smell panic in the White House. I think they can see Trump wants out of this. [8:39] He's just he he's broadcasting it almost every day and it gives the Iranians enormous leverage [8:45] they shouldn't have. Yeah. And so to that point, we have all the polling to back this up. This war [8:51] has proven to be unpopular among the American people. Obviously, we're in a midterm election year [8:56] that is several months away, but we're still getting ever closer. How much of that do you think [9:01] is playing into the decisions that are being made now? Well, I think that's a big part of it. I don't [9:07] think the president's making geo strategic decisions. I think he's making domestic political [9:12] decisions. But a large part of this is his fault. He did make he made no effort whatever in the weeks [9:19] and months before the attack to build the case for whatever his objectives were. And we still don't [9:25] know what his objectives were. I think the proper objective is regime change. But whatever he was after, [9:30] he didn't bother to tell anybody until 2 30 in the morning on February the 28th after the attacks [9:37] had begun. That that's not how you do it. That's just politics 101 domestically. And for whatever [9:43] reason, he didn't bother to do it. Now he can see the consequences. I'm here to discuss further [9:48] former NATO Supreme Allied Commander General Wesley Clark. He's also the founder of Renew America [9:53] Together. General Clark, it's good to have you here with us. I do want to first just get your [9:58] thoughts on this news we've just gotten in the last couple of hours about what's happened [10:02] with the naval blockade, with them firing upon this Iranian flagged ship. What do you make of [10:10] this development? Currently, the ship was coming into Iran, going to dock at Bandar Abbas, which is [10:20] the port on the Strait of Hormuz. So it was coming from somewhere else loaded with cargo, presumably. [10:26] It's a ship that's already been sanctioned by the United States. It disobeyed orders to stop. [10:33] The United States then took the appropriate actions. So I think it just proved positive that [10:40] the president meant what he said when the Navy implemented the blockade just as advertised. [10:46] Yeah. How do you think this impacts these upcoming talks? [10:52] Yeah. Well, it really depends on whether Iran wants to move forward or not. Now, thus far, [11:04] there's been no military response from Iran. The blockade is within range of Iranian missiles that [11:13] could strike warships out there in the Gulf of Oman. So this destroyer was in range. It did not [11:22] apparently receive any return missile fire or anything else from the coastal batteries or other [11:29] facilities of the Iranians. So that's a positive sign. We're sort of in a stage now where it's a [11:35] mutual assured economic destruction, if you're looking at it that way. So we're counting on the [11:42] fact that all commerce has been cut off from Iran, at least all seaborne commerce. So they're not getting [11:49] any revenue. They're not getting anything else coming in by sea. But they're also blocking revenue [11:57] that's coming or that would be due to all of our allies in the Gulf. And they're creating a global [12:03] problem in agriculture, in fuel, and even in chip making because the helium cut off. So which side is [12:12] going to blink first? That's what it looks like right now. Yeah. We are just getting word that Iran [12:19] state media has now warned that it will respond to this. What might that look like? Well, they might [12:27] target the ships that are on the blockade. They do have the facility to do this. They have several [12:33] different varieties of anti-ship missiles. They have cruise missiles. They have sea skimming missiles. [12:41] They have ballistic missiles that can come in. They could go after this ship. They could go after other [12:47] ships. Normally they wouldn't fire just one missile. For a destroyer like this, they would try to bracket it [12:53] with several different missiles and several different types of missiles. Now, are they on the ball? Do they [12:59] have the real-time targeting to do this? We know that the Houthis did have that. We presume that this [13:06] came from Iran. We also presume they're getting real-time targeting information out of Chinese satellites. [13:14] So it's possible they could respond. But they haven't yet. We don't know how much time has elapsed. [13:21] Did it happen a half hour ago or an hour ago? But we do know that when we put this blockade in, [13:27] in place, it is within range of Iranian shore-to-ship missiles. [13:33] Yeah. And do you see this as, knowing what you just laid out there, does this feel escalatory to [13:40] you? Or is this just part of an expectation of what is happening when a blockade is in place? [13:45] I don't think it's escalatory. But the Iranian response also could be tit-for-tat, [13:53] and the talks could still go forward. I think one of the complications in here for the Iranians is that [14:01] if they're going to really resume attacks, and they would attack our friends in the Gulf, [14:07] there's a 12,000-man Pakistani contingent in Saudi Arabia. And the Saudis have a mutual defense [14:15] agreement with Pakistan. So this would be a consequential step if Iran were to fire drones [14:23] and missiles into Saudi Arabia. Maybe they could attack Kuwait instead, and maybe they think they'd [14:29] get away with it. But I think they're going to think twice before they re-escalate in this. I think [14:36] they're very tough bargainers. I think they believe that if they can get our delegation over there, [14:41] they can out-talk them. They can put details in. They can delay this thing. And they can continue [14:48] to bring world opinion against the United States. And that the clock is ticking against the United [14:54] States because of the price of gasoline, because of the election coming up, because of President [14:59] Trump's apparent impatience to end this. So my guess is they're not going to escalate at this point. [15:06] But that's what we should watch for. Yeah. All right. Well, we will indeed do that. General Wesley [15:11] Clark, thank you for being here. We appreciate it.