Episode Notes:

On Sunday, the National Security Council announced that the U.S. was sending a carrier strike group and a bomber task force to the Persian Gulf in response to “troubling and escalatory” warnings from Iran.

Aaron Stein, Director of the Middle East Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, joins the Warcast to discuss and clarify the situation. (~10 minutes)

[ 0:17 ] Introduction [ 0:44 ] Details of the deployment and retasking [ 1:54 ] Threat assessment [ 3:34 ] How the signals may be interpreted [ 5:14 ] Iranian apparent proportionality [ 6:35 ] Impact of action with partners and competitors