What options are available to the U.S. Navy to clear mines in the straight?

There was a lot of reporting about the mine sweepers that were decommissioned.

I think it was back in January that were in the region.

How complicated could this get?

Well, thanks for having me on to Anderson.

Yeah, this is really kind of the worst time for this to happen because the Navy just retired its mine sweeping fleet

and is still building up its fleet of robotics mine sweepers. So we're kind of at the low point right

now in Navy minesweeping capacity. And that right now what the Navy's challenge is is trying to get some

initial ships in there to be able to start clearing mines because they moved everything out of

the strait and out of the Persian Gulf at the start of the war. So now they're having to bring all of that back in and begin at least the slow process of using robots to search for mines along the transit lane in the straits so we can at least bring Navy ships in and out. I think that the Navy has largely done that part of it already. So is it clear how empowered the Iranian foreign minister is to actually negotiate on behalf of

the Supreme Leader and the Revolutionary Guard commanders?

He seems to have the authority of whoever in Iran is in control of sending him in a delegation

to Pakistan to put the Iranians position

face to face to the Pakistani mediators here. His meeting with the army, the commander of the

army, the field marshal here, Assam Manir, is meeting with the foreign minister, his meeting

with the interior minister.

These are the interlocutors that the parliamentary speaker, when he came here from Iran two weeks ago,

that he met with. So the Pakistan is seen to be taking him as a person representing the Iranian

position at the moment. And that's what he says is here to represent.

I think there's sort of some confusion that I think relates perhaps to sequencing.

The Iranian foreign minister landed about five hours ago. He landed out at the VIP airport here,

is having his meetings very close to that airport in the army headquarters, which is nearby.

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