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Operation Epic Fury has been a showcase of American military dominance. Iran's air defenses have been turned to scrap. Their navy is on the ocean floor. Their IRGC command structure has been decapitated. So from a purely military standpoint, this has been a huge success. But Iran had a backup plan and it is working. They slammed shut the strait of Hormuz. 20% of the world's oil supply gone overnight. Energy prices are spiking and the global economy is rattled. Joining us today is Mike Baker. Now, Mike spent 17 years as a CIA covert operations officer, a premier specialist in counterterrorism, intelligence and Middle Eastern geopolitics. And he's going to help us break it all down. Here is the story behind the story on the Hormuz blockade and Trump's 15 point peace proposal. Let's get into it. Keeping it real with Jillian Michaels. All right, guys, it's April 2026 and we're now roughly a month into the joint American and Israeli military campaign against Iran. And right now we're witnessing a dangerous high stakes stalemate. So militarily, the allied coalition has established absolute supremacy. Over the past few weeks, the US And Israeli stealth platforms have systematically dismantled Iran's integrated air defense system. We've basically turned their Russian made S300 and domestic Bavar 373 missile batteries into burning scrap. The skies are uncontested and the coalition then went to work on the sea. Right. So the Iranian conventional navy, along with the IRGC's fast attack swarm fleets are effectively neutralized. Their kilo class submarines are sunk at the pier in Bandar Abbas. And their coastal missile boats have been turned into artificial reefs. Precision bunker buster munitions have decapitated the IRGC's senior leadership and obliterated the command and control hubs that are directing proxy forces across Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. American air power has comprehensively degraded Iran's conventional military machine. So from the sky, Operation Epic Fury is flawlessly executing its mission. But here's the catch. Economically, the war has the potential to bleed out of control. Iran has fully activated its asymmetric playbook. So they realize that they can't win a conventional firefight. And the regime has dug in and effectively blockaded the Strait of Hormuz. So they've traded their air defenses for a stranglehold on global shipping, which has triggered a massive spike in energy prices. And it's sending shockwaves through Wall Street, London and Tokyo. Now, the allied forces have the military advantage, but Tehran is betting that they can inflict enough economic pain to force the west to blink first. So maybe you're wondering, like I was with the most powerful military in the world, why doesn't the US Just simply sail in, take over the strait, and guarantee the free flow of oil? It sounds like a straightforward display of American naval supremacy. But with closer examination, military planners will tell you that a physical takeover of the Strait of Hormuz isn't just improbable, it is a strategic and economic trap. So first you gotta look at the map. The Strait of Hormuz is essentially a closed loop. There's one way in and there's one way out. And at its narrowest point, the water's just 21 nautical miles, which is about 24 statute miles. However, because of how shallow the water is and the need for regulated traffic, the actual navigable shipping lanes are about 2 miles wide in either direction. Now, when you look at the coastline that is Iran, it's not flat and sandy. This is the Zagros Mountain range. And it looks exactly as it sounds. So it's a jagged, elevated, incredibly rugged coastline that's heavily indented with caves and coves and hardened military bunkers. So in military terms here, Iran holds the ultimate high ground. And because the strait is so impossibly narrow, any ship that's transiting these waters is forced right up against the coastline, which traps it in a geographic kill zone. So because of this geography, the United States Navy loses almost all of its critical tactical advantage, which would be reaction time. We have no reaction time. If there's a threat that's launched from a hidden mountain cave, it doesn't have to travel far. So. So if an anti ship cruise missile or drone comes skimming low over the water, our most advanced naval defense systems, they have seconds to detect, track, and engage that target. Human operators can't physically react that fast. And even automated systems are gonna be pushed to their absolute breaking point when the enemy is launching from the frigging coastline. So picture this, right, you've got an American destroyer and it's transiting the strait, and suddenly 50 highly maneuverable, heavily armed, fast attack Boats swarm out of hidden coastal inlets, while simultaneously, midget submarines begin hunting beneath the surface. And then you've got the naval mines that are dumped directly into that narrow two mile shipping lane. But the most modern and terrifying threat is gonna be from the sky. So we're talking about swarms of loitering munitions. Suicide drones. And these drones, they're cheap, right? They can be launched by the dozens from the backs of regular commercial trucks that are hidden on the shore. And here's the brutal an incoming drone can cost about 20 grand. But the US standard missile fire to intercept that drone costs several million dollars. And furthermore, our ships only carry a finite number of interceptors in their tubes. So if the enemy launches 100 shib drones simultaneously and a destroyer only has 90 missiles ready to fire, 10 of those drones are going to get through. But let's assume the impossible. So let's assume that the US Navy flawlessly runs the gauntlet and defeats every threat and secures the water. We still lose. And here's why. Because the mission isn't to protect American warships. The mission is to protect commercial oil tankers. And these super tankers, they're massive, incredibly slow moving behemoths, and they possess zero onboard defenses. They've got no radar jamming equipment, no no automated Gatling guns, no ability to take evasive maneuvers. They're unarmored floating bombs. And the US Military can't physically attach a billion dollar destroyer to every single commercial vessel that's moving through the gulf. So all it would take is one cheap drone slipping through the net or one dumb mine striking a hole to blow a hole in a fully loaded super taker. And the result is, is instant. You got a catastrophic fire, an unprecedented environmental disaster, and a burning wreck that completely blocks a narrow two mile lane for everyone else for God knows how long. Which brings us to the ultimate reality of global trade. So the decision of whether the strait stays open doesn't actually get made at the Pentagon or even in Tehran. It's being made right now by executives in business suites in London. Commercial shipping runs entirely on maritime insurance. So if a vessel's hull and cargo aren't insured, it does not