MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Wars in Ukraine and Iran dominated the agenda as President Trump met with NATO allies this week in Turkey, and there were important developments on both fronts, even if there weren't any dramatic breakthroughs. So what did we learn this week about where either conflict is headed? I discussed that with NPR Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman and our new Istanbul correspondent Hadeel Al-Shalchi. We were speaking on NPR's national security podcast Sources & Methods.
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KELLY: Tom, let's go to Ukraine. There were some developments, including a big one, the U.S. saying Ukraine will be allowed to manufacture Patriot air defense systems. That's a big deal. Just explain why.
TOM BOWMAN: Oh, it's a huge deal. Ukraine's been pushing for this for quite some time. They want a license to build Patriot missiles - the air defense missiles, the best in the world - in their country. Right now, only Germany and Japan have those licenses to build.
KELLY: OK.
BOWMAN: It's...
KELLY: And they want these so they can shoot down incoming Russian missiles?
BOWMAN: Absolutely, right.
KELLY: Right.
BOWMAN: As we've known for the past several weeks in particular, Russia has used ballistic missiles to really hammer Kyiv. It's been awful. So it is key that they get these Patriot missiles, right? But again, it's not going to happen anytime soon. The missiles are made by Raytheon. They make about 600 per year now. The hope is they can ramp up to 2,000 in a couple, two or three years, right? So Ukraine can build a factory in its country, but the supply chain already is in rough shape now.
KELLY: There's a couple years' lag.
BOWMAN: It's stretched, right?
KELLY: OK, so Iran, which again, this was a summit about European alliances, but Iran has this habit of reestablishing itself with the war at the top of the agenda. Hadeel, where are we? We're back to shooting at each other, the U.S. and Iran. What happened?
HADEEL AL-SHALCHI: Right, so on Wednesday, U.S. CENTCOM announced that it had started to strike. It struck some Iranian naval installations - radar, small ships. And it says it's - it was in retaliation for Iran attacking some ships that are trying to - they were trying to get through the Strait of Hormuz. And then Iran retaliated - again - and targeted U.S. military bases yesterday and today in Kuwait, in Bahrain. And the Jordanian army also said that it had intercepted missiles in its airspace, or it was on its way to Jordanian territory. Like, some people would say that we couldn't even call it a ceasefire even back in April when it started because these flare-ups have been happening ever since the ceasefire started. You know, some people would ask, like, is it over? Yes, because Trump said that it was over during the NATO summit, but...
KELLY: But he also said negotiations will continue, talks will continue.
AL-SHALCHI: Exactly.
KELLY: He says the blockade may come back...
AL-SHALCHI: Right.
KELLY: ...But on the other hand, we're not back to all-out war.
AL-SHALCHI: And he also - in the press conference yesterday, he was asked, is this the beginning of the war again? Is this restarting the war? And he said, no, no, no, this is just - we're just meeting force with force.
BOWMAN: The real problem here is this. We talked about this before. It's the Strait of Hormuz. It's not really closed, but it's not really open. So as a result of that, price of oil has gone up, and consequently, gas prices will go up. That is the essential problem here. The U.S. cannot open the Strait of Hormuz unless they were to completely take it over with dozens of warships and aircraft. And he's complained about Europe isn't helping out here. He complained about that at the summit. I do know that the EU foreign ministers are going to meet with some of the Gulf countries and talk about how do we deal with the Strait of Hormuz? What more can we do?
KELLY: All of this makes me wonder. It's the question I keep asking, but who has the president's ear during this phase? Do we know how decisions about military strikes are being made?
BOWMAN: I'm told he listens a lot to General Caine, Dan Caine. "Razin" Caine as Trump likes to call him. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
KELLY: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, yeah.
BOWMAN: He's very calm and measured. I don't think he listens to Hegseth as much 'cause he doesn't have a lot of experience.
KELLY: Sorry to jump in. Isn't General Caine's job, though, to advise on, here are the options, sir? He's not advising on, here's the best policy. Here's what I think we should do.
BOWMAN: Well, here's the thing - right.
KELLY: Or do we know...
BOWMAN: A chairman of the Joint Chiefs or any senior military officer is going to say, sir, here are the options, the pros and cons. One of the things I'm hearing from people that know Caine is that he isn't forceful enough in basically saying, this is my best recommendation for you to do. He basically offers the menu, but not really pressing as previous chairmen of the Joint Chiefs. Look at a Colin Powell or a Mark Milley. He's a little more reticent, I think. Not forceful in offering his best military advice to the president. Clearly, Marco Rubio is someone he's listening to because he's secretary of state and national security adviser. I think he listens to some members of Congress.
But they're in a tough spot now. It's unlikely you go back to a full-scale war, right? What did that achieve? I think we're going to see this low-level skirmishing going back and forth for weeks, if not months, until they reach out to Iran and say, let's make a deal. And what Iran wants is to basically charge a toll or insurance fees or service fees to go through the Strait of Hormuz. When the smoke clears here, that may be the way out of this.
KELLY: One more to you, Hadeel. Trump's latest round of complaints against NATO has been, hey, y'all didn't step up and help us with the Iran war. You haven't stepped up. Please come help us keep - open the Strait of Hormuz and keep the Strait of Hormuz open. Any change on that this week? Did you see any sign that NATO allies are more inclined to get involved in a war that America started?
AL-SHALCHI: Not that I heard of. The - not from the Europeans, at least. Or Canada. What I did hear that was interesting was that President Erdogan said that he was ready to start helping with the Strait of Hormuz. He said that he would be willing to start demining it so that ships can move through it better. I found that quite interesting because, again, he's trying to get into Trump's good books. He wants to, you know, wants to further his defense ambitions and he wants to impress Trump. And so he's telling him, I care about the stuff that you care, and I'll help you with the Strait of Hormuz if you want me to.
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KELLY: That was NPR's Hadeel Al-Shalchi and Tom Bowman speaking on our national security podcast Sources & Methods. You can listen wherever you get your podcasts. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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