Former CENTCOM Commander’s Candid Take on the Situation in the Strait of Hormuz
20th March 2026
Few people know the Middle East as well as Joseph Votel. From March 2016 to March 2019, the retired Army general served as the commander of U.S. Central Command, overseeing American military operations in the region. A big part of that job was planning for contingencies like what would become Operation Epic Fury, and especially how they would affect the massively strategic waterway that joins the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman — the tumultuous Strait of Hormuz. This waterway, in which about 20% of the world’s oil passes, is currently shut down by Iran.
In the first part of our wide-ranging exclusive interview with Votel, we focus on what is happening in the Strait. The author transited the Strait with Votel, now a Distinguished Military Fellow at the Middle East Institute, in 2016 and got a first-hand look as Iranian ships shadowed the USS New Orleans.
March 20th, 2026 at 06:23
Here’s the thing with stories about people like this….
They don’t get to that position in life w/o spending their life getting there, I get that. I don’t for an instant think I know more about their topic of expertise. What I DO know however, is they’ve spent their lifelong career being fed plate after plate of bullshit piled higher and deeper. In particular now the fraud, abuse, and treasonous lies seems particularly deep in everything that touches Mordor on the Potomac (then again, it’s probably always been this way, I’m just the one that’s waking up to it).
What I’m saying is, we certainly agree that they may be an expert, but I’m suggesting they’re an expert in bullshit.
March 20th, 2026 at 13:01
I wouldn’t say it as ‘expert in bullshit’, although in an environment that thrives on bullshit the ability to sling bullshit is certainly necessary. The question is, are they INVESTED in bullshit, as politicians are? Certainly every general officer is necessarily a politician of sorts, because they have to deal with politicians in order to get money, get promoted, or get approvals—that’s the way our government is structured, for better or worse. The proper question to ask is: What does he know? And what is he willing to tell us? We aren’t his bosses, and he is retired, so he has no incentive to feed us bullshit per se. His former position at CENTCOM means that he is necessarily knowledgeable in the areas about which he was questioned, so I’m willing to believe him unless and until I have reason not to. YMMV.