legally sail. Period. End of story. So if the US Military fired the first shot in an attempt to take over the strait, the entire region would instantly be classified as an active war zone and maritime insurance would evaporate overnight. Shipping companies could try to obtain a special war risk coverage, but just one look at a defenseless super tanker that's crawling through a drone infested two mile corridor is going to send premiums into the millions of dollars per voyage. It's just not viable. The math doesn't math. Ship owners will simply radio their captains and order them to drop anchor in the Arabian Sea. So you can see what a mess this is. By using military force to keep the strait open, the United States would instantly trigger the exact scenario it's trying to prevent, which is a total shutdown of global energy markets and a catastrophic economic crash. But what about air power? Surely the most advanced air force in the world, Stealth fighters, strategic bombers, round the clock surveillance drones, could simply bomb the threat into oblivion from above. The answer is still frustratingly no. And Iran has spent decades engineering exactly that frustration. So that truck problem I mentioned, that alone is pretty much unsolvable. Iran's coastal drone and missile launches, they don't require a military base or a fixed installation. They come from the backs of ordinary commercial trucks that can then go anywhere along hundreds of miles of rugged coastline. Even with 247 surveillance overhead, you just can't guarantee that you can locate and destroy every launcher before it fires. You'd have to be perfect every single time. And Iran only needs to get lucky once. So for heavier, more powerful weapons, Iran's gone underground. Literally. They've constructed vast networks of fortified tunnels and underground complexes that are buried beneath hundreds of feet of solid rock. This is what Iranian commanders openly call missile cities and standard aerial bombs. Well, they can crater the surface, but that accomplishes nothing. And of course, we do possess specialized bunker buster munitions that are capable of penetrating deep earth. But Iran has built so many of these dispersed underground facilities that destroying them all would be a long, grinding and inherently imperfect campaign. And here's the deeper problem that air power can't solve. Iran's coastal defense is deliberately decentralized. Missiles, drones, and fast boats are dispersed across hundreds of locations from mountain roads to fishing villages to civilian infrastructure. There is no single command center to destroy. There's no air based Runway to crater that would collapse the entire system. Local commanders are empowered to act independently. So bombing Tehran doesn't stop a truck on the coast from launching a drone an hour later. And finally, there's the grim arithmetic of attrition. So even if you destroy a launcher, Iran holds a solid stockpile of missiles and drones that they've built up over years of sanctioned Zera self sufficiency. You're not just going to destroy hardware. You're in a race to degrade their capacity faster than they can use it. And while tankers are trying to Transit, right now, today. This does not work. So an air campaign in this instance doesn't avoid the war, it just starts it from a different direction and still it ends in the same place. So ultimately, the only way to physically secure that narrow strip of water is to completely eliminate the threat from the shore. And this is why so many are saying that to actually take over the Strait of Hormuz, the United States would be forced to launch a full scale land invasion of southern Iran to carve out a massive coastal buffer zone. Well, we now know that Iran is a mountainous nation of 92 million people. It's larger in land mass than France, Germany, the UK and Spain combined. It's almost the size of Alaska, it's twice the size of Texas. So the justifiable fear is that this could demand a brutal, protracted, trillion dollar ground war that would dwarf previous Middle Eastern conflicts. And nobody, and I mean nobody, wants this. Which brings us to Trump's 15 point peace plan for Iran, a quiet parallel effort that's been moving through the diplomatic corridors of Turkey, Egypt and Pakistan. Right now in Islamabad, Pakistan, American emissary Steve Witkoff has delivered a blueprint for peace to the regime in Tehran, Iran. It's a sweeping 15 point proposal, a document that demands profound concessions from the Islamic Republic in exchange for economic survival. Because the fate of global markets and perhaps the lives of thousands are hanging in the balance, it's vital that we understand exactly what's in this document. So here's what the US Is asking of Iran. First, and most critically, the nuclear question. The proposal demands that Tehran permanently abandon any pursuit of a nuclear weapon or all uranium enrichment on Iranian soil must cease immediately. And furthermore, Iran must surrender its entire stockpile of highly enriched uranium, which is around 450 kg, to the international Atomic Energy Agency. The fortified facilities at Natanz, Isfahan and the deeply buried bunkers at Fordow have to be dismantled. And in their place, the IAEA has to be granted full unrestricted and permanent access to verify compliance. Second, the dismantling of the proxy network. So we know for decades, Iran has fought its battles through a decentralized web of regional militias. Well, the American plan demands a complete secession of this strategy. So Tehran has to immediately cut off all funding, all arming and operational direction to groups like Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis, et cetera. Third, the Strait of Hormuz. So, as mentioned, currently the Iranian military has placed a chokehold on this vital artery of global commerce, demanding extortion payments and Chinese yuan for safe passage. Well, the 15 point plan requires Iran to immediately reopen the Strait, restoring it as a free, unrestricted international maritime corridor. And fourth, the ballistic missile program. So the document insists that Iran severely curtail the production and range of its ballistic missiles, legally binding the nation to restrict any future use of these weapons strictly to self defense of its own borders. And if, and only if, the Iranian regime agrees to these terms, Washington has outlined a series of significant concessions. So the United States agreed that they would lift the crippling international sanctions that have suffocated the Iranian economy. And furthermore, America and and its allies would assist Iran in developing a strictly civilian nuclear energy program allowing for electricity generation. And this would happen at the Bushehr plants, provided the nuclear fuel is processed and stored outside of Iranian territory. Then you've got the arguably most controversial proposal, and this is the permanent removal of the diplomatic snapback mechanism. So for those of you who don't know what this is, the snapback is the West's ultimate veto proof weapon.