Exclusive | No Regime Change, No Quick Fix: Ex-U.S. Admiral's Blunt Hormuz Assessment

Retired Vice Admiral Kevin Donegan says even a multinational escort effort would restore only a fraction of normal oil transit through the Strait of Hormuz, underscoring how difficult it will be to stabilize global energy flows while fighting continues.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on March 20 that Washington was considering a gradual wind-down of military operations three weeks after the U.S.-Israeli campaign against Iran began. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also suggested the war could end sooner than many expected, fueling speculation that the two allies may be looking for an off-ramp. But Tehran has shown no sign that it is ready to accept those terms.

According to a March 20 research report obtained exclusively by Storm Media from an international financial institution, retired Vice Admiral Kevin Donegan, a former commander of the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet, said even a full allied convoy operation would restore only limited shipping capacity through the Strait of Hormuz.

The warning matters far beyond the Gulf. The Strait of Hormuz handles roughly one-fifth of global oil flows, and the route remains vulnerable as Iran continues to exert control over the waterway. Persistent insecurity in the strait has already pushed the world into a new kind of energy crisis, while doubts remain over whether escort operations could reopen the route quickly enough to ease the disruption.

Donegan said the military aims of the U.S. campaign had remained consistent despite the surrounding political debate: to weaken Iran's ability to project force abroad, reduce its ballistic missile and attack drone capabilities, and degrade the naval assets it uses to threaten the strait.

From that perspective, he judged the U.S. military's performance to have been highly effective, saying American forces had sunk or damaged nearly all Iranian naval vessels. He added that Iran's broad retaliatory pattern was largely expected, because Washington had long anticipated attempts to pressure the strait and target U.S. positions and partner states across the region.
What he said was less expected was Iran's reported decision to strike civilian infrastructure in Gulf states, including hotels and international airports, apparently in an effort to pressure those governments into pushing Washington to end the conflict. Donegan said those countries ultimately did not do so.

On the question of regime change, Donegan's assessment was blunt: without U.S. ground forces entering Iranian territory, overthrowing the government is virtually impossible. He said the initial U.S.-Israeli air campaign may have reshaped parts of Iran's senior leadership, but it did not dismantle the regime itself.

More significantly, he said regime change was never an explicit U.S. military objective. While Trump and Israeli officials had spoken publicly in those terms, Donegan said neither CENTCOM commander General Brad Cooper nor Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Dan Caine were ever instructed that toppling the Iranian regime was their operational goal.

Donegan also said Iran still has a substantial mine inventory, ranging from basic to sophisticated systems, and could threaten key waterways with them. But he argued that U.S. and Israeli strikes had already destroyed many Iranian mine-laying vessels and storage sites, limiting Tehran's ability to deploy more advanced anchored mines in a coordinated way.

In his view, Iran would now be more likely to rely on civilian-type vessels, such as fishing boats, for future mining attempts. He also said any move to mine the strait would ultimately hurt Iran itself, since most of its own oil exports depend on the same route. That, he argued, is why Tehran has framed its position as controlling the strait rather than claiming to have fully closed it.

As for Trump's earlier calls for allied naval participation, Donegan said a multinational escort mission is militarily feasible. He noted that the United States has spent years rehearsing how to keep both the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab-el-Mandeb open, including an exercise in early 2025 involving 30 countries.

He said Washington has a detailed understanding of what partner navies can contribute because such exercises have been conducted annually for 15 straight years. France and Australia field highly capable ships, with France having accumulated extensive experience fighting the Houthis in the Red Sea. Greece has also received substantial training through its own engagements with the Houthis, while Britain, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Turkey, Italy, Spain and Egypt also have varying levels of capacity to join such an effort.

Operationally, Donegan described a moving security corridor for commercial traffic, supported by air cover, surface ships, drones, satellites and intelligence. Because the United States now holds strong air advantages along Iran's coastline and because Iranian military capabilities have been significantly degraded, he said escorting ships through the strait may actually be easier than originally anticipated.

Even so, he drew a clear distinction between military capability and political will, saying the willingness of the United States and its partners to sustain such a mission remains an entirely separate issue.

Donegan, who led the Fifth Fleet from 2015 to 2017 and later served as Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Operations, Plans and Strategy before retiring in August 2018, said even a successful escort regime would not come close to restoring prewar conditions. He estimated that convoy operations might bring back only about 20 percent of normal oil transit through Hormuz, while Gulf overland pipelines could add another 15 percent.

Whether even that limited recovery proves possible, he said, will depend heavily on how the conflict evolves and how Iran responds to the first escorted ships. （Related： Opinion | Trump's Willfulness Reveals the Civilizational Clash in the U.S.-Iran War ｜ Latest ）

His broader conclusion was that there is no quick fix. The fighting will not end overnight, he said, and oil supplies will not rebound the next day. In his view, the fastest path back toward normal flows is a ceasefire reached through political negotiation. Even then, shipping, insurance, tanker and liquefied natural gas companies would need time to judge Iranian behavior and rebuild enough confidence to resume regular transit.